Post #SourceDatesAuthorPost
#1SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
kadgar
[Mage] TC after 2.3

-Links-
  • For some basic knowledge about Speccs, Stats, Rotations and more, read Vontre's mage_sweet_informational_thread first!
  • If you still have Questions about Items, Speccs or want to know how to improve your/other mages dmg, have WWS logs etc. -> GOTO this Thread: mage_help_me_please
  • If you just want to compare 2 items/speccs or want to know the value of different stats, go to Lhivera's Calc, (or Vontres spreadsheet) put your numbers there and choose your specc. Its really easy and fast to use.

List of Mage Links:
WWS analyzes, PVP thread, Mage help (speccs, items)
The 2 old TC threads: TBC Mage TC, How can Arcane dmg work
Spreadsheets and Calculators: Vontre's Mage DPS spreadsheet, Lhivera's Calc, http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17454-mage_dps_simulator/
Other Threads: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13305-m...gic_mechanics/, http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15980-m...iously_broken/



-Mage Changes in 2.4 PTR 2008-02-23
  • Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
  • Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
  • Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
  • Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.
  • Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Fire Ward: Using low ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing spells are penalized.
  • Frost Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostibte effect.
  • Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slow.
  • The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard or Rain of Fire with spell haste.
  • Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
  • Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
  • Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
  • New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
  • New Improved Blink: For 2/4 (Rank 1/2) seconds after casting Blink, your chance to be hit by all attacks and spells is reduced by 25%. (Screenshot)
  • Icy Veins has been changed, instead of increasing the chance your chilling effects will Freeze the target by 10%, it will now give you 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting. (duration remains the same: 20 sec).
    ---
  • Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.




-Mage Changes in 2.3.2
  • Iceblock is no longer a talent, but trainable for all Mages at lvl 30.
  • Cold Snap is moved in the Iceblock position and its cd reduced from 10 to 8 min. Cold Snap will no longer reset the cooldown on Fire Ward. (Cold Snap + Ice floes = 6min 24sec)
  • Icy Veins (IV) is the new talent wich takes over the old Cold Snap position in the Tree. Other Talents are unchanged, there are no prerequisites for the changed/new talents.
    IV "Decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 10%." (old PTR: 25%)
    Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown, 65 mana untalented. CD not affected by Ice floes.
  • The mana gems min and max mana value have been modified slightly to provide a less random bonus to the mana.
    Rank 1 - Restores 390 to 410 mana. (Instead of 375-425)
    Rank 2 - Restores 585 to 615 mana. (Instead of 550 to 650)
    Rank 3 - Restores 829 to 871 mana. (Instead of 775 to 925)
    Rank 4 - Restores 1073 to 1127 mana. (Instead of 1000 to 1200)
    Rank 5 - Restores 2340 to 2460 mana. (Instead of 1800 to 3000 on PTR, 1136 - 1364 on live) and has 3 charges
    ---
  • CSD's gem requirement changed to "at least 2 blue" from "exactly 2 blue".


-Mage Changes in 2.3-
  • Improved Fireball: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this talent has been removed.
  • Improved Frostbolt: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this talent has been removed.
  • Evocation now regenerates 15% of total mana every 2 seconds rather than increase Spirit based regeneration. (now int based)
  • Detect Magic removed. All players may now see their target's beneficial effects at all times.
  • (NEW SPELL) Ritual of Refreshment available on trainers at level 70. (needs 2 other people, costs 1 portal rune, 5min cd, 50 charges of stacks of 20)
  • Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance mana costs reduced. (700mana and 1800mana)
  • Arcane Meditation (Arcane) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
  • Remove Curse range increased to 40 yards.
  • Fire Ward and Frost Ward now gain additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced.
  • Ice Barrier now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced. (Rank 6: Old: 1175 + 10% | New: 1075 + 30%)
  • Hypothermia duration increased to 45 sec.
  • Mage: Hypothermia changed back from 45 secs to 30 secs
  • Portal Spells: Portal spells to capital cities can no longer be cast in battlegrounds.
  • Polymorph: It is no longer possible to polymorph a player and have that player remain mounted. In addition, it will now always be removed correctly if multiple Mages overwrite each other's Polymorph.
  • Ignite: This talent is no longer triggered by damage dealt by Molten Armor.

    --Other Mage related changes:
  • Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.
  • The new caster metagem will increase the spell critical rating by 12 and the critical strike damage by 3%. Keep in mind that it still can change. (chaotic skyfire diamond: req.: exactly 2 blue.) Design: Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft
  • Players no longer gain the moving AOE radius bonus if they are jumping. (2 yard extra range removed)
  • Mystical Skyfire Diamond: A cooldown has been added to this item's effect, but the chance for it to trigger has been increased. (chance seems 10%/15%, cd seems 45 sec, duration now only 6 sec, duration 6 sec is considered as bug)
  • - Spellhaste and Mystic Skyfire Diamond affect Evocation
  • - TLC nurfed, see WoW Forums -> Lightning Capacitor Nerfed on PTR?

-Summary of Changes 2.3-
-Arcane dmg nerfed drastically through MSD and TLC nerfs.
-(deep) fireball and frostbolt dmg increased. Fire and frost now best dps speccs.
-Overall maximum mage dmg is lower than in 2.2 because 2.3 fire and frost dmg is still below AM in 2.2.
-Lowered the dependency of arcane (especially AM) spells of specific items. (but made these spells nearly useless although).
-Lowered AE dmg through TLC nerf.
-Improved water and food creation and int buffs drastically.
-Slightly more absorb for shields.
-Reduced Mages raid support through removing of detect magic.

Last edited by kadgar : 02/23/08 at 2:49 AM. Reason: 2.3.2
#2SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Some calculations have already been done and show that all speccs have a very compareable theoretical dmg output.
Those calculations are outdated especially now with the change to MSD so claiming that all specs have a very comparable theoretical damage output is false based on current information.

The #1 factor which will decide what Mages spec is, in fact, what the new spec dps rankings will be in 2.3, which we don't know until the PTR comes up.
#3SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alvira
Fire and frost are both getting buffed big time with the removal of the coefficient. So everything depends now on how much the cooldown on MSD is. If its a big nerf to MSD, then deep fire may be back in vogue now.
#4SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dusoka
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Fire and frost are both getting buffed big time with the removal of the coefficient. So everything depends now on how much the cooldown on MSD is. If its a big nerf to MSD, then deep fire may be back in vogue now.
This plus fireball and scorch both getting a bigger amount back from the spell-queueing latency fix than AM spec (a much more testing-required change than the damage tax to see just how much any particular person is getting back) are gonna give people some fun stuff to TC on the PTRs. But you're right, the MSD cooldown is the big unknown that will determine whether we might continue arcane's viability and/or dominance.
#5SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3JasonX
I think at this point in time, we still don't know how the new spell casting system works. If it works like adding a new /stopcasting in front of every spell, it won't help those people who are already using /stopcasting macro. If it turns out to be an actual spell queue system, I think AB spammers & scorch spamming are going to see a real noticeable boost in dps.
#6SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
No offense but the original post seems slanted towards making Frost look better than it is. For example, it doesn't address some of Frost's biggest issues; Water Elemental being vulnerable to dying, if he dies your DPS is no longer competitive. Frost has weaker AoE DPS than either Arcane or Fire. Frost does not scale as well as Fire or Arcane due to Frostbolt's coefficient penalty for having a snare effect and insufficient talents to make up for that penalty when compared with the other 2 trees.

Personally I love the Water Elemental, and will do a little jig of joy the day Frost becomes competitive in terms of PvE DPS. But it seems like Blizzard intends for it to be our PvP tree, and thus makes no moves to bring it up to par.

The Coefficient tax removal is happening to Fireball as well as Frostbolt. So it won't do enough to close the gap, even though it's more of a gain for Frostbolt in terms of Coefficient per Second.


The real interesting unknown right now is how bad is the MSD nerf. It's reasonable to expect the internal cooldown will be 30-45 seconds as those seem to be the figures Blizzard is most comfortable with; but how much is the chance to proc improved?

Personally I think that this internal cooldown will spell (no pun intended) the end of Arcane Missile shenannigans which I've been enjoying, but I hope I'm wrong.

Last edited by ebbv : 10/12/07 at 9:07 AM. Reason: Typo.
#7SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lorrin
Originally Posted by kadgar
Some calculations have already been done and show that all speccs have a very compareable theoretical dmg output.

What in 2.3 improves Frost's PvE damage output as it relates to Fire and Arcane? There are only four PvE DPS changes in the patch:

1) Fireball coef -- buff to Fire
2) Frostbolt coef -- buff to Frost
3) CD on MSD -- nerf to AM Arcane
4) Increase in Arcane Meditation -- slight buff to Arcane, and more on endurance than DPS

The only reasonable conclusion based on these four is that Frost and Fire will improve in relation to AM Arcane. There is nothing to indicate that Frost will suddenly be on par with Arcane in terms of PvE damage, and certainly not Fire, which received an identical buff.

The PvE DPS relationship among Frost, Fire and Arcane has been tested in practice, not theory. Based on the patch changes I fail to see how Frost will suddenly become comparable -- unless there is something I'm missing.
#8SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
For example, it doesn't address some of Frost's biggest issues; Water Elemental being vulnerable to dying, if he dies your DPS is no longer competitive.
After farming SC/TK/MH and BT with a full frost build for like 2+ months, i dont feel like the WE is that squichy anymore. You can do A LOT with good petmanagement, mostly with a /petpassive macro to keep/move him out of RoFs and similar stuff. The right timing is helpful as well, i.e. activating him on the right phases like Leotheras' demon phase or Supremus tanking phase. In the end i only see one encounter in BT were he can actually die unless the player screws up. Also notice that he regens life from VE too.

Frost has weaker AoE DPS than either Arcane or Fire.
That's plain wrong for the sole reason of Arcane Explosion being affected by Shatter. Arcane might have still an advantage from having Arcane Impact, Spellpower and generally better mana regen - it's hard to tell. However, im absolutely sure that Shatter > Blastwave/DB.

Frost does not scale as well as Fire or Arcane due to Frostbolt's coefficient penalty for having a snare effect and insufficient talents to make up for that penalty when compared with the other 2 trees.
The coefficient is considered in Vontres Sheet afaik and thus not hidden. Besides that, i'm quite sure most ppl never compared themselves with frostmages after the Arctic Wind buff, and still have the "old numbers" in their heads. Also note, that most frostmages waste DPS by using multiple Icebarriers, which doesn't really help winning the dmgmeter (although it surely helps beating encounters).
#9SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3nickelleon
Hey guys, I dont really post much on EJ, I like to read TC though

I wanted to say that, even though MSD is getting changed, we just need to think of another way to use it. It's effect is pretty amazing, and im not sure if this has been stated or not (but I know we all think it in the back of our head), but Arcane Missiles is the spell that benefits the most from MSD. In terms of haste items and its effect on spells, the longer a cast time is on a spell, the more of an effect it recieves from haste. 5 ticks of AM in 2.5 seconds? Yes please.

In 2.3, I think fire will be back on top. However, I will always remember the lessons learned with AM spamming and will probably keep MSD no matter the nerf. I will play as a fire mage plays and when I get a focus proc, ill burn it on AM. Im going for the best in both worlds :P
#10SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Hidden
Originally Posted by frosty View Post
Also notice that he regens life from VE too.
If the Water Elemental takes damage, it's most certainly a AOE heavy fight where the whole group takes damage as well. That means your Shadow Priest will probably have aggro problems due to VE already and additionally healing your pet is additional for him aggro that doesn't help the raid to survive. I wouldn't call that particularily good. But I agree that WE survivability isn't that big of an issue as you can avoid damage on it in most encounters.

Edit: And at the above poster, AM isn't worth it when you're specced Deep Fire and the Focus proc will most certainly better be used on a Fireball which gets full benefit of a Focus proc as well.

Last edited by Hidden : 10/12/07 at 10:40 AM.
#11SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Shatter? Really? Because you lose more damage by wasting a GCD on Frost Nova than you gain back from the effect of Shatter on the next Arcane Explosion.

And regardless, Flamestrike is what deep Fire should be using to AoE, and it definitely beats the pants off a Frost mage spamming Arcane Explosion.

The coefficient is definitely accounted for in Vontre's very thorough spreadsheet. And it's the reason the Frost DPS figure is so far below Fire before the Water Elemental's DPS is added in.

I try Frost regularly, it's a spec I enjoy. WE is a lot of fun. But it is thus far not really competitive.
#12SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Shatter? Really? Because you lose more damage by wasting a GCD on Frost Nova than you gain back from the effect of Shatter on the next Arcane Explosion.
I can proc shatter off other peoples novas too. I even see Arcane and Fire mages using nova more regularly than me also.

And regardless, Flamestrike is what deep Fire should be using to AoE, and it definitely beats the pants off a Frost mage spamming Arcane Explosion.
I am really sceptical if Flamestrike is the way to go due to its limited range and the high threat. I would limit the use of Flamestrike to MSD procs.

The coefficient is definitely accounted for in Vontre's very thorough spreadsheet. And it's the reason the Frost DPS figure is so far below Fire before the Water Elemental's DPS is added in.
I'd say it's far below Fireball dps mostly b/c there are more damage enhancing talents in the Fire tree.
#13SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
They shouldn't be using Frost Nova on groups of mobs. Firstly because it's almost no damage, and secondly because a Frost Nova'd mob will turn and hit the nearest target rather than the actual tank.

Flamestrike is definitely more damage for 10/48/3 than Arcane Explosion (due to higher crit and better talent support), but I already brought this up in the old thread.


The talents are a little worse for Frostbolt than Fireball, but the big difference is the Coefficient really limiting its scaling. Because the additional damage Fireball gains there is then multiplied by all the other talents.

Again, though, the intention is clear to me; Frost is for PvP. The added safety and control comes at the cost of DPS.
#14SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I use Frost Nova alot on Hyjal trash for the TLC procs, the chance of Focus proc and to root them.
#15SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I use Frost Nova alot on Hyjal trash for the TLC procs,
Why? It can proc off of Arcane Explosion/Blastwave/Dragon's Breath too. This is not a valid reason for casting Frost Nova while trying to kill a pack of mobs.

the chance of Focus proc
Again, it can proc off of any other AE spell which actually does damage, so not a reason to cast Frost Nova.

and to root them.
This is not a good thing to do to a pack of mobs. The ones that are nearest to you will turn and kill you if you are the nearest target on their threat list. The ones that are not will kill someone else. Any mob which is not nearest to its tank will hit something else, which is not a Good Thing(tm).

Valid reason for casting Frost Nova during AoE pull:

You got aggro on 1 or more mobs which may kill you and you need to get away from them, run out of the pack so that these mobs are separated slightly, then Frost Nova and Blink away. This makes sure the mob is rooted where it won't hit someone else who is not expected by the healers (or themselves) to be taking this kind of damage, roots it close enough to the tank for easy retrieval, visually separates it so the tank knows it needs to be taken back, and gets you away from it so you don't die either.

This is all Magery 101, though, I'm surprised it needs explanation.



Let's talk about something less obvious.

Now that we are fairly certain that MSD is a 45 second cooldown has anyone run the numbers yet of the nerfed MSD vs. the new Relentless(?) Skyfire Diamond? Let's assume MSD was bumped up to 10% proc rate (the actual value is now unlisted in the tooltip.)

I'd do it myself right now but I'm at work so i'm not sure I'd trust my numbers since I'm distracted with other things.
#16SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Eusheka
Does anyone know the requirements to use the new metagem yet by the way? Would be nice to know so we can prepare our gems for patchday.
#17SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
chaotic skyfire diamond: exactly 2 blue. 12crit/+3% per crit
#18SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Is it too late to ask for it to be changed to exactly 0 blue?

Honestly though I do prefer the simpler metagem requirements over the more all-encompassing ones like MSD.
#19SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3andastra
Originally Posted by manly View Post
chaotic skyfire diamond: exactly 2 blue. 12crit/+3% per crit
Is it 3% to the damage of the entire spell that crit or 3% just to the additional crit damage? Looks like a 1.5% increase in damage at roughly 33% crit rate if it's the former (excluding the crit rate bonus).

The way most T6 mages gem their gear, however, this will require an additional blue gem over the MSD. Of course, this is a dpm increase as well.
#20SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3[DRF]Solmyr
Items from 2.3 are being leaked currently (mmo-championDOTcom), and haste is now available pre-MH/BT. Generally speaking, how does haste stack up to crit/dam for AM spam after the 2.3 nerf to MSD?
#21SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lgs
Frost is never going to be better DPS than fire or arcane. It just doesn't scale.

Sure, if your guild is kind of casual and doesn't min/max, you can raid TBC as frost the whole way. But you're not going to be nearly as useful to your raid group. Also, once you learn how to survive without IB you realize it's a crutch.
#22SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Uh, depends highly on how you do AoE. Rank 1 frost nova costs 55 mana and can proc TLC, Focus and Clearcasting, when that happens you can do a pretty insane Blizzard, that alone is reason enough to do it. Also if someone else has aggro be it in range or out of range they are not controlled to begin with so that's hardly a reason.
#23SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lgs
AoE doesn't really scale at all anyway, I'm talking single-target.
#24SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Forum moves fast, was a reply to Enfuego.
#25SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Uh, depends highly on how you do AoE. Rank 1 frost nova costs 55 mana and can proc TLC, Focus and Clearcasting, when that happens you can do a pretty insane Blizzard, that alone is reason enough to do it. Also if someone else has aggro be it in range or out of range they are not controlled to begin with so that's hardly a reason.
Again, Arcane Explosion can proc those things too. There's no reason to be hitting Frost Nova instead. It's a wasted GCD, it is doing nothing to help you kill those mobs.

This discussi on isn't really relevant to the topic so I'll stop here.
#26SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3alvinrod
If he wants to raid frost he can go ahead. I'd rather discuss actual data and theorycraft instead of starting this old holy war again. This isn't the Blizzard mage forums, so let's try not to act like it. Is there enough information about the MSD changes so that we can accurately model it? I've heard claims that it's anywhere from a 20 second internal cooldown all the way to 60 seconds, but it's all anecdotal until someone runs a parse. The proc rate also supposedly changed.
#27SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I think it's pretty safe to say its 45 seconds no more no less atleast. The proc % is unknown though.
#28SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3aznxk3vi17
There was a claim made on the WoW forums that the proc % was made to be 15%, but I can't find the post, and can't find it in the thottbot database. Maybe somebody can confirm?
#29SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Queuetip
I'd like to see how the new heroic rewards with haste on them compare with raid gear like T5 and whatnot. As frost I wouldn't have a problem with breaking the GCD like with scorch, but is it worth losing dmg/crit rating over?
#30SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
vishal
ShadowPriest vs Fire Mage

sorry about that; don't know how to delete it else i would.

Last edited by vishal : 10/12/07 at 7:30 PM.
#31SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Setia
Sorry, but I believe it would be appreciated if questions related to your personal situation and non-theorycraft posts went that way -> [Mage] Help me please?

That way, this thread may take a little more time before changing into a 100-page monstrosity.
#32SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
kadgar
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
No offense but the original post seems slanted towards making Frost look better than it is. For example, it doesn't address some of Frost's biggest issues; Water Elemental being vulnerable to dying, if he dies your DPS is no longer competitive. Frost has weaker AoE DPS than either Arcane or Fire. Frost does not scale as well as Fire or Arcane due to Frostbolt's coefficient penalty for having a snare effect and insufficient talents to make up for that penalty when compared with the other 2 trees.

The Coefficient tax removal is happening to Fireball as well as Frostbolt. So it won't do enough to close the gap, even though it's more of a gain for Frostbolt in terms of Coefficient per Second.
Yes, a killed WE really hurts frost, but thankfully several of bosses AoEs/abilitys don't affect pets. At the end, the survivability of the WE really depends on the boss. As frosty said, you can keep alive the WE quite well on most fights if you are used to. I added a category for that.

Frost AoE dps is lower, but if the mobs are slowable, frost offers a huge amount of control. A 6 point blizzard makes mobs extremly slow and helps worlocks spam SoC a lot longer.
At the end your dmg may be lower but raid dps will be higher and that is what counts isn't it?

About the frost nova, we use it a lot on Morowgrim (pala tanks them in the middle) cast it when the SoC explode.

I agree that theoretical frost dmg is lower than fire but frost comes closer to its theoretical maximum than fire because of the utilities.

A lot of fire mages still have the crappy frost dmg without ele and without arctic winds change in mind.
If you were a fire mage for a long time you are expirienced to keep yourself alive without IB. But to do dmg with frost you have to change your (fire) playstyle. E. g. don't run out of an AE, but stay, continue dps and IB the AE. Align your WE with boss's phases/timers. Put out your WE right at the beginning of the fight (you can't do that with ignite), etc.

However, as alvinrod stated, let's not start another war between frost and fire. Concentrate on 2.3 changes.
I've added some information and MSD assesments from [Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work?
Chance seems 10% (also heard 15%), cd seems 45 sec

PS:
Has anyone details on this line from PTR Notes:
* Players no longer gain the moving AOE radius bonus if they are jumping.


---------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: Added fresh new calculation from Vontre:
[Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work?
Pretty much what I expected.

Now take into account that there are 2 fire mages keeping scorch up and only one frost mage in his calc, as well as a 50% WE survivability and no use of IB (instead of running away) at all - I think we really can say frost and fire have a compareable dmg output.

Last edited by kadgar : 10/12/07 at 7:35 PM.
#33SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3vishal
in 2.3 how does everyone feel about spell haste vs spell damage vs spellcrit?
spell damage is probably still priority but what ratios? sorry math is very weak, anyone has already worked this out?
#34SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Actually if you're doing Hyjal style AoE frost will very easily beat out fire based on the mana efficiency of Blizzard (and the fact that, you know, it's mana efficient). Does for me anyway, since I tend to go oom all the time. For shorter stuff comboing a flamestrike->cone of cold onto shatter (yes you can shatter both) is a brutal backload of burst damage. Fire pretty much loses the aoe game, and obviously, arcane still wins.
#35SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
I hath seen the test server! And I have NEWS!

Firstly, Ritual of Refreshment. This is liable to be annoying for those of you with less-than-courteous guildmates. It's much similar to a lightwell in that it has a limited number of charges, and anyone can take any number of charges. Oh and it requires 2 groupmates and a rune of portals, with a 3 min cooldown. 50 charges on the stack. You can spam click and pretty much instantly fill your bags with conjured food. It makes conjured Manna Biscuits, which are 7500 health and 7200 mana. So I guess everyone in the raid gets 2? I guess if all mages conjure one that will work, I just foresee people spam-clicking this thing and eating all the charges before some people get any.

Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance had their mana costs cut in half.

Of course there's STOPCASTING, which has now been fixed. I tried it and the macro no longer works. So how fast are our spells now? Well... about the same as they were when we were using stopcasting. So that's cool I guess. I managed to get about 150 ms on Fireball and Frostbolt. Arcane Missiles is a headache, if you try to recast even the slightest bit early you miss the 5th missile. So I macroed a nochanneling command and spammed it, got 300 ms of latency. Ouch. Oh well as if anyone will use this spell anymore anyway. Scorch came to about 250 ms after 30 casts, could be anomaly but it still feels slow. I'll have to redo the calculations but, it doesn't really matter because this info only increases fireball dps. Scorch is hit pretty hard, relative to the projected zero latency, so that just means efficient scorching will be even more important.

Oh, addendum. That stupid click noise is back since we can't use stopcasting. I need to find a mod that will nuke that. Any suggestions?
#36SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Blizzard isn't really more mana efficient, it's just really, really slow. (Currently I'm 46/15 as probably almost all of us are, and Flamestrike is ~1.4 DPM, Arcane Explosion is ~1.5 and Blizzard is ~1.6, non raid buffed.)


Yeah I'm worried about Ritual of Refreshment. I'm happy about it still, but I was really hoping clicking on it would simply yield a full stack of 20. Why doesn't it? Who wants just 1 food?

I don't know about the rest of you but I normally hand out 40 water to our healers at the beginning of the Raid. I think that's a pretty normal number, I'll give more to anyone who wants it but that's the baseline.

One Ritual of Refreshment cast is barely enough to cover 1 person at that rate. :/ I'd like to see the quantity increased and the cooldown lowered or eliminated.
#37SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Oh, addendum. That stupid click noise is back since we can't use stopcasting. I need to find a mod that will nuke that. Any suggestions?
God. I logged in, used my G15 to spam 200 scorch per second to test specifically for this, and I definitely understand what you mean. This god damn noise is non stopping maddness with the keyboard.

I don't have much to report besides the g15 greatly helping to remove lag. And its definitely still there. Oh and - jesus christ does fireball hit hard.


To give an idea, doing 'casual' 1-button mashing, I do 0.078s - 0.109s.
Spamming as fast as possible results in 0.031s - 0.047s between keys. This is not doable for a long time under realistic situation.
If I bind 4 consecutive keys and 'twiddle' my fingers over them, I get 0.029s - 0.063s.

I guess it all depends on how fast you're willing to press your keys on the keyboard to gain DPS. You could also bind mouse scroll to get 'fast clicks'.
#38SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plexi
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Blizzard isn't really more mana efficient, it's just really, really slow. (Currently I'm 46/15 as probably almost all of us are, and Flamestrike is ~1.4 DPM, Arcane Explosion is ~1.5 and Blizzard is ~1.6, non raid buffed.)


Yeah I'm worried about Ritual of Refreshment. I'm happy about it still, but I was really hoping clicking on it would simply yield a full stack of 20. Why doesn't it? Who wants just 1 food?

I don't know about the rest of you but I normally hand out 40 water to our healers at the beginning of the Raid. I think that's a pretty normal number, I'll give more to anyone who wants it but that's the baseline.

One Ritual of Refreshment cast is barely enough to cover 1 person at that rate. :/ I'd like to see the quantity increased and the cooldown lowered or eliminated.
Pretty sure it's 50 stacks. No one said it was ONE manabiscuit.
#39SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3PSGarak
Originally Posted by Vontre
Firstly, Ritual of Refreshment. This is liable to be annoying for those of you with less-than-courteous guildmates. It's much similar to a lightwell in that it has a limited number of charges, and anyone can take any number of charges. Oh and it requires 2 groupmates and a rune of portals, with a 3 min cooldown. 50 charges on the stack. You can spam click and pretty much instantly fill your bags with conjured food. It makes conjured Manna Biscuits, which are 7500 health and 7200 mana. So I guess everyone in the raid gets 2? I guess if all mages conjure one that will work, I just foresee people spam-clicking this thing and eating all the charges before some people get any.
Yeah, you're basically seeing the logistical concerns warlocks have with filling a raid with healthstones, aside from spam-clicking. One ritual gives 10 stones, there are 25 members in a raid, and most people want all three ranks, so you normally have 3 warlocks spending 10 minutes to get everyone decked out. For all the limitations it beats the crappity-crap out of summoning them all by hand. Spam-clicking is actually a double-edged sword in your case: if someone misses their click on mine the portal's gone and I have to summon them a stone indivudually or wait 5 minutes; you can take all the extras (or make someone else take them!) and hand them out to afktards when they come back.

Manly: Definitely mousewheel. Hunters have been doing it for months. Up and Down.
#40SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Seath
Wait so, if I am reading this correctly, the faster you spam the Fireball key the less latency will affect your Fireball?
#41SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Plexi View Post
Pretty sure it's 50 stacks. No one said it was ONE manabiscuit.
Ok I had originally assumed this but the description on mmo-champion (which lacked any mention of "stacks") plus Vontre's concerns lead me to believe it was another Blizzard oversight.

Phew.


Manly, et al who actually got through, can you give us some idea of how hard your Fireballs are smashing?
#42SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by manly View Post
To give an idea, doing 'casual' 1-button mashing, I do 0.078s - 0.109s.
Spamming as fast as possible results in 0.031s - 0.047s between keys. This is not doable for a long time under realistic situation.
If I bind 4 consecutive keys and 'twiddle' my fingers over them, I get 0.029s - 0.063s.

I guess it all depends on how fast you're willing to press your keys on the keyboard to gain DPS. You could also bind mouse scroll to get 'fast clicks'.
You sure about this? because that is the stupidest god damn thing I've ever heard.
#43SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3beta4Life
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
You sure about this? because that is the stupidest god damn thing I've ever heard.
lol ya it is, i guess i can pretend i am using dualies in CS again, bust out the mwheeldown spam.
#44SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Oh, addendum. That stupid click noise is back since we can't use stopcasting. I need to find a mod that will nuke that. Any suggestions?
I use a dummy file and place it in WoW\Data\Sound\interface\uEscapeScreenOpen.wav

@Topic: Has anyone tested the new Metagem yet? With RED the critdamage was much higher than 3% (6-11% depending on critdamage talents), but it seemed to be no bug, so I wonder how the damage for chaotic skyfire diamond is calculated.
#45SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Ok I had originally assumed this but the description on mmo-champion (which lacked any mention of "stacks") plus Vontre's concerns lead me to believe it was another Blizzard oversight.

Phew.


Manly, et al who actually got through, can you give us some idea of how hard your Fireballs are smashing?
I tested on the mobs at the Dark Portal (I didn't bother to try and go at DR BOOM, every PTR its permanently camped.)

Basically, using my fire gear, and fire spec (without molten fury, for testing reasons), and only ai/molten armor, and with 5 scorch up on the target. (and crusade stacked to 10) my non-crit fireballs are hitting for 3-3.1k. They also crit for 4.6k-4.7k (ignite not counted obviously). In case you ask, I am still sporting MSD so with CSD the crit would be even better. That is using my current gear and hellfire encased pendant + 4pct6 + crusade/icon. If I remember correctly, counting crusade as flat 80 dmg, that puts me in the +1250 damage range.

Now if only I tried with raid buffs, coe, misery and totem, I can only imagine the results.

EDIT: about CSD.
While I haven't tested it, the expected crit% is such:
1000 (non crit) x 1.5 (crit multiplier) = 1500 (pre-CSD) x 1.03 (CSD) = 1545 (post-CSD)
1545 (crit dmg) x 0.4 (ignite) = 618 (ignite damage)
1545 (post-CSD crit) + 618 (ignite damage) = 2163 (total crit damage with CSD)

in other words, your fireball crits go from 210% to 216.3% with CSD.

Last edited by manly : 10/13/07 at 5:51 AM.
#46SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by manly View Post
To give an idea, doing 'casual' 1-button mashing, I do 0.078s - 0.109s.
Spamming as fast as possible results in 0.031s - 0.047s between keys. This is not doable for a long time under realistic situation.
If I bind 4 consecutive keys and 'twiddle' my fingers over them, I get 0.029s - 0.063s.
Hm, what mod/script/macro did you use for the numbers?
#47SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3epiphenom
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Of course there's STOPCASTING, which has now been fixed. I tried it and the macro no longer works.
What do you mean by this? I just made myself a stopcasting macro on Test and it seems to work appropriately - at least as good as the Blizzard system.

Of course, it holds the risk of prematurely cancelling a spell, which the built-in system does not have, but I wouldn't say it's not working because of that, only that it's no longer better.
#48SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Setia
A few results:

I'm pretty sure the MSD cooldown is, indeed, 45 seconds. After spamming Rank 3 AM for about 7 minutes, all of my focus procs were between 46 to 55 seconds of each other, mort of the time on the lower end of that spread. That looks about right for the 15% proc claimed by Wowhead.

This would mean, for a 3-second fireball with no latency, an average of one proc per 19.26 casts, or the equivalent of 39.8 haste rating.

On cast delays:

I used my mousewheel to spam rank 1 scorch. According to the Combat log's "failed to cast spell" events, the average time between keypresses was 37ms, with a standard deviation of 45 ms (n = 3545). This is an overestimation, as the few keypresses which actually went through are ignored.

With n = 79, I had an average delay of 132 ms between Scorches, with a standard deviation of 121 ms.

I repeated it again, just for a longer duration: averaging 27 ms between "failed to cast messages (n=16984), I did 274 scorches with an average latency of 182 ms, standard deviation of 75 ms.

At least for scorch, this /stopcasting workaround seems pretty bad. My ping was between 80ms and 200 ms, most of the time.
#49SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Setia
Just did a few Fireballs. On 105 fireballs (with similar latency), the average additionnal delay was 86 ms, with a standard deviation of 169 ms (yes, this means quite a few casts were logged as taking less than 3 seconds. I had zero haste gear equipped). This looks much better, but as the sample wasn't that big, it's too early to really say.
#50SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3koetjeka
PS:
Has anyone details on this line from PTR Notes:
* Players no longer gain the moving AOE radius bonus if they are jumping.
untill patch 2.3 you could increase the AOE radius of Arcane Explosion by ~10-15% when you jumped :P

lol ya it is, i guess i can pretend i am using dualies in CS again, bust out the mwheeldown spam.
lol indeed :P
I myself am just going to make a G15 macro that will click 1000 times a second and make it work like caps lock
#51SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3BrTarolg
Originally Posted by koetjeka View Post
untill patch 2.3 you could increase the AOE radius of Arcane Explosion by ~10-15% when you jumped :P



lol indeed :P
I myself am just going to make a G15 macro that will click 1000 times a second and make it work like caps lock
On the contrary - AE had a range of 6 yards instead of 10 yards as displayed on the tooltip

Jumping would increase the range to 8 yards.

I *still* would prefer it if they just made AE 10 yards already like it says on the tooltip. Why nerf something that is already broken?
#52SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by BrTarolg View Post
On the contrary - AE had a range of 6 yards instead of 10 yards as displayed on the tooltip

Jumping would increase the range to 8 yards.

I *still* would prefer it if they just made AE 10 yards already like it says on the tooltip. Why nerf something that is already broken?
"Causes an explosion of arcane magic around the caster, causing 377 to 407 Arcane damage to all targets within 10 yards."

That means creates a circle with a Diameter of 10m and affects everything within that circle. So the range would be equal to the radius, which would be 5m. They made it 6m to account for your personal space (I'm guessing).

When you jumped the radius would increase so that you could affect things 8m away from you, greatly increasing the area as defined on the tooltip, that was the issue and that is what is being "corrected".

Too bad, I really did like having to time my AE with my jumps for maximum effect. I liked that it brought an element of skill into something that is otherwise so absolutely mindless.
#53SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3pipermoonrunner
I have a few questions, maybe Manly / Ventro or other experienced posters can help me out.

We are not at T6 level yet, just as I was happy about the 2.3 haste gears for AM spamming, they dropped the MSD nerf bomb. In light of this, and our progression currenly at SSC / TK, I have the following question (I've read what you guys said about fire, but that's with full T6 level gears):

1. which will be better, 2pcT5 ABx3 AM Scorch without haste gears or deep fire with all the Zal'aman/Heroic badges haste gears? (TC would be appreciated)

Problem with former I see is haste gears will screw up the rotation.

2. For both specs, how much value is hit/crit/haste ?

3. Is 4pcT5 bonus worth over using haste gears? for AB or Deep fire spec?

This is important because I will need to start preparing towards the spec I will use once 2.3 comes out. Thanks in advance
#54SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
Has anyone done any testing if swapping in int weapons for evocation works as expected? If you swap mid evocation will it increase the ticks or do you have to swap before you start the cast?
#55SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Hm, what mod/script/macro did you use for the numbers?
I am using the G15 utility. When you create macros you can see live the timing between your keypresses and change them. I created a series of macros with me spamming one key just to see the delay between them.
#56SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Setia
One thing I've been thinking about...

The new Evocation shows the mana gained in the combat log. Does it cause threat?

About CSD, good news: the testing I've done with scorch points to it doing (crit damage) * 1,03 instead of (crit multiplier + 0,03). My sample wasn't that big (109 hits and 70 crits), but the ratio between crit and non-crit damage was pretty spot-on at 1,54547 (expected: 1,545). I haven't tested it with Ice Shards or Spellpower.

For some reason, Arcane Missile seems to get 154% crits without the meta and 157,5% with. This spell is bizarre.

Last edited by Setia : 10/13/07 at 9:26 PM.
#57SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Setia
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Has anyone done any testing if swapping in int weapons for evocation works as expected? If you swap mid evocation will it increase the ticks or do you have to swap before you start the cast?
Yeah, it works as expected.
#58SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pacnaa
Originally Posted by Setia View Post
Yeah, it works as expected.
I currently swap out spirit gear right before evocation. I was planning on doing the same with int come 2.3 with the change. Are you saying that if I swap in the middle rather than at the beginning I gain more mana back and does this apply currently with spirit as well?
#59SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Uh, did I get it right that the function you used to see your cast delay is done by G15?

Is there any method to display/measure the delay with "normal" means as well?
#60SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
Managed to get on the test server.

MSD change is even worse in practise than it already sounds in theory.
MSD proccs off nearly everything and with a higher chance now.
Actually it's not a problem if you can't use a focus proc wich comes from buffing, sheeping, blink, evocation, etc.
But in 2.3 with the 45sec cd and only 6 sec duration if you can't use a focus proc from sheep/blink/... you've really lost dps because focus has cd even if not used.
If you get a focus proc from evocation cast, this one is surely lost.

Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Has anyone done any testing if swapping in int weapons for evocation works as expected? If you swap mid evocation will it increase the ticks or do you have to swap before you start the cast?
Did some tests with evocation:

Test1: No weapons/offhands equipped, gnome, no arcane talents
430 int, 8411 mana: 4*1262 ticks

Test2: equipping 48 int (=51gnome) manually right after the start of cast
481 int, 9176 mana 4* 1376 ticks

Test3: unequipping weapons after the first tick.
Fist tick is 1376, 2nd+3rd: 1344, 4th 1288 (did a bad job unequipping the items manually)

So yes, evocation is now int based and works as expected:
It returns 15% of the max mana you have at the moment of each tick.
So start evo, equipp your int weapons befor the first tick (2 sec without haste) and stay with your int weapons until evo is completly finished.
Get a Staff of Infinite Mysteries - Items - World of Warcraft and enchant that ...

---------------


Something else: I haven't seen a global cd triggered by weapon switching anymore.
Can somebody confirm?
#61SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Uhhh I'm sorry but its readily obvious that Amana Divining Staff will be THE evocation staff hands down. 47 int and 3 sockets means 107 int with epic gems + enchant. Then for your wand you want Carved Witch Doctor's Stick (15int + socket), giving you a total of 25 int from the wand alone.

Nothing from pre ZA will come REMOTELY close to those numbers.
#62SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Shawn
Though until then [Auchenai Staff] or [Seer's Cane] probably are the cheapest alternatives. The Intellect-enchant is pretty cheap so I think I'm just gonna slap an enchant on one of them until I get that ZA-staff (and not feel guilty taking it just for Evocation.. ). I quite like this change, especially for PvP.
#63SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Xei
Originally Posted by Seath View Post
Wait so, if I am reading this correctly, the faster you spam the Fireball key the less latency will affect your Fireball?
This question also plagues me - can someone confirm/deny this from their tests?
#64SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3BrTarolg
Btw - i have two thoughts about the new "stopcasting" system

Firstly, if it is indeed a spell queue (contrary to what they said) - spamming would not be helpful at all, because youd only have to press it once, possibly before the latency bit on the quartz bar

Secondly - if it works as i think it works - where blizzard has done something awesome where it stopcasts ALL spells, however - if they interrupt another spell then it WONT stopcast it - then what happens is whilst you STILL get latency (albeit much reduced because it should only be half of what you get before - only you ---> server) - this means quartz is still useful. Essentially you dont need to spam, you just need to use quartz again and time your "casts" when you get into the green in quartz (or in my own rebellious format, i embed it with red ^^)
I dont have PTR yet, but im quite sure this will be much better than attempting to spam the key as there is a good chance you will "miss" the appropriate "stopcast" time, or there may be a cap on how many times youre allowed to press it.

So basically, blizzard have just implemented stopcasting macros into all spells, except that its impossible to accidentally interrupt spells
#65SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Ztorm
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Uhhh I'm sorry but its readily obvious that Amana Divining Staff will be THE evocation staff hands down. 47 int and 3 sockets means 107 int with epic gems + enchant. Then for your wand you want Carved Witch Doctor's Stick (15int + socket), giving you a total of 25 int from the wand alone.

Nothing from pre ZA will come REMOTELY close to those numbers.
That wand actually seems like a great choice for DPS as well, assuming you don't have the one off Solarian. Add a +12 spell damage gem and you're getting +30 damage and stats from your wand slot. They're probably going to be unique when they go live though.

EDIT: While we're on the subject of items in Zul'Aman, has anyone else noticed how powerful the Hood of Hexing is? In terms of stats and DPS, it's superior to the Cowl of the Grand Engineer (assuming you're not hit capped). If you socket it with 3 +12spell damage gems, you're basically getting an item that rivals T6.

Last edited by Ztorm : 10/14/07 at 5:29 AM.
#66SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
No no no. You guys really got the wrong idea of the changes.
Here's how it works:

'very casual' mashing
10/12 22:36:02.967  Your Scorch hits Servant of Razelikh for 1109 Fire damage.
10/12 22:36:03.049  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.   (note: this message comes from the server, not from the client. This is the major change.)
10/12 22:36:03.232  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:03.400  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:03.599  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:03.799  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:03.985  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:04.166  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:04.353  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:36:04.617  Your Scorch hits Servant of Razelikh for 1152 Fire damage.
(don't look and try to estimate time takent to cast scorch, the point was to show that the combatlog now displays the results from casts)

Basically, you DO NOT make a macro that does '/stopcasting /cast scorch' in 2.3. If you do, the ONLY thing it will do is lower your DPS in case you stopcast too early. What you do is simply mash your scorch key. The client always sends your cast to the server, and the servers decides if you begin casting it (ie: if you're not actually casting a spell, it will begin the new cast).

The implications is that the faster you press your scorch key, the less you will pay for the latency tax. This will not eliminate lag at all.

EDIT:
The implications of this are also that you should still use quartz. The difference is that you begin to spam your cast key once you start to get near the red bar.

EDIT: Just for comparisons sake, heres the same thing using a conservative setting on the G15:
G15 mashing with 0.025s interval.
10/12 22:48:15.777  Your Scorch crits Servant of Razelikh for 1764 Fire damage.
10/12 22:48:15.811  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:15.827  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:15.861  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:15.894  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:15.928  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:15.961  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:15.978  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.011  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.061  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.077  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.111  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.144  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.177  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.211  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.260  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.260  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.294  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.327  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.361  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.394  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.428  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.461  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.495  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.526  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.543  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.578  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.614  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.644  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.678  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.696  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.745  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.793  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.793  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.828  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.860  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.895  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.895  You gain 54 Mana from Master of Elements.
10/12 22:48:16.928  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.962  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:16.978  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.010  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.045  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.078  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.112  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.145  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.162  Servant of Razelikh is afflicted by Ignite.
10/12 22:48:17.178  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.210  You fail to cast Scorch: Not yet recovered.
10/12 22:48:17.347  Your Scorch crits Servant of Razelikh for 1816 Fire damage.

Last edited by manly : 10/14/07 at 5:53 AM.
#67SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
Something else: I haven't seen a global cd triggered by weapon switching anymore.
Can somebody confirm?
It only triggers a GCD when in combat, I guess you did your tests out of combat.

For Evocation, the staves with 47 int + 3 sockets are easily the best (=77), Talon of the Tempest (2 sockets) and a green off-hand give 65, green staff or MH/OH give 56.
You get a lot less mana per intellect than per spirit though, about half of it.


Still dieing to find out if there is a method to measure that cast delay without a G15.
#68SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3BrTarolg
Originally Posted by manly View Post

EDIT:
The implications of this are also that you should still use quartz. The difference is that you begin to spam your cast key once you start to get near the red bar.
So just checking - if you cast EXACTLY when quartz tells you to, then you would get the minimum lag possible right? Seeing as quartz compensates for the sending lag aswell as the receiving lag from the server, it should calculate lag pretty much precisely right?

The reason i ask is that when i cast, i would imagine timing gives a much more precise cast than just spamming the key, because i dont press fast enough (and i dont have g200 or any of that).

Also, is it possible for you to do ABx3 fireballx2 scorch yet? Or is the latency still generally too much for that? It would seem that with the minimum latency possible it MIGHT be able to get but it doesnt really look possible with a consistent 150~ms lag (mine)
#69SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Actually, to answer you, no. Quartz will give you a good idea of when you should press your key. The problem is, quartz assumes constant latency. Latency is not constant. If latency was truly constant, then stopcasting would allow precisely 0.01s lag every time. The problem has always been the variance in latency and not latency itself.

Quartz will show the bar based on the latency you get when you begin the cast. This means quartz assumes the latency will be the same 3 seconds later when you start casting your next spell. But latency is not constant; the best proof I can give you to it is that your red bar on quartz will never be at the same place from cast to cast.

The end result of this is that you should begin to spam your scorch key once you get near the red bar - not when you reach it. You could otherwise be losing dps.
#70SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Darkmantle
Manly have you been disconnected for spamming scorch messages yet?
If not could you keep ramping up your G15 to see if there is a limit to the number of messages the server will accept? If you send enough messages you will eventually look like a DOS attack.

Last edited by Darkmantle : 10/14/07 at 6:35 AM. Reason: Too many D's
#71SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
Well, I never tested above 40 spells / second. I don't really see any incentive to go much above it. I mean technically the Operating System switches execution between threads every few milliseconds (assuming single CPU here). Any values set below that threshold means the messages (keypresses) will be sent in 'burst' once the operating system switches to the thread the G15 application uses.

This is a bit messy to explain, but basically a single CPU cannot run multiple applications at the exact same time. It is not possible. What the operating system does to emulate the effect is that it gives 'time slices' to each running application and switches between them to emulate multitasking (context switch). With this said, if every time slice is 12 ms, then any keypresses below that point will just end up all being sent at 12ms intervals in 'burst'. I could be wrong, but if memory serves me well, processes in Windows NT have 13 ms by default for normal process priority. Maybe someone can correct me on those numbers.

But the gist of what I am saying is that there wouldn't be any benefits to set up a really high number of keypress/sec, as they would just end up being sent together every 12ms interval.

And no, I never got kicked for flooding at 40 spells / second. I seriously doubt a player would get kicked for flooding, assuming you only press once you get near the red bar....there is no reason to spam for 80% of the time (except lazyness, ah well).

Last edited by manly : 10/14/07 at 6:34 PM.
#72SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkmantle
I was just wondering because I don't have a g15 keyboard and if things remain how they are I can imagine some insanity if i get one. My idea would be to have cast shadowbolt going off permanently once the fight starts up and just strafe to stop the shadowbolts so I could lifetap/control agro. I would essentially become a shadowbolt machine gun that fired whenever I stopped. I admit it would spam the server but hell at least my aussie lag will almost never matter. It would be perhaps the most effortless raiding experience ever designed.
#73SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
My question is does the spam cause lag in your game?

I came up with the spam notion and I think it's how it is intended to function but I would love a comparison between someone attempting to perfectly time the spellcasts utilizing Quartz (no macro of course) and just one press vs someone G15-spamming from just before the red line.

I've also been thinking about Arcane Missiles and utilizing [nochanneling]. What I am thinking now is that the [nochanneling] determination is probably determined at the client level which would require normal back and forth latency for it to know that the channel has ended as opposed to the nochanneling being determined at the server level which would give you perfect executions for the new channeling to start.

Hopefully Blizzard will realize the issue and move that macro command to the server level but until then it would seem your best dps for a channeling spelll would be to utilize Quartz and start the new channel as close to the red line as possible.
#74SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sengiratolom
i wonder if the new meta works like the RED did
((base crit multiplyer*1.03)-1)*talent multiplyer+1=end result
or a new formula like this:
critmultiplyer after talents*1.03= result

if its the 1st it'd turn out to be
Arcane: ((1.5 *1.03)-1)*1.5+1= 1.8175 as crit multiplyer (oposed to 1.75 pre gem)
Resulting in 6.75% higher crits wich is a 2.5% dps increase @ 37% crit
Fire(10/48/3):(1.5 *1.03)*1.4= 2.163 multiplyer
Resulting in 6.3% higher crits resulting into 2.5% dps increase @ 39.7% crit

and so on
#75SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Myrdinn
A lot of testing is currently done with AM/MSD spec, and with the old 10/48/3 deep fire spec as far as I understood

I am still unable to get on EU PTR (damned copy :/), but I was wondering if someone already compared fire 10/48/3 with fire 33/28, at least on the theorycrafting basis (need Vontre's new site )
With the new meta, and the 10% removal, higher crit dmg looks interesting...

We were already getting close numbers between these 2 specs before arcane 2.2 supremacy
#76SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Setia
I did some more tests for the interaction between Spellpower/Ice Shards and the CSD. It looks like the old (advantageous) formula is back.

On a test with 36 crits, 171 hits, I had a crit multiplier of 236,35%.

This means the "critmultiplier after talents*1.03" is out, because it would give a 231,75% multiplier, which is outside my 95% confidence range of my experiment (lower bound: 232,6%).

And my results are really near the expected 236,25% multiplier of the "((base crit multiplier*1.03)-1)*talent multiplier+1", so it's probably the one now used.
#77SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
My question is does the spam cause lag in your game?
Of course it does. Everytime you do a keypress the game must play the 'spell is not ready' sound. It needs to send the audio file info to the sound card. It needs to call the appropriate classes and send the message to mods that the event 'spell is not ready' has occured. Mods will probably execute LUA code to handle this (mods like errormonster). Then the message 'spell is not ready' needs to be shown on the UI. I think the biggest hit on system performance will be sending multiple audio stream to the sound card, if I were to make a guess. Not to mention that the sound card has a limit to the number of sounds it can play at the same time. If you set the value too high it could be very well possible that you start losing other sounds in the game because all the audio channels are taken.
#78SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Setia
Comparing Fireball/Frostbolt specs...

Ignoring DPM, hit rating, haste rating, and the T6 4-piece bonus, I get the following DPS numbers with my personal spreadsheet:

10/48/3 Fire (5 fireballs-1 scorch) : 1514,8 DPS
33/28 Arc/Fire : 1483,6 DPS, or approximately 1485,3 with Lightning Capacitor replacing a trinket
40/21 Arc/Fire is worse than 33/28 in every respect
x/0/43+ Frost w/ WE and Codl Snap used on CD: 1450,8 DPS
40/0/21 Arc/Frost (with WC stacked by another mage) : 1455,2 DPS **Corrected: a mistake in my formulas gave 1580**

Assumptions: Top-level equipment, all buffs, an elemental shaman, a CSD using the old formula, 80ms delay between spells, 6% of Fire DPS lost to partial resists (which hurts a lot), 100% Water Elemental uptime, Combustion = 2,3% crit, Molten Fury = +3% damage, Arcane Power = +2,5% damage, full stacks of Winter's Chill and Scorch at all times. CoE, Misery ignored.

I didn't get the AM numbers, as they're a bit more difficult to model and they went down the drain with the MSD nerf (as you get about one proc per 10 AM now instead of 1 in 4).

I'd really like to see Vontre's results, though, as his spreadsheet is much more fleshed out than mine.

*edit: horrible mistake in my spreadsheet made Frost/Arcane to appear much better than it is. I kept counting the bonus damage part of Empowered Frostbolt for 40/0/21. Corrected, and I apologize.*

Last edited by Setia : 10/15/07 at 4:25 AM.
#79SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Firefly
Setia, why didnt you calculate with 8 fireball/1 scorch? That should improve fire a bit or?
#80SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cambriel
Originally Posted by Setia View Post
I did some more tests for the interaction between Spellpower/Ice Shards and the CSD. It looks like the old (advantageous) formula is back.

On a test with 36 crits, 171 hits, I had a crit multiplier of 236,35%.

This means the "critmultiplier after talents*1.03" is out, because it would give a 231,75% multiplier, which is outside my 95% confidence range of my experiment (lower bound: 232,6%).

And my results are really near the expected 236,25% multiplier of the "((base crit multiplier*1.03)-1)*talent multiplier+1", so it's probably the one now used.
So for purposes of a frost mage in tailor/kara gear such as myself, which is a more effective use of a meta-slot, MSD or CSD?

- C
#81SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Setia: You say top level equipment, can you be a little more specific? I've seen cases on armory where I Lhiverae'd that given a monstrously hight crit rate (36+) 40.0.21 is infact ahead of x.x.43 but you need to be a lot more specific when designating gear. Giving DPS values to the 5th significant figure and then stating "replacing TLC with another trinket" and "top equipment" is dulling the sharpness of your research.
#82SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
Deleted

Last edited by Rounced : 10/15/07 at 10:00 PM.
#83SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ainav
Still the problem for me remains from what I see curently on the PTR is that you cannot avoid the effect of lagg without useing stopcast macro + quartz, mashing the key does not help for sure
#84SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sapphidia
Hmm. So what's the verdict regarding the MSD in the current patch? If you were a dedicated 61/0/0 mage with no inclination to change spec, and have the lightning capacitor, what's now the best option?

Is MSD with AM spam still the highest damage option for the meta (albeit less than pre-2.3), is it better to go back to more standard AB/AB/AM type rotations using the new Crit meta, or is it worth trying something weird like AM spam with stacked passive haste and an Insightful Earthstorm Diamond for the int boost and a regular 300 mana proc that can hopefully proc off each missile?

Has the nerf meant the end of the MSD, period, or is it still by far the best Metagem that an arcane mage can use?
#85SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
Here's my analysis of options for full arcane build in 2.3. This is for 2/5 T5, TLC progression level (750 int, 1450 dmg raid buffed). Test parameters used were 10 min fight, 70% dps time, 50 ms effective latency, shadow priest (175 mp5), el. shaman, cos, no jow.

Here's the results for the meta gem options:

MSD: 1636 dps
IED: 1643 dps
CSD: 1661 dps
CSD (adjusted to meet gem requirements): 1660 dps

So from this I'd say that if you plan to stick with full arcane you should go for CSD. It's back to the AB rotations. In the above scenario the spell selection would be ABx3+AM+Sc 80% of time, AB spam 20% of time, AB spam on AP.

One interesting thing is increased value of int. In the above scenario we get:

2.08 int = 2.69 spi = 2.34 dmg = 2.45 crit = 1.83 mp5 = 3.09 haste

Regarding gem options this means that dmg still wins ahead of int, but going to anything 8 min or shorter int gem wins.
#86SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alvira
Can I get some confirmation about haste rating? This is rather important to arcane spec.

From what I understand, 1% reduction given by haste equals to 1% reduction in casting time (or channeling time). Is this correct? Because if this is so, then each 1% reduction in haste boosts AM dmg by 2%. This would make haste rating more desired by arcane mages than any other stat.

How did I arrive at this?

Consider this. Why is MSD so powerful? Because it reduced our channeling time by 50%. During a 2.5 second cast, our AM dps is effectively doubled (increased 100%).

So, by proportion, doesn't it mean that 1% reduction in cast time = 2% increase in DPS for AM? Can someone confirm this as what I understand correctly? Or did I get it wrong somewhere?
#87SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Can I get some confirmation about haste rating? This is rather important to arcane spec.

From what I understand, 1% reduction given by haste equals to 1% reduction in casting time (or channeling time). Is this correct? Because if this is so, then each 1% reduction in haste boosts AM dmg by 2%. This would make haste rating more desired by arcane mages than any other stat.

How did I arrive at this?

Consider this. Why is MSD so powerful? Because it reduced our channeling time by 50%. During a 2.5 second cast, our AM dps is effectively doubled (increased 100%).

So, by proportion, doesn't it mean that 1% reduction in cast time = 2% increase in DPS for AM? Can someone confirm this as what I understand correctly? Or did I get it wrong somewhere?
That is not correct. Haste is % increase in number of attacks per time interval. The actual reduced cast time is base cast time / (1 + haste).
#88SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Alvira
Can give example? I don't quite understand. >_<

Nevermind, I got it now. Got an example in the other thread.

Last edited by Alvira : 10/15/07 at 1:15 AM.
#89SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Setia
Setia: You say top level equipment, can you be a little more specific? I've seen cases on armory where I Lhiverae'd that given a monstrously hight crit rate (36+) 40.0.21 is infact ahead of x.x.43 but you need to be a lot more specific when designating gear. Giving DPS values to the 5th significant figure and then stating "replacing TLC with another trinket" and "top equipment" is dulling the sharpness of your research.
The gear used in my calculations, is the wish list I had pre-2.2 when I was Deep Fire:

Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
Wand of the Forgotten Star
Band of the Eternal Sage
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
Cloak of the Illidari Council
Robes of the Tempest
Leggings of Channeled Elements
Cowl of the Tempest
Hellfire-Encased Pendant (okay, slight error there, I kept the same stats for non-Fire builds, but the Translucent Spellthread Necklace is not that different)
Mantle of the Tempest
Anetheron's Noose
Slippers of the Seacaller
Bracers of Nimble Thought
Gloves of the Tempest
Skull of Gul'dan
Sextant of Unstable Currents

Counting sockets (orange and purple ones to follow the socket bonuses), buffs, consumables, enchants (+40 spell damage on weapon instaead of Sunfire/Soulfrost) and the average values of procs (as calculated for Deep fire, but as only the Sextant and Hyjal ring have procs here, Forst would proabbly get even more out of it due to higher crit and spells per second), we get an average spell damage of 1556, 625 int and 370 crit rating. I ignored spell haste and spell hit in the calculation.

Counting Winter's Chill, Totem of Wrath, Brilliant Wizard Oil, and Arcane Potency, this gives 40/0/21 an amazing 48,7% crit rate, which is where the power of the build resides. It has a 35,7% crit rate before WC and ToW... It may be improved if we replaced a trinket with the Ashtongue one (can the proc last for 3 frostbolts? I don't have it yet, so I can't test). Regarding TLC, I replaced the Sextant with it.

I feel really weirded out that Frost appears to be the top DPS spec. Which is why I'm interested in knowing if someone else gets similar results (I'd hand out my spreadsheet, but it's quite messy and in French). * edit: with good reason, as it appeared higher because of a mistake *

I took 5 fireball/1 scorch because it's closer to what I actually do in raids - with transitions, etc. I tend to do a little but more scorching than the minimum in order to make sure the debuff stays on. Pure fireball spam with 10/48/3 gives 1543 DPS, still below 40/0/21 Frostbolt.

An assumption I forgot to give - I didn't calculate Misery/CoE, since they have the same effet on all fire/frost specs.

Last edited by Setia : 10/15/07 at 4:24 AM.
#90SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Pre 2.2 a 18/0/43 or similar build was always higher dps for us than a 40/0/21 type of build though >_< I never managed to get good numbers with the Arcane frost one.
#91SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Setia
And you'd be right, too. I made a horrible mistake. 40/0/21's number in my calculations should be about 4 DPS above full frost (1455 vs 1451 - vs 1514 for 10/48/3). They were probably below before, as the tax removal affects all of Arc/Frost's damage, while there's a 10% from full frost it doesn't affect (the Water Elemental part).

Last edited by Setia : 10/15/07 at 4:23 AM.
#92SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
I use a dummy file and place it in WoW\Data\Sound\interface\uEscapeScreenOpen.wav
Sure I'm not the only one who will want this, so, I don't see that directory path in my WoW directory. Do we have to create it? No way to know if it works until the patch comes out, but I'd like to be prepared.
#93SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Setia View Post
And you'd be right, too. I made a horrible mistake. 40/0/21's number in my calculations should be about 4 DPS above full frost (1455 vs 1451 - vs 1514 for 10/48/3). They were probably below before, as the tax removal affects all of Arc/Frost's damage, while there's a 10% from full frost it doesn't affect (the Water Elemental part).
I guess that with a rather crit-centric build that a 40/0/21 build might surpass a deep frost seeing as a 33/28/0 build with 48% crit or whatever that inner sanctum mage had was insane dps. Problem with the deep frost one of course is WE getting smacked in the face. Now these are not actually TC'd opinions, more "estimates of past experiences and employing the 10% reduction removal" =D
#94SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Neuromaster
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
...I don't see that directory path in my WoW directory. Do we have to create it?...
Yeah, just create that path and it should work.
#95SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
I guess that with a rather crit-centric build that a 40/0/21 build might surpass a deep frost seeing as a 33/28/0 build with 48% crit or whatever that inner sanctum mage had was insane dps. Problem with the deep frost one of course is WE getting smacked in the face. Now these are not actually TC'd opinions, more "estimates of past experiences and employing the 10% reduction removal" =D
I'm sorry to say but high crit rate does not equal high DPS.
#96SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Manly: while I'll have to agree, given huge crit arcafrost is ahead of full frost. Granted, this discussion does nothing for comparison with either fire or arcane spec, but if you check The World of Warcraft Armory and run numbers, he does in fact lose dps by speccing full frost with his gear.

I'm not advocating this spec, nor do I think it's any good by any means, but it -is- and example where arcafrost is superior to frost, and it does nullify what was the commonly thought that "arcafrost never passes frost, even with WC debuff, even with pet 0% uptime"
#97SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I'm sorry to say but high crit rate does not equal high DPS.
Of course it doesn't but stats synergise differently with different talents. A talent-spec that synergises highly with crit will gain more from crit than a spec that does not.
#98SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3koetjeka
In general you want to be hitcapped first, then get haste rating and then critrating. But isn't this somehow related to your spec?

For instance someone is hitcapped, has 9% haste and only 12% crit. Would he benefit enough from lets say Ignite?
#99SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Beska
Originally Posted by koetjeka View Post
In general you want to be hitcapped first, then get haste rating and then critrating. But isn't this somehow related to your spec?

For instance someone is hitcapped, has 9% haste and only 12% crit. Would he benefit enough from lets say Ignite?
Refering back to manly's fire wishlist in the [Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work? thread, he's chosen to use [Anetheron's Noose], [Ring of Captured Storms], [Band of the Eternal Sage] and [Cuffs of Devastation] over their haste alternatives.

What would be better? A mix of haste and crit/hit items or full haste? Or infact no haste items at all?
#100SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Beska View Post
Refering back to manly's fire wishlist in the [Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work? thread, he's chosen to use [Anetheron's Noose], [Ring of Captured Storms], [Band of the Eternal Sage] and [Cuffs of Devastation] over their haste alternatives.

What would be better? A mix of haste and crit/hit items or full haste? Or infact no haste items at all?
Cap hit, then get the weighted maximum of damage, crit and haste. (Doesn't hurt to repeat the mantra.)

Due to how item level works, items with spread stats and items with sockets get you more benefit than those without. Noose > Infinity because the latter is so badly designed, it's not even funny (take Blasting to cap hit). The proc of BotES should make it the best ring available, RotCS is great if you use it to cap hit, RoAK is a stats upgrade if you capped it before. I'd take Nimble over Devastation, it's not a huge difference though.

Just don't equip junk just because it has haste.
#101SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Leialyn
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Sure I'm not the only one who will want this, so, I don't see that directory path in my WoW directory. Do we have to create it?
Yep thats right. The soundfile comes from a patch from curse that replaced the fizzle sounds from fire, frost, arcane etc... so I just looked for the Escape Menu sound within the MPQs and found it at this path, put the file there and renamed it.

@Topic: Is haste that good for 10/48/3 as it is/was for arcane? With 2.3 we should theoreticly be able to cast our spells without delay and the small clipping with scorch shoudn't matter (in 2.1 when I was fire and had heroism I could hardly use scorch because of /stopcasting macros, but this shouldn't matter anymore).

Last edited by Leialyn : 10/15/07 at 7:57 AM.
#102SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Baruk
stopcasting or not is not likely to matter for scorch under heroism/bloodlust.
As it has been proven on these forums, heroism does not lower the gcd.

Last edited by Baruk : 10/16/07 at 3:55 AM.
#103SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Somebody posted somewhere in the 2.3 patch notes thread that the new anti-stopcasting mechanism doesn't work for short spells/instant casts (and apperently channeled spells as well, but I have yet to see any proof of that).

Cant find that post anymore, but here is the link to the rather informative thread on the official ptr forums

notice how he first thinks it doesnt work at all and then finds out it only doesn't work with 1.5 second casts and instants.
#104SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Raencloud
There is an option in the interface options menu that prevents interrupting spells to some effect (I believe from macros or new spells, obviously esc/movement will still work). But since apparently there is an issue with retrieving character lists right now I can't log in to check again.
#105SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Uh I'm sorry but whoever wrote that crass thread in the wow forums is very confused about how things work. The change is beneficial in every sense of the word. The catch is that it won't remove lag at all if that was your expectation.

This guy simply doesn't understand that
1- timestamps are client side
2- doing 100ms wait time on a g15 is very very stupid and garantees numbers above 1.5s
3- the PTR is very laggish

The testing I did was offhour and on scorch, which happens to be 1.5s cast time as well (no haste gear). I had repeatable 40ms lag (time between casts) with 0.025s wait time between my G15 spells.
#106SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nastrodamus
So what are the new MSD stats in 2.3 from PTR? Anyone got that information yet? If I missed it earlier I am sorry but if at all possible could you A)post the link that has that info or B) just quote my post and tell me what they are...either way I would appreciate it....thanks!
#107SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
master_y
I was wondering.
In 2.3 the MSD there is going to be a GCD on it.
in a post on the second page it was said that if you had ~38.7 haste rating you would get the same effect as the MSD had.

So when going to Zul'aman and stacking abit on Haste wouldnt that make CSD the better meta gem?
because the more haste you stack the tinier the effect will be on MSD.

I think i will go for the CSD myself and just get a little bit more haste from ZA.
+ i don't have to worry too much about stacking up on blue gems.
Which would give me more +hit/+crit


EDIT: woops i ment CSD instead of RED will fix it

Last edited by master_y : 10/16/07 at 7:53 AM.
#108SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Originally Posted by master_y View Post
I think i will go for the RED myself and just get a little bit more haste from ZA.
+ i don't have to worry too much about stacking up on blue gems.
Which would give me more +hit/+crit
The RED doesn't work for casters anymore since patch 2.2, but there is a new caster metagem in 2.3 called chaotic skyfire diamond (CSD), giving 12 spell critrating and 3% more critdamage. The requirements are exactly 2 blue gems (not more and not less)
#109SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Some quick and dirty math on how Fire Blast affects Fireball spam.

Fire Blast - 725 base, 1.5/3.5 = 42.9% +damage, +4% crit
Fireball - 719 base, 115% +damage, +x% haste, +5% damage at 4/5 T6
All specs get +10% (FP), +3% (PWF), +4% (MF), +5% (Misery), +10% (CoE), +15% (Scorch) damage. Ignoring hit, it affect boths specs the same way.

In 1.5s, we can cast 1 Fire Blast, or 0.5*(1+haste%) Fireballs (ignoring latency). The redulting DPS difference is that damage difference divided by 7.5 (you can cast Fire Blast every 7.5s).
So, Fire Blast vs. Fireball in 1.5s is as follows:

Blue gear, 900 damage, 20% crit
2197 vs. 1675, 70 DPS difference

Epic gear and raid buffs, 2% haste (from MSD), 1300 damage, 30% crit
2757 vs. 2350, 54 DPS difference

Top end gear, 7% haste, T6 bonus, 1500 damage, 35% crit
3059 vs. 2976, 11 DPS difference

Also, Fire Blast will lose more to cast delay Fireball, due to being twice as fast. Not sure if the 2.3 changes will make that issue obsolete.

Seems to me that haste, MSD and 4/5 T6 killed Fire Blast in rotations. Vontre's sheet draws and even worse picture with 0.2s cast delay.
#110SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
geraroz
Manly,

I have a G15 keyboard aswell but actually never explored the options u talk about. Could u point me to a "guide"? or maybe explain to me what u do to make casting optimal ?

Last edited by geraroz : 10/17/07 at 3:05 AM.
#111SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leto
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Some quick and dirty math on how Fire Blast affects Fireball spam.

Fire Blast - 725 base, 1.5/3.5 = 42.9% +damage, +4% crit
Fireball - 719 base, 115% +damage, +x% haste, +5% damage at 4/5 T6
All specs get +10% (FP), +3% (PWF), +4% (MF), +5% (Misery), +10% (CoE), +15% (Scorch) damage. Ignoring hit, it affect boths specs the same way.

In 1.5s, we can cast 1 Fire Blast, or 0.5*(1+haste%) Fireballs (ignoring latency). The redulting DPS difference is that damage difference divided by 7.5 (you can cast Fire Blast every 7.5s).
So, Fire Blast vs. Fireball in 1.5s is as follows:

Blue gear, 900 damage, 20% crit
2197 vs. 1675, 70 DPS difference

Epic gear and raid buffs, 2% haste (from MSD), 1300 damage, 30% crit
2757 vs. 2350, 54 DPS difference

Top end gear, 7% haste, T6 bonus, 1500 damage, 35% crit
3059 vs. 2976, 11 DPS difference

Also, Fire Blast will lose more to cast delay Fireball, due to being twice as fast. Not sure if the 2.3 changes will make that issue obsolete.

Seems to me that haste, MSD and 4/5 T6 killed Fire Blast in rotations. Vontre's sheet draws and even worse picture with 0.2s cast delay.
Yea, pretty much fireball scales better than fireblast, so eventually it will be less dps if you include it in a rotation. This is good though, as fireball is more mana efficient.
#112SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Queuetip
I didn't see this said anywhere, but I don't think the change to spell casts will help casts <= 1.5 seconds. If you are not manually stopping cast on client side, the GCD will continue until the end, which mean you can't send any casts to the server until its finished (assuming it doesn't send requests during GCD on client side). I suppose it would theoretically reduce the lag time by a half since you are only sending one way and dont need to wait for the cast finished message from the server. So instants followed by a cast won't benefit at all (big deal, they didn't before). More importantly 1.5 seconds casts like scorch or ramped AB could still be improved with stopcasting macro. You would just have to be more precise.
#113SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
That makes sense, I was definitely noticing more latency with scorch than with fireball/frostbolt when I did my tests.
#114SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
Originally Posted by Queuetip View Post
I didn't see this said anywhere, but I don't think the change to spell casts will help casts <= 1.5 seconds. If you are not manually stopping cast on client side, the GCD will continue until the end, which mean you can't send any casts to the server until its finished (assuming it doesn't send requests during GCD on client side). I suppose it would theoretically reduce the lag time by a half since you are only sending one way and dont need to wait for the cast finished message from the server. So instants followed by a cast won't benefit at all (big deal, they didn't before). More importantly 1.5 seconds casts like scorch or ramped AB could still be improved with stopcasting macro. You would just have to be more precise.
WoW BlueTracker: Analysis of 1.5 s cast problems on Test
#115SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
I still don't get the stubbornness of Blizzard on this one. While the upcoming solution is better than what we had, a simple .5 to 1s server-side queue is still a more elegant solution in my opinion.

We'll see how it plays out of course.
#116SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dothorio
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Some quick and dirty math on how Fire Blast affects Fireball spam.

Fire Blast - 725 base, 1.5/3.5 = 42.9% +damage, +4% crit
Fireball - 719 base, 115% +damage, +x% haste, +5% damage at 4/5 T6
All specs get +10% (FP), +3% (PWF), +4% (MF), +5% (Misery), +10% (CoE), +15% (Scorch) damage. Ignoring hit, it affect boths specs the same way.

In 1.5s, we can cast 1 Fire Blast, or 0.5*(1+haste%) Fireballs (ignoring latency). The redulting DPS difference is that damage difference divided by 7.5 (you can cast Fire Blast every 7.5s).
So, Fire Blast vs. Fireball in 1.5s is as follows:

Blue gear, 900 damage, 20% crit
2197 vs. 1675, 70 DPS difference

Epic gear and raid buffs, 2% haste (from MSD), 1300 damage, 30% crit
2757 vs. 2350, 54 DPS difference

Top end gear, 7% haste, T6 bonus, 1500 damage, 35% crit
3059 vs. 2976, 11 DPS difference

Also, Fire Blast will lose more to cast delay Fireball, due to being twice as fast. Not sure if the 2.3 changes will make that issue obsolete.

Seems to me that haste, MSD and 4/5 T6 killed Fire Blast in rotations. Vontre's sheet draws and even worse picture with 0.2s cast delay.
Amazing, I was looking for this exact post without knowing it existed. This is highly helpful, as I'm trying to educate some mages on why you should cast fireball:scorch 5:1
#117SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leto
Pardon me if I'm just missing something here, but what does Roywyn's post have to do with casting a 5:1 fireball:scorch rotation? All I see is discussion on the scaling of including fire blast in cycles as gear improves.
#118SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dothorio
One of the mages I was discussing this with was saying that Fireblast should be used every cooldown while I was arguing that at the current gear level of the mages in the conversation that Fireblast every cooldown is not nearly enough of DPS increase to justify the DPM and breaking a 9:1 fireball to scorch rotation, considering MSD procs and haste.

(And yes, I mistyped earlier 5:1 should have been 9:1)
#119SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rominus
Wait so the ritual of refresment only provides 50 pieces of Food/water. Not 50 stacks?
#120SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
50 stacks
#121SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rominus
I dont think anyone will be complaining then. 3 mages 150 stacks 6 stacks per person gg.
#122SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
The only problem is when someone decides they need 20 stacks. I plan on telling everyone 'If you didn't get any water, find the person that got 400 and ask them for some because I'm not making any more for a few hours.'

But that has nothing to do with mage damage. :p
#123SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3BrTarolg
To be honest, I would still say fireblast is a great spell - its instant and can be casted whilst moving. Fair enough the range is pretty balls but its still helpful when you want to move in a bossfight (which im sure you all do).
#124SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
If someone takes 20 stacks, that means it also takes 20 stack of their inventory space. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be standard practice to burn through the stacks just to be an asshat.

In any case, 2 stack of mana biscuits for all raid members is a LOT better than 10x healthstones and their multi rank bs.

Last edited by manly : 10/17/07 at 2:04 PM.
#125SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3[DRF]Solmyr
Originally Posted by manly View Post
If someone takes 20 stacks, that means it also takes 20 stack of their inventory space. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be standard practice to burn through the stacks just to be an asshat.

In any case, 2 stack of mana biscuits for all raid members is a LOT better than 10x healthstones and their multi rank bs.
Arcane Fortitude has been removed. In it's place will now be "Improved Ritual of Refreshment". It will be a 2 point talent, where each point improves the restoration effects of the mana biscuits by 10% per talent point and will leave a "well-fed" buff of 10 to all stats, 5mp5, and 5hp5 per talent point.

Something along those lines? ^^
#126SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
That wouldn't increase mage raid synergy, that would just keep it the way it is; with no incentives to bring more than 1 or 2 per raid. Of course now that AM spam is good DPS the tables are turned, but if the mage DPS isnt good anymore (read: pre 2.2), then there really aren't much incentives to bring mages to raids.
#127SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Toabo
Originally Posted by manly View Post
If someone takes 20 stacks, that means it also takes 20 stack of their inventory space. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be standard practice to burn through the stacks just to be an asshat.
I use Trade Dispenser to automate handing out food and water. A couple of my guildies, when feeling mischievous, will repeatedly initiate trades just to empty out my current stock. The automation amuses them, as does my irritation about having to make conjure up more so that the next person doesn't get "I'm out of food/water" messages. (Thankfully Trade Dispenser lets you cap the number of trades so that you can prevent this.)

But you're probably right about the Ritual. Since snapping up a dozen stacks of mana biscuits doesn't annoy me as directly as before, I doubt there's much incentive to try.
#128SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
I am seeing unbuffed deep fire numbers on ptr that are roughly what I was seeing for AM spam with 2.2's ptr. I mean, I don't see the random 'wtf' high dps reports. But the average is fairly similar. And I'm still wearing more arcane-oriented gear. If I actually had good fire gear, obviously my numbers would go up and I'd start seeing superior results to 2.2 AM spam. At least, I likely would.

So as a class, our dps really isn't going to be going down. The only 'problem' is that everyone else's is going to be going up where as we're going to need to respec to get back to around where we were. Granted, where we were was fairly solidly ahead of the other 'pure' dps classes for most fights. It'll be interesting to see how all this pans out in a real raiding situation.
#129SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3hi2umeld
Ice Barrier! How much +absorb does 2.3 Ice Barrier accrue from your current +spell damage?
#130SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kir
Anyone done more testing with frost spec on PTR? I know vontre did some theorycrafting that showed it was pretty decent (something like 10 dps higher then fire in 'patchwerk' scenario, but up to 50dps lower in more realistic simulations).

I've always liked frost thematically, but I like performing well even more. If the difference is truly situational and/or negligible between fire and frost (+/- 20dps is negligible imo), me and a few other guild mages are looking forward to speccing frost for the auxiliary benefits. However, other then Vontre's initial theorizing, I haven't seen much else to back it up.

edit: also curious if using the MSd with frost, and casting AM on focus procs would be an increase or decrease of dps (since you'd stop frostbolt cast) and if just using the new CSD would just be a dramatically larger increase. My suspicions say the CSD would be better, or just using a non-meta helm, but sometimes little tricks like that creep up and are hard to model.
#131SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3hi2umeld
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
Anyone done more testing with frost spec on PTR? I know vontre did some theorycrafting that showed it was pretty decent (something like 10 dps higher then fire in 'patchwerk' scenario, but up to 50dps lower in more realistic simulations).

I've always liked frost thematically, but I like performing well even more. If the difference is truly situational and/or negligible between fire and frost (+/- 20dps is negligible imo), me and a few other guild mages are looking forward to speccing frost for the auxiliary benefits. However, other then Vontre's initial theorizing, I haven't seen much else to back it up.
Fire still tops off as it always did in a PvE situation. Frost, even with Spell Pen and Spell Hit will have the issue of full-resist; incapable of ever having a partial resist.
#132SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Kir
i always thought that was one of frost's few advantages when running a theorycraft simulation. That fire gets more then 1% total resists, when factoring in partials, even with maxed hit gear.

Vontre did a simulation that shows with full water elemental uptime (meaning he survives the whole time, and you recast on every cooldown) on a patchwerk style encounter, frost won by about 10dps. When you have scenarios that the elemental could die, or you take spell pushback (which frost has no way to reduce) fire wins out again. (edit: I'm not sure he tried to model elemental tricks, other than bloodlust, such as always timing trinkets and other dps boost abilities to coincide with elemental cast. Also, I'm curious if spell haste and this coefficient un-nerf also increases the WE's damage? I would guess no to the coefficient, but haven't seen anything about spell haste effecting the WE, only +dmg and such)

Considering the coefficient nerf that is being removed was the same flat amount to both fireball and frostbolt, frostbolt benefits slightly more to the un-nerf, since it's a faster cast spell. Maybe I'm missing something though.

When you throw in frost's additional benefits, such as intelligent use of iceblock for things that you might normally run out for (saving movement time), ice barrier survivability, arctic winds reduction of damage, added CC ability for trash/hyjal wave mobs etc.. if it can get within 40dps, I'd consider it worthwhile to spec into. That theoretical difference can be made up by good play on my part, to the point where I'm overall competitive with the other mages in my guild, and situationally at an advantage for some encounters.

Last edited by Kir : 10/17/07 at 4:48 PM.
#133SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
Originally Posted by hi2umeld View Post
Ice Barrier! How much +absorb does 2.3 Ice Barrier accrue from your current +spell damage?
30%
#134SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Aranan
What kind of frost builds are posters referring to when they mention raid viable frost (or frost/arc or arc/frost) builds? I don't see any specific specs mentioned aside from the 0/0/61 referred to in the OP.
#135SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
In 2.3, if there are no additional changes, deep frost and deep fire are both viable raiding specs and deep arcane is a dead spec.

Fire will be more dps and less vulnerability to spell knockback. Fire will also slaughter any other spec on any fight with an extended <20% phase.

Frost will be significantly more survivability and basically equivalent dps provided the elemental can be maximized. It will also offer the ability to significantly control adds especially in AoE situations.

Arcane....well.....it's minimized threat for substandard dps with an extreme thirst for mana and horrendous range and extremely mana draining on any encounter involving movement (move midcast and it costs you full price but you get a lot less damage for it - move midrotation and you just blew your rotation as well). With 2T5 it will do less damage then any other spec with the rotations and it gets even worse once you level your gear past that level (2T5 rotations were roughly equivalent to Deep Fire but that was before the Tax was removed). Only advantage is that you can work your way through all the raiding encounters in the game (besides the curator in Arcatraz in karazhan, which isn't really much of a deterrent) without requiring a respec.

Last edited by Rounced : 10/17/07 at 5:50 PM.
#136SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3hi2umeld
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
i always thought that was one of frost's few advantages when running a theorycraft simulation. That fire gets more then 1% total resists, when factoring in partials, even with maxed hit gear.

Vontre did a simulation that shows with full water elemental uptime (meaning he survives the whole time, and you recast on every cooldown) on a patchwerk style encounter, frost won by about 10dps. When you have scenarios that the elemental could die, or you take spell pushback (which frost has no way to reduce) fire wins out again. (edit: I'm not sure he tried to model elemental tricks, other than bloodlust, such as always timing trinkets and other dps boost abilities to coincide with elemental cast. Also, I'm curious if spell haste and this coefficient un-nerf also increases the WE's damage? I would guess no to the coefficient, but haven't seen anything about spell haste effecting the WE, only +dmg and such)

Considering the coefficient nerf that is being removed was the same flat amount to both fireball and frostbolt, frostbolt benefits slightly more to the un-nerf, since it's a faster cast spell. Maybe I'm missing something though.

When you throw in frost's additional benefits, such as intelligent use of iceblock for things that you might normally run out for (saving movement time), ice barrier survivability, arctic winds reduction of damage, added CC ability for trash/hyjal wave mobs etc.. if it can get within 40dps, I'd consider it worthwhile to spec into. That theoretical difference can be made up by good play on my part, to the point where I'm overall competitive with the other mages in my guild, and situationally at an advantage for some encounters.
It really is Apples and Oranges.

There are way too many factors that play into Fire vs. Frost. There would be several fights that would benefit one and hurt the other spec, or just do neither for both. It really is impractical, but plausible, to really say which is better.

In the PvP world it's more systematic and you can easily track out how well your DPS and so on, but really, in PvE, you have things such as Ignite immunity, knockback (Burning Soul or Ice Barrier to compensate), Frost Nova immunity (burst ice lance damage, etc.

Fire does have the upper hand in sustained high damage (especially with Imp.Scorch), but Frost really depends on Crit on high damage.

Apples and Oranges. Whatever is your cup of tea.
#137SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
In 2.3, if there are no additional changes, deep frost and deep fire are both viable raiding specs and deep arcane is a dead spec.

Fire will be more dps and less vulnerability to spell knockback. Fire will also slaughter any other spec on any fight with an extended <20% phase.

Frost will be significantly more survivability and basically equivalent dps provided the elemental can be maximized. It will also offer the ability to significantly control adds especially in AoE situations.

Arcane....well.....it's minimized threat for substandard dps with an extreme thirst for mana and horrendous range and extremely mana draining on any encounter involving movement (move midcast and it costs you full price but you get a lot less damage for it - move midrotation and you just blew your rotation as well). With 2T5 it will do less damage then any other spec with the rotations and it gets even worse once you level your gear past that level (2T5 rotations were roughly equivalent to Deep Fire but that was before the Tax was removed). Only advantage is that you can work your way through all the raiding encounters in the game (besides the curator in Arcatraz in karazhan, which isn't really much of a deterrent) without requiring a respec.
The problem is that as long as arcane and fire are designed for the same purpose, whichever one does more damage will be considered the PvE spec while the other considered a dead spec. Rather than arguing for a distinct role for each tree we always end up playing tug-of-war for which spec gets the DPS this month. I think it is as much a problem with the mage community as it is with the developers' inability to make up their mind.
#138SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Toabo
Originally Posted by Aranan View Post
What kind of frost builds are posters referring to when they mention raid viable frost (or frost/arc or arc/frost) builds? I don't see any specific specs mentioned aside from the 0/0/61 referred to in the OP.
The arc/frost you hear about is probably some variant on 40/0/21 where you spec Arcane up to get the extra crit bonus from Spell Power. However, the theory indicates that the Arcane-heavy build is superior DPS only if you've got someone else applying Winter's Chill. Personally, I don't hold much truck with this idea because of that reliance on a second mage who is specced deep frost. What if that mage can't make it tonight? What if he dies early in the fight? But if you can always count on an Winter's Chill mage tagging along, maybe this is worthwhile.

As far as frost/arc, most likely it's something akin to 10/0/51 - you get up to Clearcasting in Arcane and then plow the rest into Frost's DPS talents. Been a long, long while since I've raided as Frost, so I don't know if Clearcasting is even necessary to be mana-efficient as Frost; could be that full Frost (0/0/61) may work just fine and give you some extra Frost utility as well. *shrug*
#139SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Aranan View Post
What kind of frost builds are posters referring to when they mention raid viable frost (or frost/arc or arc/frost) builds? I don't see any specific specs mentioned aside from the 0/0/61 referred to in the OP.
I usually ran 4/0/57 with 2 in Subtlety (mainly for AE) and 2 in Focus to have a 99% hitchance in tanking gear (for Spellstealing on Council). I also prefer getting deeper into Frost for Imp CoC, Shatter, Frostbite and even Permafrost over Arcane Concentration b/c i have virtually no mana issues.
#140SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Aranan
Originally Posted by Toabo View Post
The arc/frost you hear about is probably some variant on 40/0/21 where you spec Arcane up to get the extra crit bonus from Spell Power. However, the theory indicates that the Arcane-heavy build is superior DPS only if you've got someone else applying Winter's Chill. Personally, I don't hold much truck with this idea because of that reliance on a second mage who is specced deep frost. What if that mage can't make it tonight? What if he dies early in the fight? But if you can always count on an Winter's Chill mage tagging along, maybe this is worthwhile.

As far as frost/arc, most likely it's something akin to 10/0/51 - you get up to Clearcasting in Arcane and then plow the rest into Frost's DPS talents. Been a long, long while since I've raided as Frost, so I don't know if Clearcasting is even necessary to be mana-efficient as Frost; could be that full Frost (0/0/61) may work just fine and give you some extra Frost utility as well. *shrug*
Yeah, the 40/0/21 was the one I've heard about. Something about arcane spec mages being better at throwing blue bolts than frost spec mages. I doubt I'll ever see winter's chill applied to a raid mob unless I'm the one doing it, so if I do swap over to frost I'll keep that in mind.

Honestly, I just want to see different colored bolts for a little while without sucking too much.
#141SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
The problem is that as long as arcane and fire are designed for the same purpose, whichever one does more damage will be considered the PvE spec while the other considered a dead spec. Rather than arguing for a distinct role for each tree we always end up playing tug-of-war for which spec gets the DPS this month. I think it is as much a problem with the mage community as it is with the developers' inability to make up their mind.
I agree with that, although I actually thought they did manage to differentiate the 2 specs pretty well before they nerfed the MSD completely into the ground. Since if the MSD wasn't changed (or was nerfed to a lesser degree so that Arcane was still competitive - I thought they would do something like a 5-10 second cooldown) you had Fire with better sustainability for fights with longer duration, incredible dps if the <20% phase was a long one and with far less requirements for group support. Also Fire would be relatively constant dps. Then you had Arcane with basically the same dps but much more reliant on group support for the mana requirements as well as being much more spikey damage, if you got the procs then you would do amazing dps but if they didn't show up then Fire would kick your ass.

With the nerf to MSD they basically might as well have just taken Empowered AM out of the game since AM will not function as a primary nuke and without some other gimmick (and it really would need to be something as easy to obtain as the MSD to be viable) it won't be one until maybe WoTLK and the new talents. AB rotations also won't work without 2T5 and even with that they barely equal the dps from Deep Fire (after the tax is removed) and once you gear past that level Deep Fire will destroy the dps from any of the rotations without any of the timing or mana issues it creates.

Such a shame, I really was liking the spec but starting 150-200dps in the hole with having to chug mana pots every cooldown and praying for enough procs to stay only 100dps lower then Deep Fire just doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun.

What's even worse is that Deep Arcane will be out-dpsed by Deep Frost. At least when you spec Deep Frost you know you are trading some dps for survivability, speccing Deep Arcane means you traded that dps for...... decreased threat I guess (and with the low dps it really shouldn't need to worry about pulling aggro anyway).
#142SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Neuromaster
Looking at 2.3 patch notes aaaaand... something came to mind.

Would you trade roughly 2% damage, 1% crit, and deep fire "utility" stuff for 30% of your spirit regen in the FSR? In short, under what situations (if any) would you consider an 18/40/3 or related build taking advantage of the newly buffed arcane meditation talent? Something like this?

I'm not really sure how exactly the numbers would turn out. Perhaps the increased regen would allow you to run molten armor where you'd needed mage armor before? Maybe you could go without pots? Perhaps you could yield your spot in the SP group to another player? Not sure - what do you think?
#143SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
I think its a good thing its in the arcane tree, because fire doesn't need it.
#144SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by hi2umeld View Post
Fire still tops off as it always did in a PvE situation. Frost, even with Spell Pen and Spell Hit will have the issue of full-resist; incapable of ever having a partial resist.
This is untrue, frost just gets a free pass here. No partials, 99% hit chance.

Arcane does have dps advantages in usability with it's resistance to pushback, negligible threat concerns, instant damage and high rate of fire. Utility-wise it's the best spell we have, and frostbolt is the worst. But it can't ever make up for the whopping 10-12% damage lead of deep fire builds post-patch due to poor scaling.

My frost simulation was done with bloodlust stacking against water elemental, I programmed it like that. Fire was done with bloodlust during the last 45 seconds of the mob's health, so includes a good amount of Molten Fury. I considered execute range to be around 15% of the total dps time, since execute range goes by faster thanks to warriors, bloodlust/timers, and fire mages.

I know there are mages in top-notch guilds who use frost full time, it's not inadvisable. Ice Block is the clutch move here, as there are certain things you can just flat out ignore when you have it. Like doomfire/fear on archimonde. Frostbolt also has the least usability, as it suffers from ramping (stacking winter's chill), has no pushback resistance, and a moderately long cast time. Longer cast times increase the chance of interruption and the dps lost from that interruption. Additionally the water elemental is very volatile, there are some fights where he's just not going to live, it takes a lot of attention to keep him up and dpsing hard. As well as a shaman for totem double-dipping. Frost is certainly viable, but I think the most difficult to play.

Reliability of raid spells would look like this (when specced):

Fire Blast -> Arcane Missiles -> Scorch -> Fireball -> Frostbolt -> Arcane Blast -> Water Elemental

Arcane Missiles is the most likely base nuke to deliver the maximum dps, fireball is middle of the road and frostbolt is the most vulnerable to fuckups. This would be a good working model if AM was close enough to fireball that utility advantages could give it an edge, but it's not even close. You can practically outdo AM by spamming scorch - ok an exaggeration, but it's not terribly far off the mark, and the combination of scorch and fireball give fire spec a utility level that comes pretty close to Arcane Missiles. Flattens it if you're worried about mana at all.

What's left for arcane? Well there's the old 40/18/3, which doesn't look -too- bad if you've got the old 2-piece T5. Arcane Blast rotations are pretty much the bottom of usability, though, extremely vulnerable to interruption of dps (shit I fucked up my cycle) with variant pushback protection and a good number of long, slow spells. If you really need lower threat, spec frost and let the water elly take some. The only thing good about arcane now is sustainable AoE, where arcane explosion spam still dominates. Cool.

I'll be speccing fire, or maybe ice if the raid leaders like the idea.
#145SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I think I've asked this question 3 times now and not gotten an answer, if someone did answer it I apologize.

How good are the arcane/fire specs compared to deep fire in the light of the coefficient nerf undone? Specifically looking at 33 28, 33 25 3 and 40 18 3.

I'm asking because I'm unable to draw my own conclusions based on my own PTR tests, I prefer the arcane builds and found them to be pretty solid atleast on Dr. Boom.
#146SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hidden
There are also 2 additional advantages of Frost when doing trash:
  • The main nuke (Frostbolt) stacks the debuff, so you get at least some benefit from it while you get practically none from improved Scorch as it's not worth to Scorch up an enemy that's dying in 15 seconds anyway.
  • Ignite plain sucks on trash compared to 200% crits, when you have some critluck on a trash mob, you may lose a lot of damage due to the way ignite works currently when another spell crits while ignite is on the mob. For example a 15 second fight with 100% crits and 1000 DPS noncrit main nukes for both specs:
     Time |       Fire       |       Frost       
     2.5  |                  |     5000 Crit     
     3.0  |    4500 Crit     |                   
     5.0  |    900 Ignite    |     5000 Crit     
     6.0  |    4500 Crit     |                   
     7.5  |                  |     5000 Crit     
     8.0  |   1350 Ignite    |                   
     9.0  |    4500 Crit     |                   
     10.0 |                  |     5000 Crit     
     11.0 |   1575 Ignite    |                   
     12.0 |    4500 Crit     |                   
     12.5 |                  |     5000 Crit     
     14.0 |  1687.5 Ignite   |                   
     15.0 |    4500 Crit     |     5000 Crit     
    Total |  28012.5 Damage  |    30000 Damage   
#147SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Raiste
Hmm I didn't see it mentioned, but anyone think using 2 piece T4 would be viable for the heavy push back fights like najentus and p2 RoS etc? I know this would break the 4 piece t6 for those that have it but for those of us that are still mid BT progression, I think 2 piece t4 to break 4 piece t5 would be a decent option for pushback fights especially for frost specs.
#148SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Originally Posted by Aranan View Post
What kind of frost builds are posters referring to when they mention raid viable frost (or frost/arc or arc/frost) builds? I don't see any specific specs mentioned aside from the 0/0/61 referred to in the OP.
13/0/48 - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
#149SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post
Hmm I didn't see it mentioned, but anyone think using 2 piece T4 would be viable for the heavy push back fights like najentus and p2 RoS etc? I know this would break the 4 piece t6 for those that have it but for those of us that are still mid BT progression, I think 2 piece t4 to break 4 piece t5 would be a decent option for pushback fights especially for frost specs.
I mentioned it a few weeks ago here. I used to switch 4*T6 for 2*T4 and 2*T5 (for AB spam in p3) btw. RoS being pretty much the only fight with serious pushbacks (and i seriously can't recall any unpreventable pushbacks in any other bossfight, maybe someone enlighten me ...) also doesn't hurt frosts viability as a pve-spec over all the current ~25 boss encounters too imo for this reason.

The whole discussion, which seems more like a philosophical controversary between the 3-4 specs, goes a bit too far for me anyway. In the end you spec what it's best for the bossfight you and your guild is currently learning. If it's a pushback-heavy/aggro-sensitive fight you go AM, on a fire-immune fight with serious, erratic AE-damaging frost would be a reasonable choice, and on a huhuran-style boss with a cakewalk p1 and an insane enrage phase you take fire for molten fury. Or at least you should if you want to min-max.

Theorycrafting is clearly fun when you are otherwise bored from farming BT for the 27th time. The benefit from clearing it within 4:59 instead of a full 5 hrs due to an optimized spec is still rather marginal i guess
#150SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ninor
Originally Posted by manly View Post
To give an idea, doing 'casual' 1-button mashing, I do 0.078s - 0.109s.
Spamming as fast as possible results in 0.031s - 0.047s between keys. This is not doable for a long time under realistic situation.
If I bind 4 consecutive keys and 'twiddle' my fingers over them, I get 0.029s - 0.063s.
A funny coincident, 0.031s is exactly the same lowest result I get when spamming a key, so I can no claim to be "as fast as Manly!"

When you make your macro, do you have any wait time between "button down" and "button up"? And also, have you gotten repeat options to work, specifically the toggle option? I can't seem to get that working. It could be interesting to see how many casts, if any, would be lost with a repeated key press at the exact time with the new system.
#151SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Originally Posted by ninor View Post
A funny coincident, 0.031s is exactly the same lowest result I get when spamming a key, so I can no claim to be "as fast as Manly!"

When you make your macro, do you have any wait time between "button down" and "button up"? And also, have you gotten repeat options to work, specifically the toggle option? I can't seem to get that working. It could be interesting to see how many casts, if any, would be lost with a repeated key press at the exact time with the new system.
Due to the stopcasting workaround on the PTR, I'm having a lot of fun playing around with binding a nuke to the mousewheel and scrolling it rather than button mashing. I can't really notice the difference from the cast bars, but I bet if I were to use a program to monitor the ability to chain-cast it would be an improvement. The tough part now is breaking the button-mashing habit.
#152SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
I've been mouse wheel scrolling for a year. :p I got far too lazy to button mash or stopcast. It's the best thing since sliced bread.
#153SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, wow reacts on 'button up' events and not button downs. If I were to really really min-max things I would try G15 macros with only button-up then pause. The reason I don't is because you're pretty much flagging yourself as an obvious g15 (ab)user.

With this said, here's what it look like in the G15 app:
4 (button down)
4 (button up)
wait 0.025s

I've been using macros following that format for months (years?). I've never tripped over the blizzard security thing (damn the name escapes me) or had a ban or something.

I wonder how you had problems with repeat options. When you right-click on the G15 keys on the application so you can write/edit the macro, theres a repeat option in the right-click menu. You can select repeat or toggle.
#154SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rominus
Well, I've copied my Mage over 3 times to the PTR Test servers.

I spec the first copy 10/48/3, the second copy 3/0/58, and my last copy 40/0/21

I've noticed that 10/48/3 is definitely providing the most of the damage increase, followed by deep frost, then Arcane/Frost. However, In the deep fire spec I'm losing Ice Block which in these late BT/Hyjal fights is so clutch (Archimonde, Supremus, Azgalor, Etc.)

At what cost am i giving up too much to keep ice block? I mean as a personal preference I think living takes precedence in certain fights like Archimonde. But In a fight like RoS is surviving more important than burning the boss down? Suggestions.
#155SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Keyne
Logical Arguments

Originally Posted by Hidden View Post
There are also 2 additional advantages of Frost when doing trash:
  • The main nuke (Frostbolt) stacks the debuff, so you get at least some benefit from it while you get practically none from improved Scorch as it's not worth to Scorch up an enemy that's dying in 15 seconds anyway.
  • Ignite plain sucks on trash compared to 200% crits, when you have some critluck on a trash mob, you may lose a lot of damage due to the way ignite works currently when another spell crits while ignite is on the mob. For example a 15 second fight with 100% crits and 1000 DPS noncrit main nukes for both specs:
     Time |       Fire       |       Frost       
     2.5  |                  |     5000 Crit     
     3.0  |    4500 Crit     |                   
     5.0  |    900 Ignite    |     5000 Crit     
     6.0  |    4500 Crit     |                   
     7.5  |                  |     5000 Crit     
     8.0  |   1350 Ignite    |                   
     9.0  |    4500 Crit     |                   
     10.0 |                  |     5000 Crit     
     11.0 |   1575 Ignite    |                   
     12.0 |    4500 Crit     |                   
     12.5 |                  |     5000 Crit     
     14.0 |  1687.5 Ignite   |                   
     15.0 |    4500 Crit     |     5000 Crit     
    Total |  28012.5 Damage  |    30000 Damage   
The logic used in both of these arguments is quite poor. You are assuming that involving scorch in your trash rotation as a firemage is inferior to not using it, and thus that the optimum fire strategy on trash is inferior to frost; essentially only because WC and FrostB are a package deal. Both of these assertions are made without providing proof to your audience (and I would suspect that you came to this conclusion without even providing proof to yourself, that is, you are going on a hunch.*) You are also providing a wildly unrealistic (for many reasons) example comparing the way the two trees handle critical strikes to support spec'ing frost. Yes, there are ways to construct things so that frost is better, but this involves achieving things that are no where near to attainable in game. There is a method in economics for quantifying the output of a complex function (that is, something that has so many variables and often confounding factors that are impossible to accurately model) by assuming the worst set of conditions for the argument you are trying to support. If the worst case for your side of the argument yields better results than the best case for your opponent, it can be reasonably argued that your case is 'better'. You do pretty much the opposite here. You are assuming the best case for frost and pretty much the worst case (again, for many reasons) for fire and asserting that concluding that frost must be better is reasonable. It is not.

* Post Script: MY hunch is that the best strategy for a firemage to approach trash is scorch till five debuffs are up, then spam fireball until you estimate that you are about to cast a fireball that will not land before the mob dies, at which time you scorch, then fireblast, then acquire a new target. I haven't seen/done a proof for this, but I would be surprised if deep fire mages can do better than this. Obviously, I think this strategy is better than pretty much anything a frost mage can do.

Last edited by Keyne : 10/18/07 at 7:01 PM.
#156SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zure
Frost's advantage on trash comes from:
*WC stacking from your main nuke.
*Frost being relatively less reliant on WC than fire is on Imp Scorch (and on trash your relative 5 stack uptime for both is lower).
*Fully frontloaded crit damage.
*Dead time between pulls allowing the WE cooldown to tick, as WE is worth more dmg than combustion.
*Greater survivability w Barrier + Block.
*Ability to reduce all spell pushback to zero by shifting to 2 pc T4 for pushback intensive pulls (scorch always has 30% chance).


Fire's advantages on trash come from:
*No partial resists on sub-lvl 73 trash.
*Scorch might be cast earlier than frostbolt due to it's lower damage and the backloaded nature of ignite.
*Less push backs from the interrupts/aoes we see on many trash mobs using standard gear.
*Greater spell diversity allows for pumping damage in at the last second through scorch/fireblast.
*Greater damage potential while moving, due to a superior fireblast.
*Imp scorch up sooner than WC, based on an educated guess that more mages will be fire than frost in 2.3.


It doesn't seem possible to decide which does more damage overall on trash. Knowing which trash mobs you will be facing makes all the difference in the world. I would hardly call the chart posted above unproductive, as it shows a situation in which the ignite mechanic results in a substantial loss in damage.
#157SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Sackobones
In a theory of multi spell function allowing some use (though not as effective) of arcane blast and missles and taking raid mana longevity into consideration with the mana efficiency of frost I came up with a weird little build I can't decide how I feel about.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The reason is the meditation talent adds 30% of your spirit in combat situations, the uniteruptable AM allows for its use in pushback situations (unsure if that is even useful) and clearcasting for mana efficiency.

This has everything but the aoe related talents, shatter, and cooldown talent Iceflows. Its a totally raid centric build stacking dps related talents as much as possible and not so much focus on trash related talents.

Opinions? (take it easy on me, it was a whimsical talent build that struck me as I was looking at the new meditation talent change)

Depending on mana efficiency you could replace mana pots with destruction pots as a possible 2 minute cooldown burner and you still have survival talents.

Last edited by Sackobones : 10/18/07 at 2:51 PM.
#158SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Thoughts

Zure:

Expected Value = Probability of an event occurring weighted by the Value of the associated event

EV(Situation in chart) = ('Gains' associated with spec'ing frost instead of fire) times (Zero, which is essentially the probability of this event, or even one remotely close to it, happening.)

In this sense, I disagree. That chart was completely unproductive because the initial conditions needed for it to be true are out of the realm of possibility.

Sackobones:

I would be surprised if one could show that casting a pushback-immune AM is superior DPS to a pushback-vulnerable Frostbolt, but I'm not saying that it is unprovable. If you believe that AM is better than FrB in this regard, the 5 points in the tree might be worth it. If it is proved that it is not however, AM likely will never be cast, and thus the points are wasted. If you dont AM, the value of having arcane meditation goes down, as frost is already generally not mana intenstive. That being said, given you don't care so much about trash as much as you do boss encounters, there are not many valuable alternatives to how to spend these iffy talent points. There is only one talent that you chose NOT to invest in that could be argued to have an impact on how much you contribute to killing a raid boss: magic attunement. No other talents are relevant in this regard.* So to make a long story short, if all you care about is how well you DPS a boss, how you chose to spend your talents points could very well be wrong, but it wouldn't matter in the context of boss-killing, because you have 61 point available, and only 42 or so of them are relevent.

* Maybe if you spend your arcane points in a way for you to pick up PoM, but clearly the gains from this DPS wise are negligible.
#159SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kythos
i love this thread.

My question is. IF i go RAIDING frost in 2.3

how much spell haste do i need?

how much damage over all?
#160SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
I find it amusing that nobody took the time to note that fire would clearly have finished with scorch/fireblast due to travel time. This itself would have closed the gap. Then again your fireballs/scorch/fireblast would have the +20% execute bonus.
#161SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Hidden View Post
There are also 2 additional advantages of Frost when doing trash:[list][*]The main nuke (Frostbolt) stacks the debuff, so you get at least some benefit from it while you get practically none from improved Scorch as it's not worth to Scorch up an enemy that's dying in 15 seconds anyway.
Yes it absolutely is.
#162SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post
Hmm I didn't see it mentioned, but anyone think using 2 piece T4 would be viable for the heavy push back fights like najentus and p2 RoS etc? I know this would break the 4 piece t6 for those that have it but for those of us that are still mid BT progression, I think 2 piece t4 to break 4 piece t5 would be a decent option for pushback fights especially for frost specs.
This is what I do while frost specced (still working on Archi), and it might even be worth it over T6 on an extremely pushback-aggravated fight ala Vaelstrasz, though nothing else like that comes to mind.
#163SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
Keyne, I in no way am sure that without Empowered arcane missles that it would out dps frost with push back. But if you go in enough to get to Arcane med you have 2 choices for points.

The idea comes in for AE, AB, and mana regen to dip into arcane. Since AE is the most effective aoe having the threat reduction and crit bonus to go with it. the 5/5 arcane missles may have a use somewhere or you can squeeze it in a talent to the left .

There is a loose point in the build that can finish off one talent or dip into starting any other talent in the frost tree.
#164SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Keyne
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
Keyne, I in no way am sure that without Empowered arcane missles that it would out dps frost with push back. But if you go in enough to get to Arcane med you have 2 choices for points.

The idea comes in for AE, AB, and mana regen to dip into arcane. Since AE is the most effective aoe having the threat reduction and crit bonus to go with it. the 5/5 arcane missles may have a use somewhere or you can squeeze it in a talent to the left .

There is a loose point in the build that can finish off one talent or dip into starting any other talent in the frost tree.
If AM doesnt out dps frostbolt, I dont see how it is castable given the spec philosophy you are imposing on yourself. If AM isnt castable, its not worth the tier 1 talents. This is especially true as it appears that you are putting more points into tier 1 than the 5 that you need to get to tier 2.

If I were forcing myself to go deep frost, splashing 18 points in the arcane tree to get arcane meditation, I would probably elect to get something like:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Differences:

-5 Imp. AM (never gonna cast it anyways)
+2 Magic Atunement (Amp/Damp is likely an underutilized skill, and as such is more valuable than usual because most mages probably won't pick it up)
+2 Arcane Focus ( because of elemental precision, you will need 13% hit from gear to be hit capped. Once you are capped, each marginal point of hit rating is worthless. Therefore you need at least 2 points in Arcane Focus. Doesn't really matter if your 5th tier 1 point is in 3/3 AF or 1/5 Imp. AM, as they are both completely worthless.)
-2 Permafrost (bosses are immune to chills, unless I am mistaken, and you said you dont care about anything besides bosses)
+3 Imp CoC (I haven't done/seen any numbers crunched on this one, but I have a suspicion that, in some meaningful way, a fully talented CoC is 'better' than an AE in situations where you would need an AoE spell.

As I tried to say before, it is not so important how if you invest in some of these talents, as they are of secondary importance if your two goals are: be deep frost and get arcane meditation.

Last edited by Keyne : 10/18/07 at 7:32 PM.
#165SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zerase
Had been reading over the thread and saw many people mention optimum gear setups and such. I played every spec (regemming is indeed a pain) and we have everything on farm. However, I was curious what exactly the optimum gear setup would be for both a Deep Frost and Deep Fire build?

I've, albeit not much, toyed around with WoWEquip some to see certain gear setups. I'm most certain come 2.3 I'm diving back into the old 10/48/3 spec with the MSD nerf and removal on coefficient. However, I had originaly set up my ideal gear as an arcane spec, and thus, it's now dated with me switching to fire.

Any and all helps rocks.
#166SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zure
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I find it amusing that nobody took the time to note that fire would clearly have finished with scorch/fireblast due to travel time. This itself would have closed the gap. Then again your fireballs/scorch/fireblast would have the +20% execute bonus.
I did! ;-).

I think it's about time someone mentioned that timeless advice: spec for max damage on bosses, not trash.
#167SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Blaaksunn
I took this quote from the other mage thread. If these results hold close to true, it looks like each spec will have its boss encouter where it will outshire the other 2 specs. Sorry for the cross post. But this information is too good to just leave it get buried over in the other thread.


[Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work?
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
THEORYCRAFT RESULTS WHOA

Hey, the sky isn't falling. I went ahead and assumed a 10% proc rate for our new MSD friend, and 0 ms casting latency thanks to blizzard's fix. Ok the scaling might help that out a lot. Anyway, I went ahead and did some comparisons using my new module. I'll be releasing a spreadsheet update too, but the spreadsheet is still limited to the "Patchwerk scenario", for the most part. Programatic approach tells the whole story. I'll have these calculations visible before too long.

Ok, how did I build this? Basically I included everything, shaman totems, bloodlust, etc. I did NOT include malediction. I DID include Molten Fury, and furthermor assumed that Bloodlust is popped during Molten Fury. I also assumed bloodlust would stack against arcane power and water elemental. Realistic, I think. For arcane damage, I added 72 spell damage, to represent the amount of spell damage you might gain for dropping hit gear. This number was derived by theoretically dropping 8 hit gems (64 hit rating) and replacing them with 8 spell damage gems (at 9 damage each). Guess this would be even better in BT gear? Hmm.

Anyway, I finally got around to making a complete calculation, which means everything included. Not just the extra buffs Bloodlust and Molten Fury, but also options for interruption, pushback, and target switching.

So the theorycraft simulations are not just stand still and spam fireball for 6 minutes, they account for scorching, buff ramping, timer effects, etc. I assumed there was a second fire mage to help with scorching, fairly common. This doesn't mean "scorch bitch" (a concept which is inherently retarded), this means help, as in the debuff goes up twice as fast. Awesome. No such luck for our poor frost simulation, though. He has to stack Winter's Chill on his own.

So how does our "Patchwerk scenario" look? Meaning standing still and doing your spells and scorches for 5 minutes. Pretty much like this:

Fire | fire1: 1821.98
Frost | frost1: 1837.29
Arcane | arcane1: 1651.97

Yeah, that's a big WTF. Apparently if the water elemental actually stays alive, and you never have to move or deal with pushback, frost fucking owns. Actually isn't a huge shock, considering how often the water elemental actually stays alive... so let's assume he dies about half the time, for starters. But we want to make this look even more realistic. So let's add some more encounter effects.

The first is simple enough: interruption. Not like a counterspell, but something that forces you to cancel a cast and move. Al'ar makes a flame patch and you need to go right fucking now. Sucks that you had 2 seconds on that frostbolt, wasted time there. Or in the case of AM, wasted mana, since you fire bolts at every second. Ok, cool, let's say there's an interruption every... 45 seconds. So to account for interrupt I added 3 seconds of downtime for moving, and half of the spell's casting time to represent the average lost casting time. This hurts fireball the most, because it has the most potential to lose casting time.

Fire | fire1: 1664.28
Frost | frost1: 1612.92
Arcane | arcane1: 1527.78

Ok, so it's counting the 3 seconds downtime as dps time, so we're looking at a reduction around the board. Fire gets hit the most, arcane gets hit the least.

Now let's throw in pushback. Say you get hit maybe 5 times for the ecounter... or once every 60 seconds. Pushback reduces your channel bar by 1 second, so it has a slightly lesser effect on fast spells like scorch. Frost has no pushback resistance at all, and arcane is flat out unaffected. This is the result:

Fire | fire1: 1652.48
Frost | frost1: 1598.76
Arcane | arcane1: 1527.78

Ok, last thing is target switching. Say it's add time, you have to kill adds. Great. Fire needs to ramp scorch, frost needs to ramp WC, arcane can just nuke away at full potential. So let's say you switch targets 6 times during the fight. This is how it looks:

Fire | fire1: 1631.65
Frost | frost1: 1589.72
Arcane | arcane1: 1527.78

Ok, so fire is basically still dominating these numbers. If you count malediction for arcane spec, the nice 2.7% damage increase brings it up to 1568. Still less than frost.

So I was wrong, the sky has, in fact, fallen.

This was taken for around 1200 spell damage, if you drop down to about 1000 it's a little more even and you can justify arcane spec for encounters with a lot of interruption, switching, or pushback. Overall though fire just scales too well. The only thing I haven't considered is mixing in blast spamming, which could be considerably better with zero latency. I doubt a mana dump will make up for it, but you never know. Time to start buying Flamecaps.
With all this taken into account. I am really not sure which I will go with. Fire is looking more promising, but I have a while before I get the gear to support it. With my spell damage hovering around 1100-1050 as a fire spec mage, I may be slightly better off with AM spam. But patch 2.3 is a ways out. I pray for the devs to un-do the MSD nerf.
#168SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Zure View Post
I did! ;-).

I think it's about time someone mentioned that timeless advice: spec for max damage on bosses, not trash.
I think you might not be reading manly's post correctly. I could be wrong, but I believe he is talking in regards to the 15 second trash mob simulation. It is definitely true that the simulation doesn't take into account molten fury at the end of the mob's life and, if I'm interpretting Manly correctly, he is saying that he thinks it would be optimal to end with scorch/fireblast.
#169SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Start with scorch+fireblast. For a raid that brings say 3 mages (We actually tend to bring 3-4 because that's our most stable class of DPSrs; i know wtf:P), then you have 3-4 scorch up within 1.5 seconds and with some stupid amount of luck 3-4 fireblasts getting that 3-4 scorch stack then throw in a fireball or two and you already jumped way up. Scorch is the most forgotten magespell it seems, I've had numerous faceslaps with our mages for not using it, especially on bosses they tend to not give a f.

Any smart mage though knows that scorch+fireblast is usually easier to time at the end of a mobs life aswell due to no traveltime and shorter castingtime which is again an increase compared to those that attempt to squeeze of an additional fireball just to see the mob jump 5% to death.
#170SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Fireblast

Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
stuff
Hasn't it been shown that fireblast provides only marginal gains with heavy risk (that is, fireblast is not worth casting as a part of a rotation)? I seem to remember reading something in the mage threads about it being bad because you can't stopcast the GCD, so you lose DPS time due to latency after 'blast. Does this change in 2.3? (I don't have a char in the PTR to test myself)
#171SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Stinkerbelle
I have a simple question that I feel must be a common one, yet don't remember ever seeing it addressed.

Since casts get delayed when taking damage, how much time is the delay?

(I realize this is a bit of a topic detour, but believe it or not, this is the most relevant thread I found after searching key words "cast delay damage." Also, Manly's posts about tuning timed G15 macros made me feel confident people here must know the answer. Apologies if it turns out I overlooked a prominent FAQ somewhere.)

Edit: OK, I've since learned that the keyword I needed to search was pushback. But I haven't found a specific value for pushback duration.

Last edited by Stinkerbelle : 10/19/07 at 4:47 AM.
#172SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Some quick and dirty math on how Fire Blast affects Fireball spam.

Fire Blast - 725 base, 1.5/3.5 = 42.9% +damage, +4% crit
Fireball - 719 base, 115% +damage, +x% haste, +5% damage at 4/5 T6
All specs get +10% (FP), +3% (PWF), +4% (MF), +5% (Misery), +10% (CoE), +15% (Scorch) damage. Ignoring hit, it affect boths specs the same way.

In 1.5s, we can cast 1 Fire Blast, or 0.5*(1+haste%) Fireballs (ignoring latency). The redulting DPS difference is that damage difference divided by 7.5 (you can cast Fire Blast every 7.5s).
So, Fire Blast vs. Fireball in 1.5s is as follows:

Blue gear, 900 damage, 20% crit
2197 vs. 1675, 70 DPS difference

Epic gear and raid buffs, 2% haste (from MSD), 1300 damage, 30% crit
2757 vs. 2350, 54 DPS difference

Top end gear, 7% haste, T6 bonus, 1500 damage, 35% crit
3059 vs. 2976, 11 DPS difference.
I reread this post today and something struck me as not quite right. Fireball has everything going for it when compared to fireblast: haste, more contribution from +dmg (weighted for cast times), set bonuses, etc. Yet somehow fireblast comes out ahead at all three levels of gear in this simulation. I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem is derived from the math associated with the statement: "The resulting DPS difference is that damage difference divided by 7.5" The wording makes it a little unclear. What are you dividing by 7.5 and why? I'm fairly sure that to compare the DPS's of the two spells, you just plug all of the stats that affect the single spell's damage, then divide by 1.5 in the case of fireblast, and the net cast time in the case of fireball (3.0 weighted by haste bonus). I don't see where 7.5 comes into this equation.

I was sorta hesitant to write out this post as Roywyn appears to me to be fairly smart, and Vontre seemed to read it and not take issue, so I'm kinda afraid that I'M the one thats lost here. I'd like to get it sorted out, however, for posterity.
#173SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
Fireball has everything going for it when compared to fireblast: haste, more contribution from +dmg (weighted for cast times), set bonuses, etc. Yet somehow fireblast comes out ahead at all three levels of gear in this simulation

"The resulting DPS difference is that damage difference divided by 7.5" The wording makes it a little unclear. What are you dividing by 7.5 and why? I'm fairly sure that to compare the DPS's of the two spells, you just plug all of the stats that affect the single spell's damage, then divide by 1.5 in the case of fireblast, and the net cast time in the case of fireball (3.0 weighted by haste bonus). I don't see where 7.5 comes into this equation.
7.5s is the cooldown of Fire Blast.
Well, untalented, the cooldown is 8s, and you spec 0.5s off to do a 2*Fiba/1*FiBla rotation in 7.5 seconds. The alternative is spamming Fireball, which could be written as a 2*Fiba/0.5*Fiba rotation in 7.5 seconds.
So, the difference is that every 7.5s, you can either push your Fire Blast button, or your "one half Fireball" button. Actually, it would be a "1.5s shortened Fireball" button.
The resulting DPS then is the damage difference between the two buttons divided by 7.5s, as you can only push the button that often, every 7.5s.
Haste will cut that cycle to maybe 7.2s, but it won't make a huge diffence.

On why Fire Blast still comes out ahead there:
It's the inital damage. Fire Blast is an instant spell that does more damage than the 3 second cast time Fireball without gear. Fireball has far better scaling, but it only starts less than half as good. The gap closes rather slowly, and 4/5 T6 makes the biggest difference.

I didn't factor in latency/cast delays, which plays even further against Fire Blast. Poke Ventre's sheet for more data.
#174SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
Hasn't it been shown that fireblast provides only marginal gains with heavy risk (that is, fireblast is not worth casting as a part of a rotation)? I seem to remember reading something in the mage threads about it being bad because you can't stopcast the GCD, so you lose DPS time due to latency after 'blast.
He was talking about trashmobs and how to "finish" them... if the mob is dead after fireblast who cares about GCD or rotation?

Originally Posted by Zerase View Post
... However, I had originaly set up my ideal gear as an arcane spec, and thus, it's now dated with me switching to fire.
I planned my gear for arcane spec and fire spec and ended up gemming 12 spelldamage everywhere I could, only a blue (purple) one in my shoulders for MSD (needs more blue than yellow gems). With 2.3 I'm gonna get the new wand from heroic badges and put another blue (purple) one in there for CSD (exactly 2 blues).
Going for full spelldamage is best for arcane and for fire as well, it was even in 2.2 with coefficient nerf and will be even better in 2.3 without the nerf.
#175SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3sgt101
Run of the mill mages

Hi,

I have 3 questions

1. What about 33/28/0 or similar?
2. Int seems to be ignored in these discussions, what impact does a big int pool + a criting spec with MOE and Arcane Concentration have?
3. Can we have some discussion around run of the mill gear - I think it's fair to assume 5 tailored + some T4, but T5 and more is beyond many peoples progression... I think more mages will benefit from a wider analysis.

Cheers,

Simon
#176SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by sgt101 View Post
Hi,

I have 3 questions

1. What about 33/28/0 or similar?
2. Int seems to be ignored in these discussions, what impact does a big int pool + a criting spec with MOE and Arcane Concentration have?
3. Can we have some discussion around run of the mill gear - I think it's fair to assume 5 tailored + some T4, but T5 and more is beyond many peoples progression... I think more mages will benefit from a wider analysis.

Cheers,

Simon
1) 33.28.0 has been proven to scale worse than full fire, and to top that off does not benefit from elemental precision. There currently is some debate whether AB/Sc rotations are viable but I have yet to see anyone proposing serious viability from such a setup. The major problem with it would be spellhit: Half your spells needing more than 200hit, and half needing only 64. This causes extremely bad synergy from gear: Hit rate benefits half the rotation massively, and spelldmg benefits the other half massively. A sloppy build for sure. As for 33.28.0 fireball spam, as I said, it's simply not up to 10.48.3's standards.

2) Unless you're running Mind Mastery, int is by and large an irrelevant stat; Even with gnome 41 arcane with spellfire, it -still- is debateable whether int gives enough of a benefit. Point of proof: top-tier mages -still- take 12dmg gems over any intbuff. Stacking crit in gear is accepted as the Worst thing you can do in terms of flat damage, and crit gained from int is incredibly bad. While not constant, for the purposes of practicality you can think of int as roughly +70int = 1%crit. So 3 int is about same as 1 crit rate, and 1 crit rate is about the same as 0.65 spell damage. This is why int is ignored.

3) Vontre's sheet is open to everyone. Park your gear's stats in and do the maths. Don't expect people to turn up, as though it's their job, take your requirements and run your numbers for you. EJ is not a renta-math service.

Edit: Never EVER sign your post, we are not blind and your name is coveniently glued next to your post. This is not a letter to your gas company.
#177SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
1) 33.28.0 has been proven to scale worse than full fire ... As for 33.28.0 fireball spam, as I said, it's simply not up to 10.48.3's standards.
It was proven given certain amount of spell dmg way back before 2.1 raiding, however now we have the coefficient change undone and getting 203 hit rating really isn't hard given BT/Hyjal gear. If it has indeed been proven with the coefficient nerf undone I would like to see a link to said tests and conclusions.
#178SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
2) Unless you're running Mind Mastery, int is by and large an irrelevant stat; Even with gnome 41 arcane with spellfire, it -still- is debateable whether int gives enough of a benefit. Point of proof: top-tier mages -still- take 12dmg gems over any intbuff. Stacking crit in gear is accepted as the Worst thing you can do in terms of flat damage, and crit gained from int is incredibly bad. While not constant, for the purposes of practicality you can think of int as roughly +70int = 1%crit. So 3 int is about same as 1 crit rate, and 1 crit rate is about the same as 0.65 spell damage. This is why int is ignored.
No, this is not true. Int for arcane specced mages in 2.3 will be even better than it is now, I remember seeing Kavan's math on direct impact of int on his performance and it is indeed not as bad as you make it out to be. Top Tier mages aren't by default smarter than everyone else, it's generally agreed on that 12 spell dmg is the best choise, I don't think it's an exact science though as alot of things factor in (meta gem requirements, socket bonuses, hit rating and probably something else that I've forgot) Stacking 12 spell dmg gems could easily be attributed to the fact that MSD requirements made it more or less impossible to use yellow gems.
#179SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
It was proven given certain amount of spell dmg way back before 2.1 raiding, however now we have the coefficient change undone and getting 203 hit rating really isn't hard given BT/Hyjal gear. If it has indeed been proven with the coefficient nerf undone I would like to see a link to said tests and conclusions.
Are you talking about the old scorch spam or actually spamming fireball with 33/28?

10-48-3 (10xfire, 1xScorch) : 1862dps

33/28 (10xfire, 1xScorch, AP): 1707(.91667) + 2415(.08333) = 1766dps

33/28 scorch spam : noth worth mentioning since the AP scorch spam is only 1640dps.

note - 10x fireball is possible with the amount of haste I have on the spreadsheet.

33/28 is considered for a 3 minute time period. It is also using Pom/pyro during the AP.

Last edited by Cardynal : 10/19/07 at 11:53 AM.
#180SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pheroz
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Stacking 12 spell dmg gems could easily be attributed to the fact that MSD requirements made it more or less impossible to use yellow gems.
That's garbage. Stacking spell damage gems is done becuase that gives the highest dps return, regardless of metagem requirements or spec. The MSD requirement just gave further incentive to ignore socket bonuses and go straight spell damage.

While not worthless, Intellect has been a poor stat for mages. Arcane spec makes better use of it making it merely a sub-optimal stat. Other then moving evocate to be based of Intellect, what 2.3 change makes intellect better? Intellect has a horrible return for dps, the only real benefit of it is longevity. Since your starting mana pool is not overly important to your longevity, with Shadow priests, JoW, and Mana pots all providing better returns on longevity (spirit does to, and even moreso for arcane mages come 2.3).

Stacking intellect does not seem to be a worthwhile effort for any mage.
#181SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Why take my text out of context. If you need the hit the Veiled Pyrestone will be > Runed Crimson Spinel in damage returns, no?

My point wasn't that stacking 12's was SOLELY based on it's damage returns, it was that looking at so called Top Tier mages and deriving that 12 spell damage is always the best could easily be because of the MSD requirements. There are quite a few of socket boni that would be worth taking if it wasn't for meta requirements.
#182SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Are you talking about the old scorch spam or actually spamming fireball with 33/28?

10-48-3 (10xfire, 1xScorch) : 1862dps

33/28 (10xfire, 1xScorch, AP): 1707(.91667) + 2415(.08333) = 1766dps

33/28 scorch spam : noth worth mentioning since the AP scorch spam is only 1640dps.

note - 10x fireball is possible with the amount of haste I have on the spreadsheet.

33/28 is considered for a 3 minute time period. It is also using Pom/pyro during the AP.
Is this spreadsheet taking into account the coefficient changes? What equipment are those numbers for?
#183SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Jayde
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Yes it absolutely is.
This is a question I've had for a while, actually...as it would take pretty subtantial modeling to figure out. At what point does the Scorch ramp-up not become worth it? Is it always worth it, or are there time-value points where straight Fireball/Fireblast is better? (Or perhaps less than a full Scorch stack... or Scorch/Fireblast, etc. Number of Mages/stacking time may be a factor here too?)

Given all the numbers to consider here, I'm having a difficult time napkin mathing this one.
#184SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 fangar
With the changes coming to MSD and the long overdue unnerf to fireball and frostbolt how are people seeing the benefit if any for those T5 mages who have 2 piece arcane and have been tearing up the meters with am AB/AM/AM/AB spam.

My hunch would be that AB spam is still king on trash, but 10/48/3 and a 6FB:1scorch rotation would provide better returns than working in AB into your rotation. Has anyone done any testing here?
#185SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pheroz
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Why take my text out of context. If you need the hit the Veiled Pyrestone will be > Runed Crimson Spinel in damage returns, no?

My point wasn't that stacking 12's was SOLELY based on it's damage returns, it was that looking at so called Top Tier mages and deriving that 12 spell damage is always the best could easily be because of the MSD requirements. There are quite a few of socket boni that would be worth taking if it wasn't for meta requirements.
We can break down smaller point to smaller point and lose sight of the overall conversation, which provides no information to anyone who is reading this thread and is generally unproductive. Or we can look at the bigger picture.

The question was asked about the value of stacking Intellect, and Pint answered that the value of doing so is low. He used the example of top mages socketing for pure spell damage as an example of his point. Again, the main point being that gearing with a focus of getting as much Intellect as possible is a bad idea.

You refuted him with several points. Mainly being that, Int is getting better in 2.3 and that just becuase some people do it, it doesn't mean that its the best option and their could be other resons for it.

Now, it's true, that the metagem requirements of the MSD (the defacto best metagem pre 2.3) discourage using yellow gems. But thats not the only reason top mages gem for pure spell damage. Pure spell damage red gems are the gems that give the best dps returns. The only caveat to that is in the case of spell hit for mages below the cap. None of that changes the fact that Intellect is a suboptimal stat for mages with regards to their dps. So really, PintofBrew's point had the implicit statement - "Good mages don't gem for Intellect". Since the primary dps increasing affect of Intellect is to increase spell critical chance, and gemming for spell crit is something that is done at a last resort (note, your using spell hit gems rather then spell crit gems in your example), Pint's original point of 'stacking Intellect (and spell crit) is not a recipe for optimal dps' is still something that we should agree with.

Quibbling over semantics and ignoring the larger point are both confusing and detrimental to discussion.

In reference to your latest post, you again focus on a smaller point without paying notice to the larger picture. As such, your point is confusing rather then enlightening. The whole picture is something like this:

Spell hit is one of the most important stats, however, since high end gear has so much of it and their is a hard cap, you rarely see it socketted for.
Assuming hit is not needed and ignoring socket bonuses, pure damage gems priovide the best dps return. However, there are often cases where becuase of the socket bonus, a mage could get high dps benefit from socketting a orange gem.
The MSD gem requirement discouraged socketting yellow or orange gems, becuase each one would require a corresponding purple or blue gem which would lead to a dps loss often despite socket bonuses.

That's pretty much the whole picture, is it not? Everything there says that it is in the mages best interest to focus on spell damage in situations where spell hit is not needed, unless they can get significantly more spell crit rating then damage (not the case with gems). None of that refutes PintofBrews statement that stacking intellect and crit' is bad for dps, nor does it make the spell damage focused gem choices of high end mages a bad example of what is a good dps choice.
#186SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Vhad: While I'll concede that perhaps my evidence of gem choice is a poor example of relative quality of int over spelldmg, I will stand by my guns and maintain that the return from Int isn't good enough to vouch stacking int over spell damage, irrespective of spec.

I will accept that given spellfire set (netting a total of 32% int -> damage) and lowbie gear, perhaps indeed int is good enough. Perhaps if we're talking pre-kara and kara gear it's a decent choice, also because at that level not all raiders will have a shadow-priest to feed their arcane-induced mana habit.

But for SSC+ raiding? I have yet to see conclusive evidence pointing to any validation that int is useful. Indeed, once you lose the spellfire bonus it becomes clearly inferior as far as I can see.

Edit:

While i was typing this Pheroz answered in a much more coherent response than I did. See above for more coherence and better quality.
#187SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Apparently, very few people are aware that [Runed Crimson Spinel] wasn't meant to be 12 dmg. If you follow the ilvl formulas, they took the blue gems and upgraded them from there. As such, runed crimson spinel was intended to be 11.5 dmg, and since rounding is done on even numbers, it was rounded to 12. Also, dual color epic gems are typically rounded down (as far as caster gems are concerned).

This alone to me is enough to not consider using anything else than +12 whereas possible, given the dps return irregardless of spec.

Another small detail. I do not believe any socket bonus is worth taking on hyjal/BT gear. The sole exception is [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord]. The problem is that they seem to follow the general formula that they give +2 damage per on-color gem. If there are 3 sockets, then you get +5 damage socket bonus (even worse). This means, given the epic gem values, that any 3 piece socket bonus will never be worth taking (until they begin to put red sockets). So this leaves only 1 and 2 socket. Assuming there are no red socket, which there very very rarely is anyway, this means any time you have 1 blue socket you just annihilated the socket bonus. The cost of taking 1 blue gem in your gear is simply too high to justify the rule of thumb +2 dmg/socket they put everywhere.

With this said, if they had yellow/yellow +4dmg it would be worth serious consideration. But there is no such thing currently. Its always blue +2, or yellow/blue +4, or yellow/yellow/blue +5. Then of course, if they put red sockets that would allow red/blue +4 to be workable and probably worth it. But again, that's the sole possible exceptions.
#188SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Shrug, you guys are right. I just think it's dangerous dealing in extremes (this or that and theres no alternative approach). The overall picture is unchanged so we agree regardless.

Do you really think it's pointless to get socket bonuses on tier6 chest and naj'entus boots given the CSD requirements?
#189SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Is this spreadsheet taking into account the coefficient changes? What equipment are those numbers for?
Yes, it is Vontre's spreadsheet modified for for the coefficient change + a few items from ZA that prove to be better dmg than BT/Hyjal gear.

And i actually just realized that I used the same gear for both calculations...Here is the calculation with 204 hit and a little less dmg.

33/28 (10xfire, 1xScorch, AP): 1733(.91667) + 2453.02(.08333) = 1793dps

10/48/3 gear

Cowl of the Illidari High Lord
Hellfire-Encased Pendant
Mantle of the Tempest
Cloak of the Illidari Council
Robes of the Tempest
Bracers of Nimble Thought
Tempest of Chaos
Gloves of the Tempest
Belt of Blasting
Leggings of the Tempest
Slippers of the Seacaller
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
The Skull of Gul'dan
Hex Shrunken Head
Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Carved Witch Doctor's Stick


33/28/0 gear (added 2 6dmg/5hit gems as well)

Cowl of the Illidari High Lord
Translucent Spellthread Necklace
Mantle of the Tempest
Cloak of the Illidari Council
Robes of the Tempest
Bracers of Nimble Thought
Tempest of Chaos
Gloves of the Tempest
Belt of Blasting
Leggings of the Tempest
Slippers of the Seacaller
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
The Skull of Gul'dan
Hex Shrunken Head
Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Wand of the Forgotten Star

Last edited by Cardynal : 10/19/07 at 2:16 PM.
#190SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Ah well, thanks for the answer. I guess it's 10 48 3 or don't raid in 2.3.
#191SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Apparently, very few people are aware that [Runed Crimson Spinel] wasn't meant to be 12 dmg. If you follow the ilvl formulas, they took the blue gems and upgraded them from there. As such, runed crimson spinel was intended to be 11.5 dmg, and since rounding is done on even numbers, it was rounded to 12. Also, dual color epic gems are typically rounded down (as far as caster gems are concerned).

This alone to me is enough to not consider using anything else than +12 whereas possible, given the dps return irregardless of spec.
The rounding bonus shouldn't be a factor in whether or not you want to use runed gems. The reason one should pick runed gems is that the gem has a comparative advantage in contributing to DPS when compared to the alternatives.
#192SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, its pretty obvious that if I could pick between 11 dmg and 6dmg/5crit, I would always go for 11 dmg, given a realistic high end spec and gear. 12 dmg just really pushes it over the edge.

Anyway, to me its not even a matter or whipping out the spreadsheet before every gem. Its just common sense. You will reach hit cap without hit gems. Your next best choice is all reds. Reds it is.

(not to speak that hit gem have no effect on sub-73 mobs, which does matter for bosses with adds)
#193SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Groglox
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Ah well, thanks for the answer. I guess it's 10 48 3 or don't raid in 2.3.
I was under the impression frost does competitive damage in addition to providing excellent utility next patch.
#194SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Frost does well depending on a number of things.

1- elemental staying alive. this is crucial. look at deep frost dps on teron its quite pathetic.
2- the timing of fights must match properly the water elemental cooldown. What makes the spec good is the fact that you can WE->snap->WE->WE. The longer the fight lasts, the less you can 'stack' water elementals, thus greatly diminishing the dps. Since usually theorycraft is done on 5 min fights, you get 3 water elementals. If the theorycraft is done on a 4 min fight then suddently you only get 2 full water elementals and the dps plummets.

In other words, frost dps depends upon the WE cooldowns and how many you can fit in the fight.
#195SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I made my wishlist with WoWEquip, getting 4 set t6 with the Kaz'rogal legs + all the other best pieces. Getting CSD once the patch hits and fitting in 2 blue gems to meet its requirements I get:

Naj'entus boots and Tempest mantle: 2 spell dmg vs 5 crit rating. 10 crit rating > 4 spell dmg unless I'm entirely mistaken?

T6 gloves, 4 spell dmg vs 5 crit rating, this one I'm not entirely sure about but inclined to go for the crit.
#196SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] + [Leggings of the Tempest]

EDIT: I'd probably go for pyrestone on t6 gloves. Mostly because crimson spinels are very contested. I expect slightly better dps from pyrestone anyway.

Last edited by manly : 10/19/07 at 5:34 PM.
#197SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I'm still not sold on the CSD over the nerfed MSD. All of my calculations put them within a couple of dps apart depending on the gear setup. The only difference I can really see right now is CSD will return more mana from critting more often and the MSD will spend more mana since it is around 33 haste rating by my calculations (that's calculated at a 15% proc rate and 90 passive haste). However the MSD should do more damage on fights where there are periods that you are moving around since it benefits more from less casts during the cooldown.


And yes, putting a 6dmg/5crit gem in the tempest gloves does give slightly higher dps than a 12dmg gem. And by slightly I mean .3dps by the spreadsheet =)
#198SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Blaaksunn
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I made my wishlist with WoWEquip, getting 4 set t6 with the Kaz'rogal legs + all the other best pieces. Getting CSD once the patch hits and fitting in 2 blue gems to meet its requirements I get:

Naj'entus boots and Tempest mantle: 2 spell dmg vs 5 crit rating. 10 crit rating > 4 spell dmg unless I'm entirely mistaken?

T6 gloves, 4 spell dmg vs 5 crit rating, this one I'm not entirely sure about but inclined to go for the crit.
Care to share that wishlist please? I would like to see it. Maybe I am blind and or just dumb but I am not comming up to the hit cap for a fire spec.
#199SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I made my wishlist with WoWEquip, getting 4 set t6 with the Kaz'rogal legs + all the other best pieces. Getting CSD once the patch hits and fitting in 2 blue gems to meet its requirements I get:

Naj'entus boots and Tempest mantle: 2 spell dmg vs 5 crit rating. 10 crit rating > 4 spell dmg unless I'm entirely mistaken?

T6 gloves, 4 spell dmg vs 5 crit rating, this one I'm not entirely sure about but inclined to go for the crit.
Item stat value with the old MSD (MSD doesn't affect stat values, but CSD makes crit and intellect ~6% better, if we go from 210% to 216.3% crits. Need some CSD info from PTR.):

http://elitistjerks.com/506021-post2099.html

4 dmg and 5 crit are pretty much the same. Crit should be ahead by 1% for the CSD.

With a blue gem in T6 leggings and 2*red in a belt, you get +32 dmg.
With a red gem in T6 leggings and orange/purple in a belt, you get +28 dmg, +5 crit.
Same as above, 4 dmg or 5 crit.

T6 hat + channeled pants should be a tiny bit better than T6 pants + illidari cowl.


We're talking about 0.05 DPS differences for the gem choices, mind you.

Edit:
Originally Posted by Blaaksunn View Post
Care to share that wishlist please? I would like to see it. Maybe I am blind and or just dumb but I am not comming up to the hit cap for a fire spec.
Gear setups of choice in the bolded link.

Edit:
4 dmg vs. 5 crit is a wash. Cowl/Leggings is whatever you get first. Hell, I could live with 5/5 T6.
The bigger deal still is MSD vs. CSD, how CSD, and if we whined enough to reduce the MSD cooldown.

Last edited by Roywyn : 10/19/07 at 6:06 PM.
#200SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, I guess that if the difference goes down to 0.05dps we can call it a wash and go for whichever drops first. I do liken the idea that cowl/t6 pants already provide the 2 blue gems for CSD, in addition to have a better look (and not looking the exact same as s3 helm).
#201SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3epiphenom
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Item stat value with the old MSD (MSD doesn't affect stat values, but CSD makes crit and intellect ~6% better, if we go from 210% to 216.3% crits. Need some CSD info from PTR.)
Just tested it yesterday. CSD is functioning under the 2.1.2 RED values: base crits are enhanced to 154.5%, frost crits with ice shards are 209%. I didn't test anything else, but I consider these two tests to be reasonably conclusive (it would be bizarre in the extreme if the formula deviated for other types of crits). Deep fire crits would therefore probably be 216.3%.
#202SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Evalara
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Ah well, thanks for the answer. I guess it's 10 48 3 or don't raid in 2.3.
Maybe at the t6 level, but at the t4 and t5 levels that's a pretty silly statement. Besides the trivially obvious exception of Al'ar, I've found a deep frost spec to be spectacular on Morogrim, lots of folks use frost mages as strider kiters on Vasjh, and I generally find 33/28/0 or 40/21/0 or other such variants superior for AoE fights like Hydross and Solarian. I've spent most of my time, since just after we first downed Prince, as 33/28/0 and any claims that it's not "viable" are nonsense, especially if you have the misfortune to be without a shadowpriest.
#203SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Yeah, I knew someone was going to react to it, was mostly for my own guild where I have to justify my raid spot with 5 active mages 4,5 warlocks an elemental shaman and a moonkin...

I still stand by it though, if MSD was unchanged we would have 2 very competetive specs for high end raiding, now it's fire and respec for Illidan most likely.
#204SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Akron
On the "How Does Arcane Damage Work?" thread there was a nice discussion on 2.2 Arcane spec and the Spell Haste stat. The conclusions was that spell haste was very valuable for that particular spec as it amplified the proc-driven nature of AM spam as well as giving a raw DPS increase.

I'm sorry if this has been concluded previously in this very same thread (although I did not encounter it) , but I wish to ask about Spell Haste and 2.3 Deep Fire spec, which seems now to be the spec of choice again for high-end raiders.

Definitive answers?

Does 1% spell haste equal to 1% dps for Deep Fire? Just like 1% crit also is a 1% dps increase? How is that translated into spell damage in BT/T6 gear?

Spell haste is pretty cheap, only 15 rating for 1% haste, making it more economical than crit rating. Is this the stat of choice after reaching the hit cap?

Also - how does the new ZA/Badges gear (Ie. lots of spell haste) compare with the gear we have on live? The wand and the trinket have already been mentioned in previous posts, which seem very strong indeed - although Darkmoon: Crusade trinket vs the ZA trinket seems close?

Thank you
#205SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Akron View Post
On the "How Does Arcane Damage Work?" thread there was a nice discussion on 2.2 Arcane spec and the Spell Haste stat. The conclusions was that spell haste was very valuable for that particular spec as it amplified the proc-driven nature of AM spam as well as giving a raw DPS increase.

I'm sorry if this has been concluded previously in this very same thread (although I did not encounter it) , but I wish to ask about Spell Haste and 2.3 Deep Fire spec, which seems now to be the spec of choice again for high-end raiders.

Definitive answers?

Does 1% spell haste equal to 1% dps for Deep Fire? Just like 1% crit also is a 1% dps increase? How is that translated into spell damage in BT/T6 gear?

Spell haste is pretty cheap, only 15 rating for 1% haste, making it more economical than crit rating. Is this the stat of choice after reaching the hit cap?

Also - how does the new ZA/Badges gear (Ie. lots of spell haste) compare with the gear we have on live? The wand and the trinket have already been mentioned in previous posts, which seem very strong indeed - although Darkmoon: Crusade trinket vs the ZA trinket seems close?

Thank you

Not sure what the ratio is...but the best gear setup i could find has 90 haste on it. When i added some of the za items to vontre's spreadsheet to see how they stacked against the items out of BT/Hyjal...most of them fall pretty short as they're lacking in high dmg/crit and spend a lot of their points in haste.

ZA trinket (88 passive dmg) VS DC:C (78 passive dmg over 5 minutes as fire)

The 75 badge pants were lower dps when switching them w/ the channeled elements and having 4/5 t6.

The ZA haste boots were the closer to the naj boots than the haste pants were to the channeled elements...but still not greater.

The haste/dmg/hit ring is really close to the ring of ancient wisdom, but if you don't need the hit, it's a waste.

I'm actually expecting them to buff they Hyjal/BT gear this patch. Nothing has been said yet...but for other classes there are a lot of pieces of loot that are pretty close to being on par w/ BT/Hyjal loot. They've already said this patch is going to be on the PTR for a while.

Last edited by Cardynal : 10/19/07 at 9:14 PM.
#206SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
A lot of people seem to be under the notion that with the CURRENT version of MSD, stacking haste will somehow have a multiplicative effect on your dps. This is only true for procs that have a fixed duration, most notably Ashtongue Talisman of Insight. MSD and Lightning Capacitor don't get any special benefit from haste at all. Increasing your haste rating does not increase the percentage increase of damage you get from MSD. Spell haste rating bear absolutely no relevance to the MSD or Lightning Capacitor, at all. This is because these effects only work in an instantaneous moment, either at the proc or on the next spell. No matter how fast you make your spells go, they're always getting the same percentage of benefit from the procs.

To demonstrate this, I wrote a quick and dirty simulator in php that measures the percentage gain in dps from the MSD. The first is applied to arcane missiles at 5 seconds, the second to arcane missiles at 4 seconds. Here's the code for review:

define( "lag", .1 );

function simulation( $set_dmg, $set_cast, $set_proc ) {
	for( $x = 0; $x <= 10000; $x++ ) {
		$time = 0;
		$damage = 0;
		
		while( $time <= 300 ) {
			if( rand( 1, 100 ) <= $set_proc )
				$cast = $set_cast / 2 + lag;
			else
				$cast = $set_cast + lag;
			
			if( $cast + $time > 300 )
				$add_damage = ($set_dmg / $cast) * (300 - $time);
			else
				$add_damage = $set_dmg;
			
			$damage += $add_damage;
			$time += $cast;
		}
		
		$results[] = $damage;
	}

	$total = round( (array_sum( $results ) / count( $results )) / 300 );

	return $total;
}

echo "5 sec.: " . round(simulation( 5000, 5, 26.49 ) / simulation( 5000, 5, 0 ), 3) . "x<br>";

echo "4 sec.: " . round(simulation( 5000, 4, 26.49 ) / simulation( 5000, 4, 0 ), 3) . "x<br>";
The results are as follows:

5 sec.: 1.147x
4 sec.: 1.145x

Funny story, spell haste actually reduces the effect of MSD by a very slight amount. This is due to the flat amount of latency added to each spell cast. My spreadsheet also calculates a 1.146x increase to arcane missiles from MSD using theorycrafted formulas, so the results coincide.

In short, further calculations have indicated that haste is an equally powerful stat for fire specs as it is for arcane. Not for ice though because the water elemental doesn't get any (as far as I'm aware).
#207SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ainav
Hello there, I have readed the entire topic about 2.3 but I still dont see a viable calculation about 40/0/21 spec.
I know many of you do not think arc/frost is viable for raiding but I personally think that with a good amount of crit% and a 2nd frost mage for winterchill arc/frost can make some verry nice dmg.
In the end I know its prety hard to make calculations for arc/frost as trinket procs + clear cast are prety hard to calculate exactly but still, does someone have any calculation showing haste rating vs hit/spell dmg/crit in 2.3?
I am talking about t6 gear with Illidan staff / trinket and ashtongue trinket
#208SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 frmorrison
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Not for ice though because the water elemental doesn't get any (as far as I'm aware).
Pets only scale with the master's stam, int, and +damage, and of course debuffs on the mob such as Winter's Chill and Misery.
#209SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Akron
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
A lot of people seem to be under the notion that with the CURRENT version of MSD, stacking haste will somehow have a multiplicative effect on your dps. This is only true for procs that have a fixed duration, most notably Ashtongue Talisman of Insight. MSD and Lightning Capacitor don't get any special benefit from haste at all. Increasing your haste rating does not increase the percentage increase of damage you get from MSD. Spell haste rating bear absolutely no relevance to the MSD or Lightning Capacitor, at all. This is because these effects only work in an instantaneous moment, either at the proc or on the next spell. No matter how fast you make your spells go, they're always getting the same percentage of benefit from the procs.

To demonstrate this, I wrote a quick and dirty simulator in php that measures the percentage gain in dps from the MSD. The first is applied to arcane missiles at 5 seconds, the second to arcane missiles at 4 seconds. Here's the code for review:

define( "lag", .1 );

function simulation( $set_dmg, $set_cast, $set_proc ) {
	for( $x = 0; $x <= 10000; $x++ ) {
		$time = 0;
		$damage = 0;
		
		while( $time <= 300 ) {
			if( rand( 1, 100 ) <= $set_proc )
				$cast = $set_cast / 2 + lag;
			else
				$cast = $set_cast + lag;
			
			if( $cast + $time > 300 )
				$add_damage = ($set_dmg / $cast) * (300 - $time);
			else
				$add_damage = $set_dmg;
			
			$damage += $add_damage;
			$time += $cast;
		}
		
		$results[] = $damage;
	}

	$total = round( (array_sum( $results ) / count( $results )) / 300 );

	return $total;
}

echo "5 sec.: " . round(simulation( 5000, 5, 26.49 ) / simulation( 5000, 5, 0 ), 3) . "x<br>";

echo "4 sec.: " . round(simulation( 5000, 4, 26.49 ) / simulation( 5000, 4, 0 ), 3) . "x<br>";
The results are as follows:

5 sec.: 1.147x
4 sec.: 1.145x

Funny story, spell haste actually reduces the effect of MSD by a very slight amount. This is due to the flat amount of latency added to each spell cast. My spreadsheet also calculates a 1.146x increase to arcane missiles from MSD using theorycrafted formulas, so the results coincide.

In short, further calculations have indicated that haste is an equally powerful stat for fire specs as it is for arcane. Not for ice though because the water elemental doesn't get any (as far as I'm aware).
Thanks for explanation, interesting observations

Still would like the definitive statement on Spell Haste with 2.3 Fire spec, though!

Cardnyal, thanks for very interesting comparisons. I do believe BT/Hyjal gear, most probably weapons, will be buffed anyway - T5 weapons were buffed and are pretty much as good as BT/Hyjal atm with the exception of the Azzinoth blades for rogues. Other Gear maybe not.
#210SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
The point however is what TLC does when more spells are cast. Of course MSD is a proc rate/2 % dps increase (~13%-15% based on exponential values for arcane missiles, or a raw ~2.5% dps increase for fireball). But casting faster exponentially increases the TLC's value, correct? (10 ppm to 12.5 for 5 missles vs. 4)
#211SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkmantle
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
The point however is what TLC does when more spells are cast. Of course MSD is a proc rate/2 % dps increase (~13%-15% based on exponential values for arcane missiles, or a raw ~2.5% dps increase for fireball). But casting faster exponentially increases the TLC's value, correct? (10 ppm to 12.5 for 5 missles vs. 4)
There is no exponential. Casting 4 times as fast will give you 4 times as many crits thats called linear. Casting faster will still have the same chance over the course of an arcane missiles to proc MSD so the number of MSD'd arcane missiles compared to the number without it won't change(unless there is so weird lag with the buff going off when you get really fast)
#212SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3macbeet
Originally Posted by ainav View Post
Hello there, I have readed the entire topic about 2.3 but I still dont see a viable calculation about 40/0/21 spec.
I know many of you do not think arc/frost is viable for raiding but I personally think that with a good amount of crit% and a 2nd frost mage for winterchill arc/frost can make some verry nice dmg.
In the end I know its prety hard to make calculations for arc/frost as trinket procs + clear cast are prety hard to calculate exactly but still, does someone have any calculation showing haste rating vs hit/spell dmg/crit in 2.3?
I am talking about t6 gear with Illidan staff / trinket and ashtongue trinket
I'm also going to break a lance for the 40/0/21 Specc, from a t5 perspective - there are a number of reasons why I think that this specc is underrated to its Competitors, deep Frost and Deep Fire, and has been my personal favorite for some time:

a) It is never the "bad" specc
Blizzard finds it funny to make the first two encounters in T5 dungeons fire and frost immune respectivly (well for a significant part), and beeing "deep specced" on one of them is a total fun killer. Of course I could respecc midevening, but hey, my fellow raidmembers will compensate for my lousy damage, so lets just suck... 40/0/21 on the other hand will do just fine, in fact it will reign sumpreme on hydross due to:

b) AoE damage

While the patchwork scenario leaves arcane/frost somewhat behind, there is hardy another way to maximize AoE damage, that is AE damage. I found myself performing superior on Hydross, Tidewalker, Kael'thas and Solarian just by a few seconds of fame. After all isn't the mage sometimes called the "King of AoE"? AoE situations are a significant part in WoW Raiding and even the scales, however i find it hard to model mathematically.

c) Mana Issues
Our guild only runs one shadowpriest...*sigh*... and while he is there all the time, he's never in my group, so I have to factor that in. That might not be a concern to many of you, who raid with a more favorable setup, but I consider it a huge bonus of arcane/frost to be able to put out an everlasting, reliable stream of dps.
It also increases my damage output on a non obvious basis: when running a deep specc on vashj, kael or karathress (i hate that hunter) I find myself forced to drink mana pots every 2 minutes, in arcane/frost thats never a problem, I just combine arcane might, trinkets and destruction potions into 15 seconds of awesomeness.
Also getting 5% of your mana back on a full resist happens far more often than one would think. And if you are left with too much mana at the end of fight? Drop the Arcane Blast bomb.

d) Precision
The bonus of arcane/frost is the ability to really boost dps at the right moment and thus is a great asset to the raid in that critical moment of the fight. Augmenting AE with arcane might when Kael's weapons spawn or raping Cthun during his short vulnerability is simply not matched by the other talent speccs. This is also hard to put into numbers on a spreadsheet.


A few posts back, there was a debate on the value of int. Back of the envelope calculation shows that int is slightly more worth 1/4 spelldamage and 1/4 crit in this specc (dont forget kings, gnome and talent) and that's a reasonable amount. It certainly does not make me socket Int Gems, but sometimes I choose an item with more Int, without sacrificing damage output, which is always nice.

Bottomline:
I feel that there is a gap between the spreadsheet mage and the wildlife mage, some factors that are very hard to quantify make arcane/frost a more desirable talent specc as numbercrunshing indicates.
#213SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3[DRF]Solmyr
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
I'm also going to break a lance for the 40/0/21 Specc, from a t5 perspective - there are a number of reasons why I think that this specc is underrated to its Competitors, deep Frost and Deep Fire, and has been my personal favorite for some time:

a) It is never the "bad" specc
Blizzard finds it funny to make the first two encounters in T5 dungeons fire and frost immune respectivly (well for a significant part), and beeing "deep specced" on one of them is a total fun killer. Of course I could respecc midevening, but hey, my fellow raidmembers will compensate for my lousy damage, so lets just suck... 40/0/21 on the other hand will do just fine, in fact it will reign sumpreme on hydross due to:

b) AoE damage

While the patchwork scenario leaves arcane/frost somewhat behind, there is hardy another way to maximize AoE damage, that is AE damage. I found myself performing superior on Hydross, Tidewalker, Kael'thas and Solarian just by a few seconds of fame. After all isn't the mage sometimes called the "King of AoE"? AoE situations are a significant part in WoW Raiding and even the scales, however i find it hard to model mathematically.

c) Mana Issues
Our guild only runs one shadowpriest...*sigh*... and while he is there all the time, he's never in my group, so I have to factor that in. That might not be a concern to many of you, who raid with a more favorable setup, but I consider it a huge bonus of arcane/frost to be able to put out an everlasting, reliable stream of dps.
It also increases my damage output on a non obvious basis: when running a deep specc on vashj, kael or karathress (i hate that hunter) I find myself forced to drink mana pots every 2 minutes, in arcane/frost thats never a problem, I just combine arcane might, trinkets and destruction potions into 15 seconds of awesomeness.
Also getting 5% of your mana back on a full resist happens far more often than one would think. And if you are left with too much mana at the end of fight? Drop the Arcane Blast bomb.

d) Precision
The bonus of arcane/frost is the ability to really boost dps at the right moment and thus is a great asset to the raid in that critical moment of the fight. Augmenting AE with arcane might when Kael's weapons spawn or raping Cthun during his short vulnerability is simply not matched by the other talent speccs. This is also hard to put into numbers on a spreadsheet.


A few posts back, there was a debate on the value of int. Back of the envelope calculation shows that int is slightly more worth 1/4 spelldamage and 1/4 crit in this specc (dont forget kings, gnome and talent) and that's a reasonable amount. It certainly does not make me socket Int Gems, but sometimes I choose an item with more Int, without sacrificing damage output, which is always nice.

Bottomline:
I feel that there is a gap between the spreadsheet mage and the wildlife mage, some factors that are very hard to quantify make arcane/frost a more desirable talent specc as numbercrunshing indicates.
I think serious number crunching and example WWS reports are the norm here instead of laying out the "pros" and "cons" of a specific build. That said, counting on another mage to lay down WC usually doesn't get factored into TC calculations. Good luck with the build.
#214SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ainav
Originally Posted by [DRF]Solmyr View Post
I think serious number crunching and example WWS reports are the norm here instead of laying out the "pros" and "cons" of a specific build. That said, counting on another mage to lay down WC usually doesn't get factored into TC calculations. Good luck with the build.
If I was good enough to do it on my own i wouldn't come here to ask help from ppl that are far more experianced in this then me.
I am not trying to convince someone that arc/frost is better then any specc I just want someone that can help me understand how will spell haste rating work vs the other stats, because for me making the calculations for that specc is close to imposible, I am just not good enough with those formulas.
#215SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3macbeet
Originally Posted by ainav View Post
If I was good enough to do it on my own i wouldn't come here to ask help from ppl that are far more experianced in this then me.
I am not trying to convince someone that arc/frost is better then any specc I just want someone that can help me understand how will spell haste rating work vs the other stats, because for me making the calculations for that specc is close to imposible, I am just not good enough with those formulas.
I was just about to write the same - as many people pointed out, the deep specc are perfectly fine for raiding and I enjoy them a lot. My post was about pointing out where arcane/frost is not modelled in the calculations (that I have seen) and should be seen as a request/inspiration to people more capable in math.
#216SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
It has been noted before, Arcane-frost sub-performs in raid scenaria, even given a WC stacked by a fellow mage. The only way you can make 40.0.21 exceed x/x/43+ is by stacking absolutely massive crit. We're talking raid-buffed 32-35% -without- winter's chill.

If running your own numbers is something you can't do, and you're too inept to use Vontre's sheet yourself (though I somehow doubt you bothered to try, it's hardly harder than Adding and Subtracting. Many of course clearly prefer to feign incompetence), then you can try using Lhivera's Spreadsheet. Lhivera's Theorycraft Script

Insert your stats into the page, click your spec and read the result.

And one more time, I'll have to say this: This Forum is NOT for you to turn up "hi i'm wearing <armory link> and i couldn't find an answer to my question of should i spec X or Y. Can someone please make a full analysis of how I should play because I'm lazy". Theres 85+ pages in Mage TBC, there's 9 pages in Mage After 2.3 and theres only God knows how many pages in How Can Arcane Work. Read them before posting "heres my spec, help me plz mathz ppl".
#217SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
40/0/21 is not necessarily a Frost spec. Me and pretty much all the others mages on my guild used a 40/0/21 build like this during most of our progress time. It was never meant to be a spec for Frostbolt spamming, but an AB-build with Iceblock, that had a mana efficient side-spell. And AB made ~90% of the dmg.
#218SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
So in other words you're saying you used 3x AB AM scorch rotations without having put 3 points in emp AM ? Or went for 3x AB 2x frostbolt scorch? Or worse, 3x AB, 3x frostbolt and not use the free 1 second off AB?. Neither of those 3 rotations work well with 40/0/21. AB rotations weren't made/meant for 40/0/21. I don't mean it in a bad way but I fail to see any other way to play that spec than frostbolt spam-> AB spam, with AB spam being the only part it can do efficiently.
#219SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Cryic
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
In short, further calculations have indicated that haste is an equally powerful stat for fire specs as it is for arcane. Not for ice though because the water elemental doesn't get any (as far as I'm aware).
I would assume that Haste is not as valuable for Deep fire as deep arcane (based on MSD / AM spam) since haste does nothing for Scorch. Depending on who is helping with the debuff, casting scorch can eat up a good amount of time.

On a side note, continued thanks for all your hard work Vontre!
#220SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by manly View Post
So in other words you're saying you used 3x AB AM scorch rotations without having put 3 points in emp AM ? Or went for 3x AB 2x frostbolt scorch? Or worse, 3x AB, 3x frostbolt and not use the free 1 second off AB?. Neither of those 3 rotations work well with 40/0/21. AB rotations weren't made/meant for 40/0/21. I don't mean it in a bad way but I fail to see any other way to play that spec than frostbolt spam-> AB spam, with AB spam being the only part it can do efficiently.
I never considered using fixed rotations as an effective way to play an AB spec simply b/c of clearcasts. Having only 1/3 Emp AM is surely a dps loss when i clearcast into it, but Iceblock was just to invaluable and makes up for it in several bossfights.
#221SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by manly View Post
So in other words you're saying you used 3x AB AM scorch rotations without having put 3 points in emp AM ? Or went for 3x AB 2x frostbolt scorch? Or worse, 3x AB, 3x frostbolt and not use the free 1 second off AB?. Neither of those 3 rotations work well with 40/0/21. AB rotations weren't made/meant for 40/0/21. I don't mean it in a bad way but I fail to see any other way to play that spec than frostbolt spam-> AB spam, with AB spam being the only part it can do efficiently.

The 3xAB 3xFrB rotation "should" work if they do manage to work out all the kinks in the new casting mechanism (3xFrB = 7.5s). It won't work at the 4T6 level though since Fire will greatly out damage it but at the 2T5 level it should be very competitive.

That all falls completely apart if the new casting system doesn't completely remove latency and we have yet to see Blizzard deliver on that particular promise.
#222SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ainav
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
It has been noted before, Arcane-frost sub-performs in raid scenaria, even given a WC stacked by a fellow mage. The only way you can make 40.0.21 exceed x/x/43+ is by stacking absolutely massive crit. We're talking raid-buffed 32-35% -without- winter's chill.
If running your own numbers is something you can't do, and you're too inept to use Vontre's sheet yourself (though I somehow doubt you bothered to try, it's hardly harder than Adding and Subtracting. Many of course clearly prefer to feign incompetence), then you can try using Lhivera's Spreadsheet. Lhivera's Theorycraft Script

Insert your stats into the page, click your spec and read the result.

And one more time, I'll have to say this: This Forum is NOT for you to turn up "hi i'm wearing <armory link> and i couldn't find an answer to my question of should i spec X or Y. Can someone please make a full analysis of how I should play because I'm lazy". Theres 85+ pages in Mage TBC, there's 9 pages in Mage After 2.3 and theres only God knows how many pages in How Can Arcane Work. Read them before posting "heres my spec, help me plz mathz ppl".
Indeed i have 35%crit with raid buffs while having 1315 frost dmg unbuffed.
Now do not start to accuse me in lazyness just because I dont quite understand how things work for some more speccific builds and stats.

Even tho I am quite sure you dont exactly understand my problem, I am going to ignore your behaviour and continue to hope someone will make arc/frost stats comparison clear for me. ( NO Lhivera's Spreadsheet cannot be applied corectly to this build)

Last edited by ainav : 10/21/07 at 5:06 PM.
#223SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Setia
I don't understand how having 32-35% crit with 40/0/21 is "stacking crit"...

You get +6% from talents (Arc Instability, Arc Potency), +3% from Molten Armor. You get over 600 int with Mind Mastery and raid buffs (=7,5 to 8% crit) (I get 660 int with my current full arcane setup, and I never tried to stack it). So, with zero crit rating, you have 17% crit already. Get 300 crit rating ( I don't think that's stacking), add Brilliant Wizard Oil, tada, 32% crit before WC. Get balanced top-notch gear, say, including 3 of the Haste pieces, and you'd get around 37-38% crit before WC.

I get around the same DPS in that gear as full frost with 100% WE or as frostbolt-spam 40/0/21 with WC up, and also around the same DPS with full frost with 0% WE or 40/0/21 without WC.
#224SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Myrdinn
I compared 10/48/3 & 40/18/3 using Vontre's spreadsheet.
Running these numbers (my current gear actually) : 546 int, 1000 +dmg, 300 crit rating, 167 hit rating, 17 haste rating, molten armor, no totems, no bloodlust, no T5 bonus, RED enabled (I hope Vontre model it like CSD)

10/48/3
======
8:1 fb/scorch rotation : 1323 dps
AB spam : 1164 dps (1397 dps with 2 T5)
Time to oom : 12:06
1 dmg = 0.714 dps
1 crit rating = 0.490 dps
1 haste rating = 0.703 dps

40/18/3 (AP not included, dunno how to model it with Vontre's sheet over a full fight)
======
8:1 fb/scorch rotation : 1251 dps
AB spam : 1457 dps (1748 dps with 2 T5)
Time to oom : 12:41
1 dmg = 0.589 dps
1 crit rating = 0.570 dps
1 haste rating = 0.662 dps

I did not enable T5 bonus to keep AB "normal" instead of the improved version.
It looks like 10/48/3 is the winner but :
- AB spam dps with 40/18/3 is interesting (8:1 then finish mana with AB ?)
- Stats are well balanced between dmg/crit/haste with 40/18/3, small thing but still something not bad due to itemization principles.
- arcane AoE available with 40/18/3
- AP PoM Pyro on clearcast (<3 pvp ^^)

Bloodlusted combustion destru pot post-20% will still be pwnage but slight variations in arc/fire seems acceptable.

Last edited by Myrdinn : 10/21/07 at 8:46 PM.
#225SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Faxmonkey
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
No offense but the original post seems slanted towards making Frost look better than it is.
I realize this post is a bit dated by now, but there are so many inaccuracies I feel obliged to respond.

I disagree. I don't know if this is the most valid way of looking at the issue, since most mages place *extremely* high value on which spec is the most dps, even if its by a marginal amount.

For example, it doesn't address some of Frost's biggest issues; Water Elemental being vulnerable to dying, if he dies your DPS is no longer competitive.
Untrue. The water elemental *rarely* dies early. Unlike most pets, he does not melee and *MOST* fights with AoE damage pulses are Frost/Nature damage -- both of which the water elemental is completely immune to. Yes there are a few fights with shadow damage that aren't going to be very water elemental friendly, but by and large the water elemental can survive the full 45 seconds on almost every fight.

Frost has weaker AoE DPS than either Arcane or Fire.
Blatantly false. Fire has awful AoE by way of comparison to frost. Fire does not have shatter. Virtually every AoE encounter involves mobs which are vulnerable to shatter. Frost *easily* dominates Fire in the AoE field -- especially if lightning capacitor is brought into the mix. Arcane, over-all, does have slightly better AoE than either frost/fire due to Arcane Potency being up about as often as Frost nova while simultaneously having an extra 6% crit and Spell Power.

Frost does not scale as well as Fire or Arcane due to Frostbolt's coefficient penalty for having a snare effect and insufficient talents to make up for that penalty when compared with the other 2 trees.
Untrue. Frost scales better than fire if you multiple the Water Elemental's 35% +damage coeffecient by it's uptime and add it into your frostbolt coeffecient. The amount of +damage you get per second as Frost is ever so slightly higher than Fire.

Personally I love the Water Elemental, and will do a little jig of joy the day Frost becomes competitive in terms of PvE DPS. But it seems like Blizzard intends for it to be our PvP tree, and thus makes no moves to bring it up to par.
Neither Fire nor frost, right now, is competitive with Arcane (AM Spam build). Once that's nerfed in 2.3, it'll be pretty much a 5% damage trade off for better Burst/survivability/threat management/AoE/PvP to go from Fire to Frost. Imo, a very competitive offer.


The Coefficient tax removal is happening to Fireball as well as Frostbolt. So it won't do enough to close the gap, even though it's more of a gain for Frostbolt in terms of Coefficient per Second.
Yes, I've been meaning to do some math on this, find out how much +damage you need to have before Frost passes fire. It's probably quite a bit, but its worth knowning.
#226SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ReignConfused
I'm sorely intimidated by such a giant in the industry Faxmonkey. But wouldn't a fire heavy elementalist build have the best AoE damage? Shatter wave was a favorite in BWL and AoE fights in AQ40 if I remember correctly. It might have just been me as well, but I've been noticing massive DPS bursts in the AoE department making a switch from arcane to fire on Kael.

I don't know if it's the fact that in an AoE fight you can easily stack your gear to favor heavy crit, but I would imagine that a crit heavy mage, blast waving, would show a significantly higher amount of damage than a frost mage with TLC, throwing a nova and CoC or Blizz out. I'm not saying you're wrong on paper. I'm saying you're wrong when 6 other people are AoEing and you're subject to a GCD. Unless all your AoE is mage based, which I'm seeing a lot of warlocks in my raid. Maybe there's no single target breaking your novas, which I'm seeing a lot of rogues on those weapons. Tanks and the like too (the bastards!) You're not going to recieve that full 50% from shatter. If you're cool and good, and stacked with frost mages maybe 25% but then again fire has an extra 25% on it's crit over frost, not to mention more base damage.

I'm just saying... 5% dmg trade off for more burst damage? That's a loaded statement. In a perfect world. With no interrupted casts and no moving around and sitting perfectly still. Cool. But every time you and your elemental move, both of you lose your burst. Every time a fire mage pops his burst and then says Uh oh. His combustion is still up. You might still be right but honestly I think the burst damage is comparable, not to mention that it's not really burst damage. It's just both of you maximizing your overall damage. Every theorycrafting I see on the damn subject involves people assuming that you pop combustion or water elemental on the mark every time. So what sort of burst damage is that. The kind that the raid leader calls for it but it's on CD cuz you had a threat free zone there? We all know that's not how it works.

Burst damage periods are very short and very furious, and I can usually unload my Combustion with a hefty amount of burst in 15 seconds, even if your burst is a little more sustained 45 seconds and. *gasp* a little weaker.

Odd that fire should be a more forgiving spec in terms of needing to gtfo. Ice block is a good spell though, i'm never going to argue that one. I think you would be better off assuming a rather more significant dps loss than 5% though, and really your only gain is Ice block, which isn't survivability persay, but a nifty way around things. Yeah yeah, it's my Oh shit button, or my omg garrote button. But Blizzard with the exception of one fight I haven't seen yet, hasn't done anything that makes it req. for a mage to have.




I do love frost to death, and every mage should know how to play it, but I'm tired of hearing silly statements like "more burst dps" and "a good mage will use cold snap to maximize his elemental timing and blah blah blah blah" It's nonsense. One or the other. Burst dps is worthless when you do it every time it's up to maximize your over all dps, it's not worth arguing it. And if you're saving it FOR the burst dps, which like I said fire tends to trump that anyway on the fast and furious burning sessions (GENERALLY not always, sometimes you have long burn sessions) (then again now that I think about it, a fire mage combusting on a mob that usually needs bursting under 20%, would scale way way way way way past a frost mage no matter the gear you have) I dunno I'm just saying, one or the other, not both.

Last edited by ReignConfused : 10/22/07 at 2:31 AM.
#227SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Jayde
Originally Posted by Faxmonkey View Post
Blatantly false. Fire has awful AoE by way of comparison to frost. Fire does not have shatter. Virtually every AoE encounter involves mobs which are vulnerable to shatter. Frost *easily* dominates Fire in the AoE field -- especially if lightning capacitor is brought into the mix. Arcane, over-all, does have slightly better AoE than either frost/fire due to Arcane Potency being up about as often as Frost nova while simultaneously having an extra 6% crit and Spell Power.
While your statement is technically true, something I would note is that while most add-phases are freeze/shatterable, it is often preferable not to use Frost Nova/Freeze simply due to to the unstable aggro mechanics.

e.g. Morogrim, while all the Murlocs are indeed able to be Frost Nova'd, we generally do not allow our Mages to use Frost Nova as it is far more reliable just to allow the Paladin to tank them without the risk of them getting Nova'd closer to one of the AoEers or the grave healer nearby. They are instructed only to use their Nova if the mobs get free and are heading away from the Paladin.

As CoC has scaled very poorly in its trip from 60 to 70 (highest rank is level 65?! What was Blizzard thinking?) I'm not really sure Frost has that huge of an advantage over Dragon's Breath/Blast Wave, as most AoE cycles last a very short period of time.

I am typically able to beat our Arcane Mage in AoE phases as Fire simply due to the fact that most AoE phases are not long enough for him to use his slightly higher crit rate on Arcane Explosion to catch up with the higher initial burst damage from DB/BW.
#228SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
As a long term Frostie I have to agree with shatter being virtually useless in every raiding scenario. Apart from the fact that frost novaing mobs will most likely get some one killed in a general AoE fight you would be lucky to get more than one AoE effect on the mobs due to the changes to FN because of PvP and ice lance.

Spending seven talent points on shatter simply isn't effective for a raiding frost mage these days. I put the points back into arcane and went to 13 so I could get Arcane Impact which is a much better DPS increase while AoEing. I have never used CoC to do damage, it is used as a strong snare combined with permafrost and I will sometimes open with it just so whoever pulls aggro on the AoE has a bit more time to adapt to them pulling a mob.
#229SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
While we're on the subject of AOE: Shatter is indeed a lot of points to add just for AOE; If the true only reason you're speccing Shatter is AOE wouldn't you be better served with 6 points in the hugely-slowing blizzard? Rank one on the pala pulling agro on morrogrim, an ideal opener to linearize damage intake when they hit him. I also hear imp blizz is utility well needed in BT though I can't say from personal experience.

Secondly: What's the point of comparing DPS in AOE? Comparing it in single target, I understand, but AOE? So what? You AOE 12% more in X spec than Y, AOE is not a race, as is DPS sometimes, it's a utility. It just has to be done. I've never heard anyone respec just to AOE and I've yet to see a mage spec which can't AOE adequately. I'm willing to be corrected on this.

Some poster said above that they don't allow Fnova on Morrogrim. There are some issues at hand with what pertains the application of AOE and AE in specific: Many mages misunderstand and charge in to the pack of mobs, Nova, then AE. This is bad karma. If used efficiently, the Nova will stick the murlocks while some of them are next to the pala, some are just in range of his consecration and some aren't near anyone at all. Then start AE, while remaining out of range of their melee. Clearly, a frozen mob next to anyone with 1 agro will hit them if that's the only target they can see, but if done correctly you should be in the clear. Mage Nova rotation will pop the next nova as soon as the 1st one is broken and that way, by running along the "coast" of the mobs melee will never be an issue and they'll be boxed in. We’ve found this method to be optimal in terms of control and with nova staying put for most of the duration of the encounter it makes for very safe warlocks, bless the dears for pulling agro off us.

The ideal scenario is:
1)Warlocks have agro, and after them, the pala. Mages should be last in agro
2)Mages control the mobs so they’re in melee range of only the pala
3)Mages and warlocks do roughly equal damage. This indicates the locks aren’t slacking or being coy due to agro.
#230SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Depends on how you do Morogrim, we have never used a Pala and AoE the mobs on top of Morogrim so FN is out of the question for our tactic.

Morogrim is just one boss as well, you can't possibly use FN on Solarian, infact only place I am willing to pop a FN is on Hyjal trash generally and only if a mob starts beating on me.
#231SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Well, I considered respeccing from fire to arcane for Hyjal trash waves, because handling the waves there is almost half of the job done. FN and CoC will never be as good as PBAoEs, because you never hit all the mobs you want (same for morogrim and solarian).
With Fire you can burst aoe all 3 Minutes with combustion, if you stack it to 4 or even higher (single casts until 2 crits) and then unload it with flamestrike + blastwave/db hitting in the same second and both getting the critbonus from combustion.
But generally for hyjal trash waves, arcane will perfom better, because fire aoe has only burst and then cooldown and arcane is more linear aoe damage. And with arcane subtlety you almost never draw aggro.

@Pint: The Ideal Scenario is
- Tanks (Pally, Warri, Druid) have aggro from aoe mobs and pull em together
- Warlocks throw seeds on several mobs (not morogrim)
- Mages start with Flamestrike and then an instant aoe after that, prefarably blastwave
Then all AoEs almost hit at the same moment, Seeds explode and the mobs are almost dead... if they aren't then they are slowed by blastwave or coc or disoriented by DB and can easily be finished by Arcane explosion.
#232SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
wow i must be in some weird guild;

We Nova solarian's spawns every time, 3 mage 3 lock setup usualy, only one tank bothering to gather them up and usualy not even that.

Leialyn: We don't use a non-pala aggro-gainer on morrogrim either. just the holy pala in tank gear pulling them and that's it; Flamestrike is best avoided for us as the pala can't hold on long to them and we need to nova-rotate them. As we've often got Shadowpriests going about AE seems to work fine for us.
#233SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
We don't FN we have a Tank taunt rotation, FNing means spreading out when you are better off to have everyone grouped in the center so you get maximum effect from your AoE.
#234SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkchani
It really depends on every guild's strategy as we use FN on solarian and even on morogrim too

From my experience in hyjal as deep arcane vs deep fire vs deep frost, I have to say I prefer deep fire, simply because it combines 2 great spells, DB and BW, but also because they can both be used to buy time for tanks to pick stuff back up.
In the end the 3 specs pretty much always end up spamming AE anyway. As arcane AE is all you got but you got it good. As frost you have shatter but its usualy broken before your GCD is done, but you have iceblock if aggro is on you... But a mob usualy returns to a tank or another dpsers while you're iceblocked, if you snare a mob with BW then DB him when he reaches you while running around the pack spamming AE, chances are better that a tank will see it and pick it up

As for frost dps... sure it can be great in tank and spank situation, but for illidan for example(which is the fight i spec frost for heh), i find that my WE often dies the moments i want him the most... twin blades phase, shadow demon phase, even to agonizing flames sometimes. Iceblock and Ice barrier is pretty priceless on that fight tho
#235SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
A lot of what you said has already been addressed but I'll take the time to do it again since you brought it up again.


Originally Posted by Faxmonkey View Post
I realize this post is a bit dated by now, but there are so many inaccuracies I feel obliged to respond.

I disagree. I don't know if this is the most valid way of looking at the issue, since most mages place *extremely* high value on which spec is the most dps, even if its by a marginal amount.
This has nothing to do with what you responded to. Yes we all do place a lot of emphasis on what's the highest DPS, that has nothing to do with the fact that the original post was slanted to make Frost look better than it is.

Untrue. The water elemental *rarely* dies early. Unlike most pets, he does not melee and *MOST* fights with AoE damage pulses are Frost/Nature damage -- both of which the water elemental is completely immune to. Yes there are a few fights with shadow damage that aren't going to be very water elemental friendly, but by and large the water elemental can survive the full 45 seconds on almost every fight.
Yes, *almost* every is not every. As you said, we place a high emphasis on what performs best. Optimal means optimal. Not almost optimal.

Blatantly false. Fire has awful AoE by way of comparison to frost. Fire does not have shatter. Virtually every AoE encounter involves mobs which are vulnerable to shatter. Frost *easily* dominates Fire in the AoE field -- especially if lightning capacitor is brought into the mix. Arcane, over-all, does have slightly better AoE than either frost/fire due to Arcane Potency being up about as often as Frost nova while simultaneously having an extra 6% crit and Spell Power.
Shatter does not make up for the difference between Flamestrike Spam and Deep Frost's crummy Arcane Explosion. Regardless, as I have said before, you almost never should be casting Frost Nova on a big pile of mobs. The damage you lose by wasting a GCD on Frost Nova is not regained via the subsequent Shatter.

Untrue. Frost scales better than fire if you multiple the Water Elemental's 35% +damage coeffecient by it's uptime and add it into your frostbolt coeffecient. The amount of +damage you get per second as Frost is ever so slightly higher than Fire.
No. Water Elemental sort of makes up for Frost lacking as much raw damage boosting as the Fire tree does, it doesn't make up for the base Fireball scaling being much better than Frostolt's. Frost has to overcome having less Damage increase via talents (11% vs. 13%), less crit via talents (since Frostbite doesn't work on 90%+ of bosses), lower crit (200% vs. 210%), Winter's Chill being worse than Improved Scorch, Empowered Frostbolt being worse than Empowered Fireball and of course Fireball scaling better than Frostbolt to start with.

Can you honestly say to me you think Water Elemental makes up for all of that? I mean, I'm as big a fan of the little guy as anyone (I peed myself a little when the Mage 41 pt talents were revealed), but he's not THAT good.

Neither Fire nor frost, right now, is competitive with Arcane (AM Spam build). Once that's nerfed in 2.3, it'll be pretty much a 5% damage trade off for better Burst/survivability/threat management/AoE/PvP to go from Fire to Frost. Imo, a very competitive offer.
This thread is called "TC after 2.3", thus everything -- at least that I said -- is in that context.

Yes, I've been meaning to do some math on this, find out how much +damage you need to have before Frost passes fire. It's probably quite a bit, but its worth knowning.
There is no amount, Fire scales better, period. Frost will not be competitive PvE DPS until the Frost tree is buffed or Fire is nerfed.

Last edited by ebbv : 10/22/07 at 12:10 PM. Reason: Elaboration
#236SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
In short, further calculations have indicated that haste is an equally powerful stat for fire specs as it is for arcane. Not for ice though because the water elemental doesn't get any (as far as I'm aware).
So based on your reasoning, would you say that zhar'doom is better for arcane than the tempest + chronical simply because of the Ashtongue? Or is it because damage scales better for fire...which would mean that haste scales relative to damage better for arcane.

From playing with your spreadsheet, zhar'doom gives better dps for arcane and the tempest + chronical gives better dps for deep fire.
#237SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Zalbo
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
But wouldn't a fire heavy elementalist build have the best AoE damage?

I've actually been a fire heavy elementalist build (with shatter and iceblock) for solarian and morogrin, and yeah, it beats every other spec i've seen for aoe. That said your single target dps bites so its pretty pointless, aside from having a laugh, or if half your other mages and warlocks have the plague for an aoe boss.

That said my guild is only 3/4 tk 5/6 ssc so I couldnt talk about hyjal trash waves, but we definately have frost nova on solarian and morogrim. To be fair, the morogrim fight isn't a normal one, since the aoe mobs are meant to be fully tanked (at least for us with our prot pally) and hence if you know how long to give him for agg, you have basically have a no gcd flamestrike. I regularily beat a full fire mage spamming flamestrike (his MOE return was hilarious, as was mine) with flamestrike + FN + blastwave + coc. That said to avoid pulling agg I generally didnt get to AE much after I used my cooldown aoes, since I didnt want to take much damage from pulling agg + the dot. The lack of reduced agg that arcane AoE has is a factor here worth mentioning, if the mobs lasts long enough it might make up the difference.

As for shatter being weak, my blastwave critrate was about 60% and cone of cold 50%, AE was ~25% from the 3 or 4 morogrim kill WWS's, if memory serves (i'll see if i can dig them up, the arcane has a smaller sample size also). Now my listed fire crit rate was around 35% and frost was a bit less, so you certainly dont get the full benefit, but you can't write it off either. I can't speak of the use for improved blizzard outside of these fights, but if you arent trying to kite them it's going to loose value, especially when you have several frost novas/blastwave/coc/db/earthbind etc to help with aoe pack control.

As for a frost build in 2.3, its being buffed(as is fire), which is certainly handy, and remember it gets a unmentioned ~4% more theoretical dps than fire and arcane since it gets no partial resists on bosses for frostbolt (water ele can still get partials though, from what I recall). It doesn't make up for the damage difference, but for me at least, ice block is enough of a reason to have 21 frost at the t5 level, over full arcane (fire is out since alar is still a new boss for us).

I have to say, why blizzard didn't make frostbite work like arcane potency is beyond me, they can be so similar in function if your chain casting a mob that can be frozen, but arcane potency is a self buff, so its not broken by the other people hitting the mob. Frankly its everything frostbite should be in raids.

Last edited by Zalbo : 10/22/07 at 1:39 PM.
#238SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
valeea
I wouldnt necessarily say that Arcane falls off in dmg/dps after the patch. I played my arcane mage in 2 different ways:

1) "Normal" gearing, "normal" ideas behind your gearing and socket-based decisions (mostly +dmg)
2) Get 4 T5, get a Lightning Capacitor and try to maximize your crit. The idea behind this is to have the LC make a huge amount of damage due to your many crits. Moreover, your 4t5 bonus should procc very often, if he fades at all.

I think the second mage will profit from the 2.3 changes, whereas the first mage loses dmg relative to the fire/ice mages. The big advantage is the option to put more arcane blasts in your rotation (up to 4 per rotation, depending on shadowpriest) and boost your damage relative to the 2.2 type-2 mage.

Last edited by valeea : 10/22/07 at 1:28 PM.
#239SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
I just noticed the shaman 2 piece tier 6 bonus was changed (-10% mana cost to chain heal, instead of lesser healing wave). I really wish we could somehow get Blizzard to think of a better bonus than the current + 2 seconds to evocation one.

Evocation is already being nerfed next patch (for raiding mages) after the changes and getting the tier 6 bonus... will barely break it even again. I dont think its exciting, innovatative.. or really even that useful. Surely we can get something a little better
#240SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Well the 2 piece bonus in 2.3 will be an extra tick of 15% so ~1500 mana for a Fire mage, bit more for Arcane (if there still are any.) That's equivalent to -10% off about 37.5 Fireballs, so very lackluster by comparison.

The big downfall of Evocation is the whole requirement to stop DPSing for 8 seconds, and the set bonus only makes it worse. I'd really rather have seen it be like, +5% chance to clearcast, +5% to Arcane Meditation and +5% to Master of Elements. That might be a bit much, but something along those lines.
#241SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3valeea
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
The big downfall of Evocation is the whole requirement to stop DPSing for 8 seconds, and the set bonus only makes it worse. I'd really rather have seen it be like, +5% chance to clearcast, +5% to Arcane Meditation and +5% to Master of Elements. That might be a bit much, but something along those lines.
But this does not affect the different speccs in different ways. I agree to you, this bonus is not very spectecular. Looks uninspired somehow, especially when you look at some other bonuses
#242SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Aldric
Originally Posted by valeea View Post
But this does not affect the different speccs in different ways. I agree to you, this bonus is not very spectecular. Looks uninspired somehow, especially when you look at some other bonuses
I'm not sure how you mean any of the other T6 2-piece bonuses are somehow more "inspired." Most of them are centered around a resource saving perspective (cheaper abilities, mana returns, etc.). The mage 2-piece is no different, it's purely a generic way to give the mage more mana regardless of spec. We certainly could have done worse (more mana back from aspect of the viper) or better (5% holy light crit, although pallies don't only spam holy light).

I agree that it isn't a great set bonus, but you have to agree it is in line with the theme Blizzard went for with T6.
#243SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3valeea
Not Tier6, look at the tier 5 bonuses for example. they are all way more (call it) "inspired" in my eyes
#244SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Aldric
Originally Posted by valeea View Post
Not Tier6, look at the tier 5 bonuses for example. they are all way more (call it) "inspired" in my eyes
Ah, ok, I didn't make the jump that you were talking about other tier's bonuses. I agree that the set bonuses aren't as fun as 20% more damage to arcane blast, but I think that from a design standpoint T6 bonuses are the way to go from now on.

It helps to prevent situations like the 2piece mage bonuses being required if you intend to spam AB no matter what your progression level. It's the same thing that happened with T5 paladin 4 piece providing more throughput on holy light than T6, now that bonus is getting nerfed into the ground come 2.3.

T6 bonus themes provide a nice little bump to effectiveness (with a few exceptions) for those that complete the set. They probably won't discourage you from taking T7 when it comes around, and in my eyes, thats a good thing.
#245SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zipher
Untrue. The water elemental *rarely* dies early. Unlike most pets, he does not melee and *MOST* fights with AoE damage pulses are Frost/Nature damage -- both of which the water elemental is completely immune to. Yes there are a few fights with shadow damage that aren't going to be very water elemental friendly, but by and large the water elemental can survive the full 45 seconds on almost every fight.
Are you certain about this? I have probably less than 1/10th the amount of time raiding as frost in TBC as you do, but I think Vashj killed my water elemental with forked lightning many many times. I don't think he's immune to nature at all, but rather immune to poison effects specifically (like all elementals)

I'm not paying 100g to test this, but would be extremely easy to do with a shaman or druid friend.. (actually, if I remember tonight I'll do it on PTR)
#246SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
T6 bonus themes provide a nice little bump to effectiveness
The 2 piece bonus is more of an annoyance now than a bump imo. If blizzard really wanted to stick with a evocation change (sigh, totally uninspired) why couldnt they make it such that evocation fully channeled in only 4 seconds or was more potent on each tick.

5% chance to clearcast, +5% to Arcane Meditation and +5% to Master of Elements
Thats a neat idea, if they really want to stick with the same bonus theme. Its certainly better than just a 'lets make evocation longer' option
#247SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3zurmagus
I don't think he's immune to nature at all, but rather immune to poison effects specifically (like all elementals)
Correct
#248SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Is there a consensus yet on the new meta gem vs. the new MSD? So far I know that it works like the 2.1 crit gem, but I'm not sure if it out performs the nerfed MSD for firespec. There is also the possibility of using a focused evocate on something like hyjal trash to increase aoe dps. Without a major 2.3 release for the mage spreadsheet, I'm just sitting here on an Illidan helm and my napkin math.
#249SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
The new MSD is not going to be bad for Fire but it is definitely iffy. Current best guess is 15% proc rate with a very reliable tested 45sec internal cooldown. At that rate you should see a proc just under once a minute spamming Fireballs. Not exactly earth shattering.

OTOH, the CSD is going to be boosting the damage of every crit. With 35-40% crit rate raid buffed, that's a bit more significant. In the approximately 1 minute you're waiting for your MSD proc the CSD will have boosted the damage of roughly 6-8 Fireball crits.

Perhaps just as importantly, it's a boost without any cost to mana efficiency (I like using Destruction Potions.)

Again this is speaking strictly for 10/48/3.
#250SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Otterpop
Enfuego's post made me stop lurking here for once in my life and put in my 2 copper.

I'm probably one of a handful of mages that went with an MSD when 2.2 came out, but stayed 10/48/3. Mainly because of a lack of the Lightning Cap and no Tier 5 gear...MSD was nice while it lasted, but I wasn't even exploiting it fully as deep fire. I suppose that's why Im not very upset about it getting the nerfbat.

I'm very much looking forward to going with a Chaotic meta come 2.3 for the same reasoning that Enfuego presents. A half cast fireball every 45 seconds seems to pale in comparison to the added critical damage you can obtain with the Chaotic meta. Especially if you enjoy popping Combustion/Trinket/Destructo-pot when the boss gets to 20%. Heh.
#251SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
See I'm not a fan of that kind of logic because it's assuming a half cast fireball is less damage than 6% more dmg on crits. It looks like they're actually a lot closer than that, except CSD would not benefit evocate. I'd rather min/max endgame gear though as much as possible.
#252SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Actually you're right based on the rough calculations I did the CSD is only adding 36-48% via those 6-8 Fireball crits over the course of the minute, vs. the MSD's 50%. So on the lower end the CSD is losing hardcore, but I'd emphasize the 6-8 Figure is somewhat conservative.

But the more haste gear you have the better the CSD becomes, since MSD is unable to reduce the GCD and you're able to get off more Fireballs during the MSD's cooldown. Not to mention the CSD is giving 0.6% crit.

If you can reliably pull off the Focused Evocation then that would be a big advantage for MSD. Four more seconds of DPS would pretty much tip the scales in MSD's favor.

Regardless, for a lot of people geared like myself right now the decision will be made based on the fact that we still need a few Veiled Noble Topaz to get to the hit cap as 10/48/3.
#253SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
zurmagus
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
The new MSD is not going to be bad for Fire but it is definitely iffy. Current best guess is 15% proc rate with a very reliable tested 45sec internal cooldown. At that rate you should see a proc just under once a minute spamming Fireballs. Not exactly earth shattering.

OTOH, the CSD is going to be boosting the damage of every crit. With 35-40% crit rate raid buffed, that's a bit more significant. In the approximately 1 minute you're waiting for your MSD proc the CSD will have boosted the damage of roughly 6-8 Fireball crits.

Perhaps just as importantly, it's a boost without any cost to mana efficiency (I like using Destruction Potions.)

Again this is speaking strictly for 10/48/3.
I wrote a DPS simulator a while back. This isn't a simple calculation like you would get from a spreadsheet. It's more like a clone of the WoW game mechanics as best I know them. One of the features of this simulator allows me to accurately model proc effects so you can properly compare them to static effects. The following MSD vs CSD simulation is a good example of this feature.

I will make a more detailed post about the simulator once I hit the 10 post minimum so it can have its own thread.

Anyway I ran this simulation for a post on the WoW boards a couple days ago, comparing MSD and CSD for a 10/48/3 fire spec spamming Fireball.


Fireball spam w/2.3 MSD, 10% proc rate, 45s cooldown
Spell Damage: 1000
Crit Rate: 35%
Hit Rate: 16%

=========================================

Damage: 50001924 Time: 37284s
Ideal DPS: 1341.11
Fireball - 12680 casts

-----------------------------------------
Hits: 8170 64.4% Max: 3292
Crits: 4392 34.6% Max: 6914
Resists: 118 0.9%

Fireball spam w/CSD
Spell Damage: 1000
Crit Rate: 35.5%
Hit Rate: 16%

=========================================

Damage: 50002729 Time: 37200s
Ideal DPS: 1344.16
Fireball - 12400 casts

-----------------------------------------
Hits: 7872 63.5% Max: 3292
Crits: 4403 35.5% Max: 7124
Resists: 125 1.0%


This shows that a 35% crit rate the CSD is looking a little better than the MSD for Fireball spam.

Last edited by zurmagus : 10/23/07 at 10:12 AM.
#254SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Looks like Fire just got an indirect buff.

"Reverse cooldowns are correctly refreshed when a buff is reapplied by another player."

Which should mean that it really won't be that hard to know when to refresh Scorch even if a different player started the initial debuff.
#255SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Baruk
@zurmagus:
Even though these numbers show that the 2 meta's are almost on par, I still like to know
the difference to taking pure spelldam, that is the spirit-shard meta or simply taking
(on T5 lvl of gear, the 1000 spelldam you took for the calculation seems to be consistent with that)
Cowl of the Grand Engineer instead of T5 head and socket 3 spelldam gems...
#256SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nickolina
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Why? It can proc off of Arcane Explosion/Blastwave/Dragon's Breath too. This is not a valid reason for casting Frost Nova while trying to kill a pack of mobs.
Casting Frost Nova on aoe packs before a Cone of Cold is standard practise for a Deep Frost Mage. Shatter and the increased damage from Cone of Cold can cause some jaw dropping aoe damage
#257SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Originally Posted by Nickolina View Post
Casting Frost Nova on aoe packs before a Cone of Cold is standard practise for a Deep Frost Mage. Shatter and the increased damage from Cone of Cold can cause some jaw dropping aoe damage
2 Arcane explosions > 1 Shatter Cone of Cold. And you never hit as many mobs with CoC as with AE.
And even if you hit all, then its directly after the pull and all you can do after your shatter CoC is hiding in iceblock.

Originally Posted by Prod View Post
Is there a consensus yet on the new meta gem vs. the new MSD? So far I know that it works like the 2.1 crit gem, but I'm not sure if it out performs the nerfed MSD for firespec. There is also the possibility of using a focused evocate on something like hyjal trash to increase aoe dps.
The thing is, you never really can control the MSD. What if you are oom and the MSD doesn't proc? Do low Mana spells until it procs?
And for Fire spec I usually take into account, that I have to refresh the scorch debuff from time to time and when the MSD then procs before I have to scorch, its wasted. And even if you time it to proc between scorch refreshes, what to do if it doesn't? Let Scorch Debuff run out?
#258SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
MSD isn't really a 50% dps increase when it procs using a 8:1 rotation, can't ignore the 1/9 chance that scorch gets wasted
#259SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
Just a little aside, if you happen to see a Prism of Inner Calm drop, don't pass on it if you have the opportunity to pick it up. Most people don't know that it was buffed a while ago to drop 1000 threat on spell crits.

It's not exactly a boss fight trinket and while it may be a decent threat reduction percentage on single target fights, it really shines in aoe situations. An arcane explosion crit actually reduces your threat on the target rather than raising it. Hyjal, anyone?

The only reason I feel this is worth mentioning is that I believe this is one of the best utility trinkets around and will easily serve it's purpose in level 80 raid content as well. Potentially even better than now depending on new spells/talents/gear. And it seems that many people are unaware of this.
#260SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
For me the fact that MSD loses it's benefit with increased haste, combined with the interesting side-effect the new meta has with molten-fury combustion double-dipping and the fact that MSD doesn't improve DPM is the kincher tbh. If a 37000sec simulation comes out with a 3dps difference then there really seem to be no reasons to prefer MSD. Not to mention you're free to have as many damn yellow gems as you please with MSD req out of mind.

Frostie: Good lord, what a whopper of utility that trink is!
#261SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Daemion
I am trying to figure out what is best for me to do when patch 2.3 hits. Currently I really like how arcane works, but after 2.3 it doesn't seem to be the best option anymore. However at my current point of progression I need to factor in the effect of the spellstrike bonus as well, but I am not sure I have that figured out correct.

The spellstrike set bonus has as 5% chance to proc on spell hit, so that would mean a 25% chance to proc on the cast of an AM cast. Since the proc lasts 10 seconds would it be correct to assume that the buff will have an uptime of 50% on unhasted AM spam and thus representing a flat out buff of 46 dmg on average?
#262SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Jayde
Originally Posted by Nickolina View Post
Casting Frost Nova on aoe packs before a Cone of Cold is standard practise for a Deep Frost Mage. Shatter and the increased damage from Cone of Cold can cause some jaw dropping aoe damage
Honestly, using 3 seconds to crit a spell that has it's highest rank at level 65 isn't really worth it. CoC isn't all that great for pure DPS nowadays. Even with Imp. CoC, the base damage of both Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave is considerably higher. Presuming a 13.57% coefficient, I believe you'd need pretty unreachable amounts of +dmg to make CoC hit as hard as Blast Wave/Dragon's Breath currently.

Also, realistically, it's kinda a waste of a GCD to cast a Frost Nova just to get a 50% crit increase on one nuke before the Nova breaks from all the other AoE damage being put out by the raid. One is probably just as well off using two AoEs in that case, and avoiding all the nasty side-effects of Frost Nova aggro mechanics.
#263SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
zurmagus
Originally Posted by Baruk View Post
@zurmagus:
Even though these numbers show that the 2 meta's are almost on par, I still like to know
the difference to taking pure spelldam, that is the spirit-shard meta or simply taking
(on T5 lvl of gear, the 1000 spelldam you took for the calculation seems to be consistent with that) Cowl of the Grand Engineer instead of T5 head and socket 3 spelldam gems...
My simulator would allow you to calculate the pure spell damage equivalent by running a baseline simulation to compare to the different meta choices. Then just find the difference between the DPS and either calculate or simulate how much spell damage you would need to produce that additional DPS. I'll give more details when I can make my own thread.. 5 posts to go, lol.

Last edited by zurmagus : 10/23/07 at 10:17 AM.
#264SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Baruk
Sounds interesting. Hope to see that simulator soon
#265SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3zurmagus
Originally Posted by Baruk View Post
Sounds interesting. Hope to see that simulator soon
I'll definitely get it posted it later today because I'm trying to see if anyone is interested in helping me develop it further.
#266SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3koetjeka
I'm not really an experienced programmer, but I'm wanting to help (things like testing and such
#267SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3zurmagus
Originally Posted by koetjeka View Post
I'm not really an experienced programmer, but I'm wanting to help (things like testing and such
Sounds good. I will post both the source code and executable so everyone can give it a shot.
#268SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Docjowles
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Looks like Fire just got an indirect buff.

"Reverse cooldowns are correctly refreshed when a buff is reapplied by another player."

Which should mean that it really won't be that hard to know when to refresh Scorch even if a different player started the initial debuff.
Has anyone been able to confirm that's really what the patch note means? I've never heard the term "reverse cooldowns". If it's true, that's right up there with Ritual of Refreshment as an incredible reduction in the Mage Headache Factor.
#269SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
I don't think that build is on the PTR yet so really can't test it out. There were some other notes, like the new Alchemist only super rejuv pot, that are very obviously lacking on the current build of the PTR. Hopefully should be there with the next update sometime this week and it should be very simple to test. Can't think of anything else that "reverse cooldown" would mean besides that.
#270SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Stirius
Originally Posted by Docjowles View Post
"Reverse cooldowns are correctly refreshed when a buff is reapplied by another player."
The problem with the scorch-stack is that only the person who owns the stack gets the timing information on live.
The change could mean different things:
1) I can now see the cooldown even if I don't own the stack
2) the remaining time on my own stack was sometimes not correct when refreshed by a different player
3) the maximum time was not set to the correct time when refreshed by a different player (this was a bug with bear mangle for example some time ago: you refresh the debuff, the remaining time is reset but the maximum time doubles)

1) is very unlikey if you read the description again. I haven't seen the bug in 3) with scorch. So 2) sounds plausible to me. So it's not a "fire buff" in this sense.

It's a long time ago since i was fire but I have written a small addon that displays a timerbar that is refreshed whenever a player in the raid hits (edit: with scorch of course) a mob with the same name I am currently targeting. It was still a bit buggy, target switching is a mess and an "ignore player" option (someone who did not spec improved scorch) is missing. It's not perfect and using an addon that broadcasts timing information would be much better but that requires cooperation
Anyway, as soon as I'm back to fire (read: when 2.3 hits and the arcane nerf goes public) I will look at it again, if anyone is interested...

Last edited by Stirius : 10/23/07 at 1:05 PM.
#271SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
What I am seeing from Vontre's numbers earlier in the posts is that the DPS specs at 1200 spell damage will rank.

Generally

Fire
Frost
Arcane

But looking at the DPS numbers we are seeing a 10-50 dps swing pretty often with the biggest drop from fire to frost being about 100 dps on water elemental unfriendly fights?

It looks like Arcane loses a lot this patch to even keep it in the interestingly differen't but capable level with these Coefficient removals.

Is it going to be a huge drop off from frie to frost at any point in teir 5-6 content or will it stay somewhat competative?

I see a lot of suppositions that the numbers show are not as relavent with the dps possibilities so close to each other. Is a Frost user going to be a serious underperformer like it has been in raids of the past? Is the only real raid spec to stay dps competative going to be fire?

MSD nerfs or no, is Frost a viable end game spec in competative DPS? I have yet to set foot in hyjal or BT and they are coming quickly so with 2.3 on the horizon am I going to be less effective taking a frost build over a fire is my basic question.

Seems like things are evening out a lot depending on frost elemental dps surviveability.
#272SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3[DRF]Solmyr
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
Seems like things are evening out a lot depending on frost elemental dps surviveability.
I've already started collecting the mats to make frozen shadow-weave.

Of course we won't "really" know until we start seeing some WWS reports, but TC says that if you can keep your WE baby alive and waterbolting, you are ~par with DeepFire. I don't believe this is what Blizzard has envisioned, but /shrug.
#273SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3pipermoonrunner
Originally Posted by Docjowles View Post
Has anyone been able to confirm that's really what the patch note means? I've never heard the term "reverse cooldowns". If it's true, that's right up there with Ritual of Refreshment as an incredible reduction in the Mage Headache Factor.
don't mods like Xperl already do that?
#274SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Firefly
Well if all mages use Scorchio, then that addon shows nicely the scorch debuffs and when to refresh it. We use it and that has improved the amount of fireballs casts, since we dont need to guess when scorch is having to be refreshed. But ofc if they fix it so you dont need that in 2.3 that justs makes it easier.
#275SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3zurmagus
Finally hit 10 posts and made the thread about my DPS simulator if anyone is intrested:

[Mage] DPS Simulator
#276SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Nickolina View Post
Casting Frost Nova on aoe packs before a Cone of Cold is standard practise for a Deep Frost Mage. Shatter and the increased damage from Cone of Cold can cause some jaw dropping aoe damage
It may be "Standard Practice" but it's still the wrong thing to do. From both a DPS perspective and managing mobs perspective. It's less DPS than 2 Arcane Explosions and makes the mobs likely to squish a Mage.
#277SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Shatters
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
It may be "Standard Practice" but it's still the wrong thing to do. From both a DPS perspective and managing mobs perspective. It's less DPS than 2 Arcane Explosions and makes the mobs likely to squish a Mage.

or a healer for that sake, anyone on the aggrotabel within melee range.

so, this means you "need" a Logitech G-15 to perform top dps post 2.3?
#278SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vessyra
So with the 2.3 changes, new gear available from ZA, Spellhaste, etc, will this affect the gear choices across the trees? I've been waiting for 2.3 to respecc back to fire. Prior to 2.3, I would have probably stayed arcane until out of The Eye, went and got my TLC and stacked crit. I'm looked at some of the numbers people are putting out with the new Meta gem, spell tax repeal, etc. and fire will again be as viable as I'd like, but I'm wondering how that will affect my gear choices? Has anyone noticed a different? I.e Is spellhaste better for Arcane and not as useful for fire, that sort of thing.
#279SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Docjowles
Originally Posted by Shatters View Post
so, this means you "need" a Logitech G-15 to perform top dps post 2.3?
I have to believe they are going to rework this before 2.3 goes live. They've basically said as much already, see WoW Forums -> Upcoming 2.3 Changes - Concise List.

Having thousands of casters spamming the servers with hundreds of extra packets every second is very obviously a bad idea, and it seems Blizzard has found another approach.
#280SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Vessyra View Post
So with the 2.3 changes, new gear available from ZA, Spellhaste, etc, will this affect the gear choices across the trees? I've been waiting for 2.3 to respecc back to fire. Prior to 2.3, I would have probably stayed arcane until out of The Eye, went and got my TLC and stacked crit. I'm looked at some of the numbers people are putting out with the new Meta gem, spell tax repeal, etc. and fire will again be as viable as I'd like, but I'm wondering how that will affect my gear choices? Has anyone noticed a different? I.e Is spellhaste better for Arcane and not as useful for fire, that sort of thing.
Please read previous posts before asking the same question over and over.

Last edited by Cardynal : 10/24/07 at 10:50 AM.
#281SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Blinks
In before Manly.

Curious how they plan to approach this then.
#282SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Interpolation and extrapolation =) Just do it as they do on FPS games it would atleast work for fluidity and remove loss of casts or prolonged waiting for casts though arguably not the best approach.
#283SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kythos
I have to agree that the MSD is an accessory to AM.

Not only is it too much of a pain to watch for the proc there are other things going on in a raid situation that are more important and should require your attention.

I feel that the new meta gem is more prominent for 2.3 Fire.
(to sum up some previous posts)

It allows the use of Yellow gems, noble topaz are very useful to stack what you are lacking.

It itself has .6% crit.

and above all, its new and pretty :P.

...Now if only we can get rolling ignites back. : P.
#284SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Kythos View Post
I have to agree that the MSD is an accessory to AM.

Not only is it too much of a pain to watch for the proc there are other things going on in a raid situation that are more important and should require your attention.

I feel that the new meta gem is more prominent for 2.3 Fire.
(to sum up some previous posts)

It allows the use of Yellow gems, noble topaz are very useful to stack what you are lacking.

It itself has .6% crit.

and above all, its new and pretty :P.

...Now if only we can get rolling ignites back. : P.
I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. Please refrain from putting up posts that have no direction and thus wander aimlessly; think about what you want to say before you write.
#285SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Docjowles View Post
I have to believe they are going to rework this before 2.3 goes live. They've basically said as much already, see WoW Forums -> Upcoming 2.3 Changes - Concise List.

Having thousands of casters spamming the servers with hundreds of extra packets every second is very obviously a bad idea, and it seems Blizzard has found another approach.
Continuing discussion on the thread linked by Doc.

After reading all of the posts it does appear that 2.3 is better because the current cast is not interrupted and recovery time is latency not a GCD trigger (better assuming you have less than 750ms latency at which point the game probably sucks already)....

But who on this planet has constant latency? Most connection probably see latency in the 100-250ms range depending on many factors which is a 150ms variation (cable modem customer in the US). Couple that with people not being able to click within a 100ms time window and you have a 200-250ms window to inadvertently click to early.

The best solution for Blizzard and it's users is a server grace period (250ms?) that will chain cast your spell if you happen to click too early. If the penalty for clicking too early is *only latency*, anybody with less than 100ms latency would be better off spam casting as you can get your avg down time between casts lower than *safely* clicking after your elapsed cast time. The servers are going to get flooded with Mages and Locks on sub 100ms connections trying to boost their DPS.
Slouken's response:

Yes, this is actually what we're going to be evaluating for the next test realm update.

The casting latency discussion is hereby closed in this thread. If you want to continue discussion please create a new thread for it.
The current solution on this build of the PTR is interesting and should work well if you have a stable internet connection but if your latency fluctuates you are going to lose a lot of casting time. Basically how it works if that whenever you press the casting button it starts a GCD on the client which prevents any casting requests from being sent to the server. If the client receives a "cast complete" message from the server while it is midway through a GCD it resets the GCD.

So basically it functions exactly like a /stopcasting macro but if you miss the window (send a new casting request early) instead of interrupting your previous cast it will force you to wait for the "cast complete" message to arrive from the server before you can start that next cast. Which would work very well on low-latency situations but if you were running around with 500ms of latency then missing the timing will lead to a lot of lost dps. Not as bad as missing /stopcasting and interrupting the previous cast but still significant.

If they stick to the current system the best way to use it will be to set up the G15 to spam and then try to hit the button as close to the red as possible and then hold it down till the next cast starts (that way if you missed you don't have to worry about human reaction times to notice that the next cast didn't start).

What I'm hoping is that they just go with what seems to be implied in the above two posts. Which would basically be a limited spell queuing (200-250ms) system.
#286SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plouton
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
It may be "Standard Practice" but it's still the wrong thing to do. From both a DPS perspective and managing mobs perspective. It's less DPS than 2 Arcane Explosions and makes the mobs likely to squish a Mage.
Why do you think so? Say, frost mage with Improved CoC, Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds has 1500 spell damage (quite high, to help AE which has better damage coefficient ).

CoC rank 6 = (429 + 0.1357*spd)*(0.35+1.06*1.05) = 925 dmg, with 200% crit.

Frost Nova, rank 5 = 343 dmg, with 200% crit.

AE rank 8, untalented (deep frost, yes?) = 392+0.2128*spd = 711 dmg, with 50% crit.

With crit chance 25%, Shatter and Winter's chill we has:

FN+CoC = 343*1.25+925*1.77 = 2065 dmg.
2xAE = 711*1.125*2= 1600 dmg.

And even without Improved CoC damage output for FN+CoC is still higher.
Also mobs are usually snared now, so if frost mage is really good, they have some troubles in squishing him.

P.S. All calculations made with spell damage coefficients from Spell damage coefficient - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki.
#287SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
If you have such a high latency that you will start missing acknowledgement packets before your next cast you are already lagging so much that you are close to unplayable.
#288SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3tedv
Interestingly, this is analogous to the anti-latency code they used in Quake 3. In Q3, there is a sliding window of how far out of sync a client's time can get with the server. Clients could be up to 200 ms ahead or 1000 ms behind, and it worked really well at handling the "chain casting" case (which is called "chain firing"). It also stopped people from applying time speed hacks, since movement was also timestamped. The solution is technically sound.
#289SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
If you have such a high latency that you will start missing acknowledgement packets before your next cast you are already lagging so much that you are close to unplayable.
Your comment is very confusing to me.

The server sends out packets saying that the cast has complete when the cast actually has completed but the client is attempting to start the next cast before the client has received those packets in an attempt to remove latency from the picture.

Even with a 25ms connection if you are trying to /stopcast (with macro or under the new system) you are asking the client to send the request for the next spell 25ms before the server has even completed the cast, since you are trying to have the message reach the server the moment it completes the current cast and you have to allow for the travel time to the server from the client.

Whether your latency if 10,000ms or 100ms the same principal holds true and that is why I am so confused about your comment. Mind elaborating on your statement so that it becomes a bit clearer.

Originally Posted by tedv View Post
Interestingly, this is analogous to the anti-latency code they used in Quake 3. In Q3, there is a sliding window of how far out of sync a client's time can get with the server. Clients could be up to 200 ms ahead or 1000 ms behind, and it worked really well at handling the "chain casting" case (which is called "chain firing"). It also stopped people from applying time speed hacks, since movement was also timestamped. The solution is technically sound.
Exactly, that is why I really am hoping that Blizzard makes the final step and moves to that system. It has tremendous potential for allieviating all the current issues and without requiring anything special (be it a macro or a G15) from the player to accomplish it.
#290SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Ok so in other words, they don't want players to spam their fireball key to the server. But what about if instead I wrote a macro with fluff stuff in it (ie: redundant stuff that does nothing) and have that macro cast fireball. I don't see how blizzard could prevent users from spamming a macro to the server. They have to let the client send macros to the server even if you're within the GCD. This could effectively allow players to still spam the servers with fireball.

I'm thinking something like:
/stopcasting [target:noexist] (ie: this does nothing)
/cast fireball (ie: this is what we spam the server with)
#291SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Ok so in other words, they don't want players to spam their fireball key to the server. But what about if instead I wrote a macro with fluff stuff in it (ie: redundant stuff that does nothing) and have that macro cast fireball. I don't see how blizzard could prevent users from spamming a macro to the server. They have to let the client send macros to the server even if you're within the GCD. This could effectively allow players to still spam the servers with fireball.

I'm thinking something like:
/stopcasting [target:noexist] (ie: this does nothing)
/cast fireball (ie: this is what we spam the server with)
Except aren't macros also locked off from functioning during GCD, at least the spell cast portion of them.

The current system is the exact same as our current /stopcasting except the difference is that if you are too early instead of interrupting your current cast you are forced to wait your current latency to start the next cast, which is definitely a dps improvement over an interruption under the current system.

The only real issue is that people with very high latencies are still penalized more then anyone else and would still be better off playing Hunter's (provided the castsequence macro isn't broken) or Rogues or any class without a casting bar. Also any unstability in your latency can cause you to send the cast request early thus hurting dps. That system also rewards people for using things like the G15 since then they can try to time the spell perfectly but then have the G15 spam at 0.01ms intervals or something to catch the opening in the GCD if they miss the timing.

A "window of acceptance" would fix all the issues since then there would be no reason to spam at all provided you are inside that 250ms window when you hit the casting button since the server would just store the request and fire the spell requested the moment the previous one ended, basically a queue without the queue. It's pretty much the ideal solution to the issue from both sides of things, still have to be involved to get the spell to cast but you get a window where if you are too early (due to latency inconsistencies or operator error) you won't hurt your dps at all.

Hopefully they will incorporate all the aspects together into the casting system since that would be ideal without any issues that I can think of.

1. GCD on requesting a spell, even if one is already in progress.
2. Client can send a spell request at any time it is not in GCD.
3. If client receives spell completion from server it resets the GCD.
4. Server makes determination if it is eligible to start new cast whenever a request comes in.
5. Server has "window of acceptance" to allow casting commands that come too early to still function.

Can't see any issues at all with that system under any latency conditions.
#292SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Firefly
delete

Last edited by Firefly : 10/25/07 at 10:55 AM.
#293SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vektor
I wonder if they've considered a token-style client side rate limiter for spellcast attempts?

If each attempt to cast a spell before receiving a "complete" message was subject to a rate-limiter such as this, it would help the "people holding down a G15 macro all night" messagespam that's apparently causing problems.

Consider: each attempt to cast a spell before receiving a complete, interrupted, or failed message (ie. while your castbar is still ticking away) consumes a 'token'.

Note: any numbers I supply are purely for the sake of argument :P

You are given a maximum capacity of 10 'tokens', refunded once per 0.1s or so. Each attempt to cast a new spell while a spell is already being cast consumes a token. Each attempt to cast a new spell while the GCD is up consumes a token (to accomodate AE spam and "fastcasting" spells after an instant in general)

This means:

The rate limiter will not affect the speed of a spell which is not "fastcasted" - ie. if you're not already casting something, and your GCD isn't up, there should be no spellcast delay due to the limiter (as it should be - the limiter should never prevent or slow a spell cast under "legit" conditions, client-side)

The rate limiter will likely not significantly affect those who wait until the end of their spellcast to try to start their next spell (it will, however, punish G15 macro spammers as they will deplete their supply of tokens near the beginning of their spellcast)

The rate limiter lets the game very clearly define what is an acceptable level of spellcast spam, and never exceed that rate. Pick a value your servers can handle and that's that.

Consider (assuming a 10 'token' backlog, 0.1s to refund a token):

I'm casting a spell, and being smart, I'm waiting until the end of the spell to use my available 'tokens' to spam my next spell. I start at 0.5s remaining on the cast and plan to use all 10 available tokens - which results in an effective rate of 0.050s between attempts (one cast attempt every 50ms), which likely borders on reasonable - and still gives me a generous half-second "window" in which to cast my spell. If, for some reason, I manage to miss the half-second window, the most my spell can be delayed due to the filter is 0.1s (100ms) - which is still better than most people will achieve with stopcasting macros today.

Consider someone chain-casting 10 fireballs using a 25ms G15 macro with and without the aforementioned rate limiter:

Without limiter
25ms macro spam = 40 tries per second

With limiter
10 fireballs = 30s
Starting token 'stockpile' = 10 tokens
tokens are regained at a rate of one per 0.1s (10 tokens/sec)
30sec * 10 tokens/sec = 300 tokens regained over the course of 10 fireballs
300 tokens regained + 10 token 'stockpile' at the beginning = 310 tokens used
310 tokens / 30s = 10.3 tries per second (down by a factor of 4 from the macro spam without a limiter)

And, because this seems to be what most people will end up doing anyway:
With limiter, macro only spammed during the last 0.3s of a cast
10 fireballs @ 0.3s of macro spam time each = 3s of tokens regained while spamming your cast macro. At 10 tokens per second, this gives 30 tokens regained during the 'macro spam' period over the course of 10 fireballs.

The 10 token 'stockpile' will be fully replenished during the first 1s of every cast, giving the player 10 a token reserve to fire away during the 0.3s macro spam "burst" at the end of every spell. 10 fireballs @ 10 tokens each = 100.

100 tries from the 'stockpile' + 30 tries from regained tokens = 130 tries
130 tokens / 30s = 4.3 tries per second (compare to 40 tries per second without a rate limiter)

---

The actual numbers are, of course, flexible (I just picked easy-to-work-with numbers), but would (at first glance) appear to be effective in rate-limiting macro spam down to a reasonable value without further burderning the game servers (all rate limiting is done client-side, of course) without fooling around with any client-side fake global cooldowns or anything like that.

Of course, allowing a 'grace period' under the current system on the PTR would work about as well. It just really depends if they want to allow game servers to 'fudge' the timing on received spellcasts or not.
#294SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
stuff
I am not saying in any way the change is bad. However, you do assume they will use a reasonable latency window (ie: 250ms) whereas I assume a worst case scenario where they would use something more akin to 50-100ms which could be very frustrating.
#295SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Vektor View Post
Stuff on a Token system to limit spam
It's a great idea but I think Blizzard is trying to limit the spam not only due to swarming the servers but also to keep the playing field level between people who have something like a G15 and people who don't.
#296SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
To be honest, I don't want to have to buy a particular keyboard to ensure my DPS is competative.
#297SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I am not saying in any way the change is bad. However, you do assume they will use a reasonable latency window (ie: 250ms) whereas I assume a worst case scenario where they would use something more akin to 50-100ms which could be very frustrating.

Even 100ms wouldn't be bad since it basically just follows the same casting model we are currently working under with stopcasting but then gives you a little leeway to push for more dps and if you miss you aren't hurt too badly.

That said, 100ms wouldn't be bad for us (people working with normal latencies) but it wouldn't be sufficient to deal with the 500-600ms latencies dealt with by others. 250ms would be enough to help them while still keeping everyone involved in the game (which seems to be their aversion to using a queuing system) and without any real exploitability from something like the G15.
#298SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vektor
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
To be honest, I don't want to have to buy a particular keyboard to ensure my DPS is competative.
You could always use a keyboard macroing utility such as AutoHotkey (AutoHotkey - Free Mouse and Keyboard Macro Program with Hotkeys and AutoText) to achieve the same result

*DISCLAIMER: I have no idea if using a software macro utility such as AHK is against the wow TOS or not. I have AHK installed and use it for general purpose day-to-day macros, but have never found a need to use it for wow. That having been said, I've also never had any trouble with the wow client as a result of having AHK. It seems to me that the functionality I'm proposing AHK be used for is absolutely no different than what is done with the G15 (which has been explicitly okayed, iirc), so in practice there's nothing ethically wrong with it. Practically, I have no idea how WoW people would view AHK. YMMV.

Merely create a keyboard macro for an existing key that loops, generating key events while the key of your choice is held down: AutoHotkey Tutorial: Macro and Hotkey Creation

This approximates the G15 functionality without purchasing additional hardware, which I feel is fair game insofar as software keyboard macroing goes.

Before recommending anyone actually make widespread use of this, I'd suggest researching whether or not the TOS prohibits AHK.

That all having been said, for the average player, there's probably very little practical difference between using a G15/AHK macro and mashing your spell key a few times, really fast, when the quartz bar goes into the red.
#299SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
Originally Posted by Plouton View Post
Why do you think so? Say, frost mage with Improved CoC, Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds has 1500 spell damage (quite high, to help AE which has better damage coefficient ).
You're making false assumptions that:

A) None of the Frost Novas have broken from another damge source in the 1.5 seconds before your CoC.

B) You are able to hit every target with your CoC (not impossible but a lot of times not possible.)

In the real world, 2x AE is better most of the time.

Edit:

Actually I wasn't satisfied with this. Your math bothered me and I'm also not the type of person to just "agree to disagree". Also I've never found a good way to fit Improved Cone of Cold into my PvE Deep Frost build, and you said it was still better so I'm doing my math without it. So, here's my results (this is still using the 2 false assumptions above):

1200 damage (far more realistic, IMHO.)
25% crit
1.06 Multiplier from Piercing Ice
1.05 from Arctic Winds
Shatter & Winter's Chill as well

Frost Nova, Base Avg 105, Coefficient 0.13
After +Damage = 261
After Talents Total = 290
After Crit = 362

Cone of Cold, Base Avg 429, Coefficient 0.13
After +Damage = 585
After Talents Total = 651
After Crit = 1035

FN + CoC = 1397


Arcane Explosionm, Base Avg 392, Coefficient 0.21
After +Damage = 644
After Talents Total = 644
After Crit = 724

AE * 2 = 1448

Most importantly, if you are in a situation where you CAN CoC everything:

CoC + AE = 1537





Regarding the current system on the PTR, I've got to think they're going to go to some kind of queue system. Spamming the server the way we're going to have to with this system is just going to be ridiculous. And what is the point really? There's no skill in it, it doesn't make the game more fun.

The obvious solution is allow a 1 spell queue, hitting Esc once would cancel the queue'd spell or if none, cancel the current spell. Are they afraid it makes the GCD meaningless? The GCD is to prevent you from being able to spam instant spells non-stop, it isn't supposed to have any effect on spells that have a cast time or are channeled (this is why casted spells under 1.5 sec have reduced GCD, of course.)

Last edited by ebbv : 10/24/07 at 3:28 PM.
#300SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vektor
I recall Blizzard asserting, in no uncertain terms, that they would not be implementing a spell queue.

I agree that these other systems are unwieldy kludges when compared to the elegance of a 1-deep queue, but that's what they've said.
#301SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
Originally Posted by Vektor View Post
I recall Blizzard asserting, in no uncertain terms, that they would not be implementing a spell queue.

I agree that these other systems are unwieldy kludges when compared to the elegance of a 1-deep queue, but that's what they've said.

Yeah they've also said a lot of other things and promptly turned around on it (i.e., "We are happy with the new Mage water being 2 per cast, this is intended and will not change."). So I'm hoping this is another one of those cases. It's probably false hope, but it's there all the same.

Last edited by ebbv : 10/24/07 at 3:42 PM. Reason: Add quote and backup assertion
#302SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3alvinrod
Originally Posted by Plouton View Post
Why do you think so? Say, frost mage with Improved CoC, Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds has 1500 spell damage (quite high, to help AE which has better damage coefficient ).

CoC rank 6 = (429 + 0.1357*spd)*(0.35+1.06*1.05) = 925 dmg, with 200% crit.

Frost Nova, rank 5 = 343 dmg, with 200% crit.

AE rank 8, untalented (deep frost, yes?) = 392+0.2128*spd = 711 dmg, with 50% crit.

With crit chance 25%, Shatter and Winter's chill we has:

FN+CoC = 343*1.25+925*1.77 = 2065 dmg.
2xAE = 711*1.125*2= 1600 dmg.

And even without Improved CoC damage output for FN+CoC is still higher.
Also mobs are usually snared now, so if frost mage is really good, they have some troubles in squishing him.

P.S. All calculations made with spell damage coefficients from Spell damage coefficient - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki.
This is a good example where it looks good on paper, but in practice 2x AE is better, mostly because you won't be able to hit everything with a CoC whereas you will with an AE. From personal experience the mobs are rarely if ever grouped enough to hit them all with a CoC. I mostly just save it to snare something that's trying to run away if my frost nova is still cooling down. I'll take 1600 dmg on every mob instead of 2056 on only some of them.
#303SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Jayde
The other element is that, at least in my case, I typically use Rank 1 Frost Nova for the large mana savings rather than a high-rank Frost Nova that gets full +dmg value.

I could be wrong for doing this, but as the end effect is identical, it seems resonable to use Rank 1 as a general rule.
#304SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
Let's be honest here, the difference between R1 and R5 nova is trivial now. Sorry, to be more accurate, the cost of R5 compared to mana-pool is so trivial that downranking it is not worthwhile. You might as well get the full (albeit small) +damage application unless you are soloing.

I cannot think of a single in-game raiding situation where the 100ish mana saved will allow you to apply more damage to the encounter than you'd get from max-ranking it. Of course we are now moving into the realm of theorycrafted min-maxing that becomes more OCD than practical though.
#305SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, usually you want full ranked frostnova to avoid your frostbite overwriting your nova, which happens on all ranks that aren't max rank. That's about it tho, and it rarely happens in pve context.
#306SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vulkaire
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, usually you want full ranked frostnova to avoid your frostbite overwriting your nova, which happens on all ranks that aren't max rank. That's about it tho, and it rarely happens in pve context.

Well, you usually won't get a frostbite proc unless you hit it with a frostbolt or CoC. Either of which will most likely break the nova these days so that is really a non issue. Only other ways it could happen would be with frost armor which you wouldn't be using in pve anyway, or imp blizzard which doesn't work well for kiting with frostbite to begin with. For pvp, I have always used rank 1 as I am usually pretty tight on mana.
#307SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plouton
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
You're making false assumptions that:

A) None of the Frost Novas have broken from another damge source in the 1.5 seconds before your CoC.

B) You are able to hit every target with your CoC (not impossible but a lot of times not possible.)

In the real world, 2x AE is better most of the time.
We are on game mechanics forum, after all. And my point is that you are probably underestimate FN+CoC pure damage potential, not that it is better for any situation. Surely a mage must use his brain and choose appropriate spells for an encounter. But numbers (and my personal experience, as well as experience of some other mages) says that "appropriate"!="2xAE instead of FN+CoC every time".

Originally Posted by ebbv
So, here's my results (this is still using the 2 false assumptions above):
.........................
Cone of Cold, Base Avg 429, Coefficient 0.13
............................
After Talents Total = 651
After Crit = 1035
Why your calculated damage for CoC on frozen targets is so low? CoC with Shatter, WC and 25% base crit will get 77% crit chance after FN (25% base + 50% shatter + 2% WC). So, average damage is 651*1.77=1152, not 1035, for total 1514 with FN. And yes, CoC+AE is even better scenario if you don't have Improved CoC. Of course, without Improved CoC profit is small, and also AE for typical 10/51 build can have higher hit chance if mage is not hit capped. It was just a side note.

It is usually easy to jump around and spam AE, while CoC requires right positioning, right timing and, sometimes, good kiting. But ability to use all class and personal skills at maximum potential is the key for really good frost mage, imo.
#308SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
C-2
(sorry to derail from the aoe discussion :> )

There is a lot of information in this thread, to the point where I don't know where to begin heh.

Basically, my guild is 1 boss into TK and 2 bosses into SSC and I am doing VERY well with the MSD and arcane missles. If from what I am reading is true then arcane will basically be the lowest raid dps spec out of the 3 main ones (being either deep fire, deep frost or deep arcane) and to be honest, after raiding as fire since the start of AQ40 I am tired as hell of 8:1 fireball to scorch spam rotations so I suppose my questions go as follows:

With 2pc T5 will ab spam/rotations still be viable?
Will Frost finally be PvE viable? (Assuming WE stays alive etc etc)
Will I once again be Pigeonholed into lolfireball spam?

And I know "any spec is always viable" but I am more thinking in terms of ACTUAL damage output. I went to Gruul/Mag/VR today with 14% hit 35% crit and over 1k spell damage as fire, and for all intents and purposes, I had my shit pushed in. So I went back arcane to stay raid viable (in my opinion) I just don't know what to do for the next patch. I'm just rambling on at this point so I'll turn it over to you more progressed mages. What should someone in SSC/TK start thinking about? Hasted Frost?

p.s I would love to raid as frost again if you haven't noticed :>

Last edited by C-2 : 10/25/07 at 8:10 AM. Reason: for clarity
#309SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
By Vul'jin's third leg! What is it today? Everyone seems to post "hi i'm new here, can you summarize all the posts into a <spec X rotate Y-Z spells> post for me plx?"

Read the last five pages of this thread, of [Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work? and TBC Mage Theorycrafting and draw your own conclusions. Going too far back won't help much, and neither will reading them from the start. Try 5 pages from the end and if you don't get the info you require go 10 pages back.

As for your final statement, no, "any spec is NOT always viable". This mentality is fine for W.O.W. Forums US and EU, for Kara and Gruul. In EJ forums, 95% of the time we are talking in terms of "ACTUAL damage output" as you name it, thankyouverymuch.
#310SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3C-2
I don't know why you seem so hostile. I've read the entire thread and I am more asking for advice rather then asking "hay guyz lol i m nu 2 mage cn u hlp plz" And as for the final statement, yes I realize there are some quite shitty specs I only said that in an attempt to not be patronized (which obviously failed). Yes I read these forums a hundred times more than I post, and yes I realize these aren't the WoW forums thank god for that. I am not asking for spell rotations, or gear choices or anything resembling that (from my perspective). I am more asking the much further progressed mages what their opinion is LOOKING BACK with their 2.3 options seeing as how from my PoV looking into the future is much more foggy. Hindsight is 20/20. But you are right about one thing I am talking about actual damage output.

I am terrible (READ: TERRIBLE) with math so have a heart :< and I will read over those threads again but my question still stands. If you had to go back and do it all over again in 2.3, what would you change?
#311SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Sorry for being so twitchy in that case, there seems to be a flood of "run my numbers" posts lately. Consensus seems to be that:

Fire will do even better than it is doing now
Frost with elemental alive will be second best
Arcane will be worse than either, but better than Frost with no elemental

Unless I'm mistaken, the only way it's looking now for arcane is 2T5 and ABx3,AM,Sc rotation. Nobody seems taken with the idea of AM spam anymore and most posters are begrudgingly returning to fire or gleefully hoping frost will work enough to be acceptable.
#312SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Remitroll
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Sorry for being so twitchy in that case, there seems to be a flood of "run my numbers" posts lately. Consensus seems to be that:

Fire will do even better than it is doing now
Frost with elemental alive will be second best
Arcane will be worse than either, but better than Frost with no elemental

Unless I'm mistaken, the only way it's looking now for arcane is 2T5 and ABx3,AM,Sc rotation. Nobody seems taken with the idea of AM spam anymore and most posters are begrudgingly returning to fire or gleefully hoping frost will work enough to be acceptable.
Having followed all of the EJ Mage theorycraft over the last few months, I think thats pretty much the picture post 2.3.

Been Arcane (using the AB rotation w/o 2*T5) for a good while and am doing pretty good damage. Of course since I got a meta helm I've been on the AM spam train.

Progression wise I'm at 6/6 SSC and 1/4 TK. Second piece of T5 will be mine the next time Kara decides to drop them. However having looked at all the forums and dabbled on the PTR, come 2.3 I'll be back to Fireball spam. I believe that 2*T5 AB rotation with my gear will be very close to Fire DMG output, but the dependencies seem to high (SP, un-interrupted rotations etc). And I'm sure that when the Bosses hit 20% and I can chug Destruction Potions and Flame Caps instead of Mana Pots, Fire will really shine
#313SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
Let's be honest here, the difference between R1 and R5 nova is trivial now. Sorry, to be more accurate, the cost of R5 compared to mana-pool is so trivial that downranking it is not worthwhile. You might as well get the full (albeit small) +damage application unless you are soloing.
It's more of an issue in pvp, where getting mana burned / viper stinged to exactly 0 mana is not rare. And then its kinda helpful if you are able to Nova after only a single regen trick when a ROgue or Warrior is on you.
#314SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nickolina
I'm not entirely convinced that AM spam will entirely be useless in 2.3 with a MSD. The amount of extra damage your getting every 45 secs is still significant, and by far greater than the 3% extra crit meta gem over the same period of time.
#315SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Plankel
Originally Posted by Nickolina View Post
I'm not entirely convinced that AM spam will entirely be useless in 2.3 with a MSD. The amount of extra damage your getting every 45 secs is still significant, and by far greater than the 3% extra crit meta gem over the same period of time.
Do you have any calculations to back this up? (no, not that oversimplified calculation from the other thread). Please dont do claims like this unless you have something to back it up. Untill you provide that I will stay with what Kavan said earlier in this thread

Last edited by Plankel : 10/25/07 at 11:42 AM.
#316SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nickolina
Well.. Using my average dps with Arcane Missiles.. Crit pulse 1750 and normal pulse for 1000. On average critting 2/5 every AM.

In 45 secs of AM spam i'd expect to cast 9 Arcane Missiles and generate an aproximate 31500 critical damage of which 3% is only 945 damage.

In 45 secs of AM spam i'd expect to get at least one proc every 45 secs.. resulting in haf a free missile every 45 secs or in my case 3250 damage.

I stand by my made up conclusions :P
#317SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
I guess I missread you.

I thought you claimed AM spam with a MSD was still viable in 2.3, but you where only comparing MSD and CSD with AM spam.

That means you are right, but you would do more damage with an AB rotation (or fire/frost) no matter what metagem you use , so this entire discussion is pointless.
#318SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Nickolina View Post
Well.. Using my average dps with Arcane Missiles.. Crit pulse 1750 and normal pulse for 1000. On average critting 2/5 every AM.

In 45 secs of AM spam i'd expect to cast 9 Arcane Missiles and generate an aproximate 31500 critical damage of which 3% is only 945 damage.

In 45 secs of AM spam i'd expect to get at least one proc every 45 secs.. resulting in haf a free missile every 45 secs or in my case 3250 damage.

I stand by my made up conclusions :P
I haven't done a lot of the calculations with arcane anymore since the spec is being put into the closet by blizzard. So it may still be the Meta of choice for Arcane.

From what I've seen with my personal calculations with fire...they're within a couple dps of eachother.

In a real encounter however, I believe the MSD would give higher dps since there are times when you're not casting and the meta could be on cooldown. The CSD would be easier on mana, since it does have the 12 crit on it and haste is always harder on mana.
#319SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
Do you have any calculations to back this up? (no, not that oversimplified calculation from the other thread). Please dont do claims like this unless you have something to back it up. Untill you provide that I will stay with what Kavan said earlier in this thread

Well, Lhivera did some calculations in the WoW mage forums showing that the MSD will still be a 4.7% increase in damage (napkin math verifies that easily enough) if you were only spamming Arcane Missiles. The issue is that since AM spam will be crap dps in 2.3 in comparison to everything else the only way to make Arcane Viable will be to use 2T5 and rotations and since the MSD doesn't play well with AB rotations it becomes a bit of an issue to use it properly.

You could conceivably recode one of the Mod timers to track the cooldown of the MSD so that when it is available you switch to AM spam until it procs and then return to a rotation but even then your dps will pale in comparison to what you would see with a Deep Fire (or even a Deep Frost) rotation, even with using 2T5.

That also says nothing about the mana issues you are putting up with to do that subpar dps. More mana for less dps is not a very good deal so I would just plan on getting the CSD meta so you can more easily switch between Deep Fire and Deep Frost depending on what encounter your raid will be doing. Unless you have 2 helms available so you can keep the MSD for when you are Fire and then switch to the CSD when you are Frost.

Final note - sure more dps on AE is an advantage to Arcane Spec BUT all the AE I've seen so far is Trash and who really cares about an extra 100dps on trash. If you can't get through it then your guild ain't killing the boss anyway and that xtra 100dps on the trash (if your single target is subpar) won't help when the boss spanks your raid.
#320SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I did a quick calculation for the Mad Alchemist caster "buff" that is reported. I simply assumed the 20% longer was after haste was applied to fireball...and that the 10% damage was applied after crit/non-crit were averaged together. I know this is a somewhat rough assumption.

W/O Buff : 1896 dps

W/ Buff : 1740 dps

Nice job blizzard...I wonder if you can get normal alchemist elixir buffs instead of the 4 that were reported.
#321SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I did a quick calculation for the Mad Alchemist caster "buff" that is reported. I simply assumed the 20% longer was after haste was applied to fireball...and that the 10% damage was applied after crit/non-crit were averaged together. I know this is a somewhat rough assumption.

W/O Buff : 1896 dps

W/ Buff : 1740 dps

Nice job blizzard...I wonder if you can get normal alchemist elixir buffs instead of the 4 that were reported.
Erm... could we get a little more explanation on this?
#322SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Evalara
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Final note - sure more dps on AE is an advantage to Arcane Spec BUT all the AE I've seen so far is Trash and who really cares about an extra 100dps on trash. If you can't get through it then your guild ain't killing the boss anyway and that xtra 100dps on the trash (if your single target is subpar) won't help when the boss spanks your raid.
Huh? The only AoE I do is on bosses, or rather boss adds. Arcane Explosion alone is usually 35%+ of my damage on Hydross/Morogrim/Solarian. Particularly if you're having trouble with those fights (we wipe to Morogrim like it was going out of style) this is a very valid reason to go somewhat deep into arcane.
#323SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I did a quick calculation for the Mad Alchemist caster "buff" that is reported. I simply assumed the 20% longer was after haste was applied to fireball...and that the 10% damage was applied after crit/non-crit were averaged together. I know this is a somewhat rough assumption.

W/O Buff : 1896 dps

W/ Buff : 1740 dps

Nice job blizzard...I wonder if you can get normal alchemist elixir buffs instead of the 4 that were reported.
You are referring to the vibrant/black/glowing blood debuffs linked on mmo-champion, that are suspected to be Mad Alchemist's Potion side buffs?

Those are debuffs that are already in the game, cast by mobs in Zangarmarsh. I highly doubt they will become those potion side effects too.

Edit: Mmo-champion states that that debuff isn't even confirmed. And someone in the 2.3 thread said they used 23 potion and had no effect yet. No one else linked anything yet with that potion.
And I'm sure they would post a screenshot of something new.

It just makes no sense whatsoever that someone now randomly claims that some debuffs that have existed since beta are now the potion side effects.

My personal guess is that it's just not in yet.

Also, those are magic debuffs. They'd be removed faster than you can blink in a proper group/raid by your local cleansebots.
Brings up nice memories on Arcane Blast when it was dispellable

Last edited by Roywyn : 10/25/07 at 1:15 PM.
#324SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
I think he means this effect vibrant blood, which is supposedly one of the four possible effects of the mad alchemist potion (and the only one which has any positive effect for casters at all).

Clearly the downside outweighs the positive effect for fireball spam, as he said.
#325SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Evalara View Post
Huh? The only AoE I do is on bosses, or rather boss adds. Arcane Explosion alone is usually 35%+ of my damage on Hydross/Morogrim/Solarian. Particularly if you're having trouble with those fights (we wipe to Morogrim like it was going out of style) this is a very valid reason to go somewhat deep into arcane.
Sorry, I haven't been to SSC in months but even when we were going there it was more about controlling the AE mobs then the specific application of dps (ie with the AE cap in place being able generate 100 more dps then a different spec is moot since the AE is capped anyway).

Back then I was Deep Frost for awhile to help control the murlocs on Morogrim and honestly my AE dps was still roughly equal to every other mages and that was before they increased Blizzard's coefficient.

AE stuff dies fast cause it's supposed to die fast. The issues with AE are about controlling the mobs not maximizing your individual dps.

If you are wiping to morogrim then skip going deeper into arcane and spec Deep Frost and control the mobs so that your warlocks seeds are more effective. Deep Frost spec Blizzarding the mobs when they are all bunched means everything dies nice and clean and you will win that fight. Sure your dps will suffer on Hydros (but if that is on Farm status does that really matter anyway) and a little bit on the other fights (this is arguable in 2.3) but if it gets your raid through Morogrim it is well worth the personal epeen sacrifice.
#326SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
I think he means this effect vibrant blood, which is supposedly one of the four possible effects of the mad alchemist potion (and the only one which has any positive effect for casters at all).

Clearly the downside outweighs the positive effect for fireball spam, as he said.
From what Blizzard posted about the Mad Alchemist's Potion (MAP) the effect will be a random elixir buff and the elixir buffs will match the ones that are currently in the game. It won't overwrite existing flask buffs though (not sure about other elixirs though). From what they seem to be saying it could be any elixir in the game, from Adepts to Draenic Wisdom to Fel Strength to Major Defense etc. but that if you already have an elixir on then it just acts as a rejuv pot.

IF that is what it actually does it should be a lot of fun in the BGs and when doing trash but won't really have any real affect on Boss fights or anything where you will want specific alchemic buffs in place.
#327SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
You are referring to the vibrant/black/glowing blood debuffs linked on mmo-champion, that are suspected to be Mad Alchemist's Potion side buffs?

Those are debuffs that are already in the game, cast by mobs in Zangarmarsh. I highly doubt they will become those potion side effects too.

Edit: Mmo-champion states that that debuff isn't even confirmed. And someone in the 2.3 thread said they used 23 potion and had no effect yet. No one else linked anything yet with that potion.
And I'm sure they would post a screenshot of something new.

It just makes no sense whatsoever that someone now randomly claims that some debuffs that have existed since beta are now the potion side effects.

My personal guess is that it's just not in yet.

Also, those are magic debuffs. They'd be removed faster than you can blink in a proper group/raid by your local cleansebots.
Brings up nice memories on Arcane Blast when it was dispellable

Yes, it's just what mmo-champion has reported so far. I agree that there's a rather small chance that this is the actual buff...since this is what Drysc has to say.

"It's a trainable alchemist-only rejuvenation potion (replenish health/mana) and will also give a random elixir buff. It won't replace existing elixir buffs though; if you already have one on. "

It is possible that these 4 buffs are considered elixir buffs...and that there simply isn't a way for alchemists to make an elixir to give the buff.


The math behind those numbers

Fireball w/o Buff (this is coming directly from your spreadsheet vontre)

Average Damage: 5617.93
Cast Time 2 (capped): 2.96
DPS: 5617.93 / 2.96 = 1897.9

Fireball w/ Buff

Average Damage: 5617.93 + 0.1 * 5617.93 = 6179.72
Cast Time 2 (capped): 2.96 + 0.2 * 2.96 = 3.552
DPS: 6179.72 / 3.552 = 1739.78

Last edited by Cardynal : 10/25/07 at 2:00 PM.
#328SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Plouton View Post
We are on game mechanics forum, after all. And my point is that you are probably underestimate FN+CoC pure damage potential, not that it is better for any situation. Surely a mage must use his brain and choose appropriate spells for an encounter. But numbers (and my personal experience, as well as experience of some other mages) says that "appropriate"!="2xAE instead of FN+CoC every time".
Yeah it is a game mechanics forum, and Frost Nova breaking a lot and Cone of Cold having limited targettability are important game mechanics.

Why your calculated damage for CoC on frozen targets is so low? CoC with Shatter, WC and 25% base crit will get 77% crit chance after FN (25% base + 50% shatter + 2% WC). So, average damage is 651*1.77=1152, not 1035, for total 1514 with FN. And yes, CoC+AE is even better scenario if you don't have Improved CoC. Of course, without Improved CoC profit is small, and also AE for typical 10/51 build can have higher hit chance if mage is not hit capped. It was just a side note.
I guess I made a typo when doing the CoC calculation, I am not sure how I did that. I'm not even sure what number results in the 1035 I got. Regardless, the theoretical damage advantage of FN + CoC is too small compared to the reality of missed targets and broken Frost Novas.

It is usually easy to jump around and spam AE, while CoC requires right positioning, right timing and, sometimes, good kiting. But ability to use all class and personal skills at maximum potential is the key for really good frost mage, imo.
Any time spent jumping around and maneuvering to get into position for FN +CoC is either lost DPS time or requiring you to cast AE. And again we come back to the point where if you FN late you may kill people and if you FN + CoC early then you pull aggro off the tanks.

I think this subject has been beaten into the ground and I'm going to let it go now.
#329SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
I would just like to add that during the BC beta, I posted on the Beta UI forums and asked Slouken if Blizzard would ever implement even a rudimentary single tier of spell queueing. He told me it was not planned at the moment and did not see any work like that happening for at least the next year. So, while I was disappointed at the time I see this change minor as it is, as a step in the right direction. I think blizzard are more worried about spell queueing since it will give players another thing to complain about: ie: melee will argue that casters have an inherent advantage in that situation since it is much harder to queue instant abilities.

I'm hopeful still but not overly optimistic simply due to the reasons I stated above, rogues and to some extent hunters would be peeved since they base so much on GCD/Shot times/Energy ticks.
#330SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
On a side note, wouldn't the new chaotic meta put 33/28 closer to 10/48/3 dps? Enough to put it over?
#331SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Endage
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
On a side note, wouldn't the new chaotic meta put 33/28 closer to 10/48/3 dps? Enough to put it over?
I am thinking about 34/24/3 (+hit over firedamage due to misses not critting) and having around 43% critchance on fireball raidbuffed with the chaotic meta. With the ashtongue trinket and T5 setbonus (I don't have access to full T6 for a while) I believe it can get some amazing ignites

I haven't seen any spreadsheet supporting the CSD yet, so I can't play around with it in theory, but it might be interesting.
#332SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Endage View Post
I am thinking about 34/24/3 (+hit over firedamage due to misses not critting) and having around 43% critchance on fireball raidbuffed with the chaotic meta. With the ashtongue trinket and T5 setbonus (I don't have access to full T6 for a while) I believe it can get some amazing ignites

I haven't seen any spreadsheet supporting the CSD yet, so I can't play around with it in theory, but it might be interesting.
34/24/3 vs. 33/28/0
You gain 3% hit (ElePre), 1% crit (ArcPot), 3.3% mana saving (should be a non-issue), and lose 7% raw damage (PWF, FirPow).
Not worth it, seeing that you can get hit-capped from other items while losing the equivalent of maybe 1-2% crit.

As for the numbers for Fireball spam in optimised gear (calculations without a meta gem):
33/28/0 with 1.3% miss: 1735 DPS (Cowl of the Illidari Highlord, Ring of Captured Storms)
10/48/3 with 0.6% miss (capped at 1% miss): 1824 DPS (Leggings of Channeled Elements)

Even for 33/28/0, 1 spell crit rating is only ~0.89 spell damage, compared to ~0.75 for 10/48/3.
So, trying to stack crit wont get you much further either.

And even though the CSD meta (if it works like the bugged resilience before) favours 33/28/0 over 10/48/3, it won't be able to make up for an 89 DPS difference.



Yes, you'll get some amazing ignites. Underbog Colossi will be your best friends and worst foes. But that's it already.
APPoMPyro is fun, but Deep Fire is better for straight nuking.
#333SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
On a lighter note, the other day I read some WoW US forum poster state some parsings for full frost, he claimed:

1) For a month of frost raiding, at 128 hit rating (exactly 5% short of boss cap) he recorded 1% resist on bosses.

2) When he reduced hit to 120 due to item change, for a few weeks the resist went to 1.5%.

3) When he increased to 158hit for a further week it stayed on 1%.

Now by no means am I saying this is either true, or fact. The manner the post was written was professional and logical prompting me to think the poster genuinely believed it. Possible explanations I offer is the intrinsic 5% partial resist bosses have is being mitigated by frost, not to 0% but to no resist due to binary nature, OR his damage meter is recording only white or yellow resists as resist and thus explaining the 5%.

Does anyone else have any feedback on what's what with frost hitrate? I haven't raided enough with it and even when I did I was on over 158of the supposedly needed 164hit. If this data is indeed true it would mean only bosses would report 1% resist while trash would go up to 6% for lvl 73 trash thus making my old results poluted.

Has anyone had only 1% resist on bosses with upwards of 128hit but less than 164? Or have I been led up the garden path?
#334SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Originally Posted by Endage View Post
and having around 43% critchance on fireball raidbuffed
this bit puzzled me for a bit. I am was under the impression that critcap existed of 40%. If you get a higher critchance then that (not counting things like combustion, passive crit alone) your crits would hit for less so you would end up doing the same amount of damage as you would with 40% crit.

I have had this idea hanging in the back of my head for a long time now and I am pretty sure I originally picked it up from these forums. But when I tried looking it up I realized I can't find anything about it all on these forums. Neither the working theorycraft thread or any of the mage threads mentions it.

Is this crit cap real? Is it a mechanism that was removed sometime in the past? Or did it never exist except in my imagination? I hope anybody can give me the answer, since I am confused about it.
#335SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkchani
There is no such crit cap. Loatheb demonstrated that well where with the onyxia buff and the spore buff you could get to over 95% crit rate. At that point the limit of your crit was your chance to hit... If you were to have a 100% crit rate and a 1% chance to miss then your crit rate would effectively be 99%
#336SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
On a lighter note, the other day I read some WoW US forum poster state some parsings for full frost, he claimed:

1) For a month of frost raiding, at 128 hit rating (exactly 5% short of boss cap) he recorded 1% resist on bosses.

2) When he reduced hit to 120 due to item change, for a few weeks the resist went to 1.5%.

3) When he increased to 158hit for a further week it stayed on 1%.

Now by no means am I saying this is either true, or fact. The manner the post was written was professional and logical prompting me to think the poster genuinely believed it. Possible explanations I offer is the intrinsic 5% partial resist bosses have is being mitigated by frost, not to 0% but to no resist due to binary nature, OR his damage meter is recording only white or yellow resists as resist and thus explaining the 5%.

Does anyone else have any feedback on what's what with frost hitrate? I haven't raided enough with it and even when I did I was on over 158of the supposedly needed 164hit. If this data is indeed true it would mean only bosses would report 1% resist while trash would go up to 6% for lvl 73 trash thus making my old results poluted.

Has anyone had only 1% resist on bosses with upwards of 128hit but less than 164? Or have I been led up the garden path?
I noticed my misses often being rather low for a while now, usually somewhere between 1 and 1.5%, but it could still be only coincidence.

In case you want to analyze it a bit, i have two WWS parses for you at hand, and the amount of hitrating i was using back then (it's a while ago, but i reproduced my gear from our dkp-table):

Council, Illidan, Full SSC, 2/4 TK: 146 hitrating, 97.5% theoretical hitchance, 1.4% resists

Illidan, Full Hyjal, Full SSC: 140 hitrating, 97.1% theor. hitchance, 1.1% resists

Note, that these numbers include trash, but feel free to dig through every single bossfight
#337SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Frosty: Thanks man, that's a wealth of data you've got there.

It'll take a while to sieve through all this, but from first sight things seem to be in order. If it so happens that on 73 non-boss mobs 164 is needed to cap, then the .4% miss rate in excess of the 1% that's expected vs. bosses should explain this; there's a lot of trash before the bosses.

I take it you weren't teamed with a ToW shaman? ToW certainly isn't showing up on your WWS but I'm not 100% it does, so asking just in case.

If indeed it does transpire frost vs bosses only needs 128hit then we're on the verge of discovery: Frost will be 40item budget ahead of fire come 2.3... While I doubt that'll be enough to push it ahead it will (a) improve the value of frost for lesser-geared mages (b) make the frost/fire gap smaller.
#338SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I take it you weren't teamed with a ToW shaman? ToW certainly isn't showing up on your WWS but I'm not 100% it does, so asking just in case.
I'm very sure i hadn't ToW.

I took a closer look at the parses in the meantime, and it didn't seem to be the trash, that lowered the resist percentages: i had 1.2% and 1.3% resists on trash - in the 2nd raid, the resists there were even higher than those during the bossfights!

I see if i find more parses later and will link them here.
#339SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Originally Posted by frosty View Post
I noticed my misses often being rather low for a while now, usually somewhere between 1 and 1.5%, but it could still be only coincidence.

In case you want to analyze it a bit, i have two WWS parses for you at hand, and the amount of hitrating i was using back then (it's a while ago, but i reproduced my gear from our dkp-table):

Council, Illidan, Full SSC, 2/4 TK: 146 hitrating, 97.5% theoretical hitchance, 1.4% resists

Illidan, Full Hyjal, Full SSC: 140 hitrating, 97.1% theor. hitchance, 1.1% resists

Note, that these numbers include trash, but feel free to dig through every single bossfight
Oke, I looked through both your WWS stats, counted the frostbolts you did from the fights that dont have adds (so excluded illidan, hydross, lurker, fathom lord, tidewalker and vashj). On anetheron and A'lar you did not miss and I was able to determine how many hits you did on adds, so I counted the other fb from those fights as well.

In the end you have done 698 casts on boss lvl mobs, 8 of those missed, leaving you with 690 hits (crits included). If your hit chance was 97,5 % the probablity of 8 misses or less out of 698 casts is 0.91% (as can be calculated using the binomcdf function). This is outside of the 95% chance interval, so I would say there is something going on.

The hit chance I used is also higher then the actual hitchance for half of the data, if I take a hitchance of 97,3% (just a guess, didn't actually bother to calculate this) the probability is 0.39%, which is even outside of the 99% chance interval
#340SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Perhaps elemental precision is bugged for frost spec ?
#341SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Perhaps elemental precision is bugged for frost spec ?
Or both.. it used to be 6% hit instead of 3%. If EP was bugged the effective hit cap would be 126.. which is in line with the data in the thread. Hmmm...

Edit: Someone who's not at work should check the mana cost of a frost spell and see if elemental prec. is affecting it. Not the tooltip, but precise amount of mana spent.
#342SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Or both.. it used to be 6% hit instead of 3%. If EP was bugged the effective hit cap would be 126.. which is in line with the data in the thread. Hmmm...

Edit: Someone who's not at work should check the mana cost of a frost spell and see if elemental prec. is affecting it. Not the tooltip, but precise amount of mana spent.
Well exactly, that is what I meant. Maybe elemental precision works as a 6% like it used to, but just for frost spec. And yes that is precisely why I mentioned it since the numbers would get close.

theory #2: draenais in group
#343SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Vontre - WWS

Frostbolts are all against Archimonde, I didn't have elemental precision, and with full pvp gear I believe I was running a muscular 38 hit rating. For comparisons. A little over 100 frostbolt hits, 16.8% miss chance. Guess I don't have a large enough sample to contribute anything.
#344SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Plankel
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Edit: Someone who's not at work should check the mana cost of a frost spell and see if elemental prec. is affecting it. Not the tooltip, but precise amount of mana spent.
frostbolt rank 13 is 320 mana with elemental prec, which matches with 0.97*330.

Originally Posted by manly
theory #2: draenais in group
frosty is an undead, so being in a group with a draenei is quite unlikely

Last edited by Plankel : 10/26/07 at 2:26 PM.
#345SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
frost is an undead, so that can't have any effect on him.
Is not the Draenai aura simply +hit to group members? I'll be honest, I've never played one in a group.
#346SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Drfeelgood
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
frostbolt rank 13 is 320 mana with elemental prec, which matches with 0.97*330.



frost is an undead, so that can't have any effect on him.
A 1% hit aura would definitely affect him. But it wouldn't make up the numbers, the aura doesn't stack.
#347SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Empyrea
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
Is not the Draenai aura simply +hit to group members? I'll be honest, I've never played one in a group.
Inspiring Presence - Spells - World of Warcraft
The aura doesn't show up on the draenei's buff list, but its there. And to the best of my memory grouping with a draenei shaman and mage last night showed no stacking auras on my buffs.
#348SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
frosty
For those who can't get enough data i went through all our guilds WWS parses again and found a few more. I also made up my mind about what gear i used back then (the hitchance i posted in the post above was a bit off: instead of 140 and 146 it was actually 141 and 149).

01 - 142 hitrating - 97.3 % hitchance in theory - 0.6% resists over all fights - 0.5% on trash - link:Frostbringer - WWS
02 - 142 - 97.3% - 0.5% - 0.4% - Frostbringer - WWS
03 - 149 - 97.8% - 1.4% - 0.8% - Frostbringer - WWS
04 - 141 - 97.2% - 1.1% - 1.7% - Frostbringer - WWS
05 - 141 - 97.2% - 1.5% - 1.1% - Frostbringer - WWS
06 - 141 - 97.2% - 1.6% - 0.9% - Frostbringer - WWS
07 - 166 - 99.2%/cap - 1.8% - 0.9% - Frostbringer - WWS
08 - 166 - 99.2%/cap - 1.1% - 0.5% - Frostbringer - WWS

I used SR gear always on Mother, often on Azgalor and sometimes on Kazrogal, which means -23 hitchance (no Belt of Blasting) on numbers 03+.

No. 1 and 2 looks strange, but i'm 100% sure i used that exact hitchance, just b/c i know what items i had back then, and i know which trinkets i used from the logs. What i changed between 1/2 and 3 was Belt of Blasting for Girdle of Ruination and Quagmires Eye for Nelth Tear. I could have been just lucky, but maybe the Tear is bugged, you never know

And 07 looks funny at first glance when the resists go up to an alltime high after i broke the cap. But a good part of that is Rage Winterchill with his high frost resistance, that made him resist >10% of my frostbolts.

On Hydross i might have switched in 2*T5 and losing some spellhit in the progress. Same on RoS where i also add 2*T4 using even more spellhit. There is also a chance that i switched to a good amount of PVP gear on Morogrim and Astromancer, losing a lot +hit too. So examining those bossfights might not be a good idea.

Last edited by frosty : 10/26/07 at 5:14 PM.
#349SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 frmorrison
It would be funny that the EP talent gave 6% to frost talents all this time, because "serious" players that really care about damage wouldn't play with such low hit to begin with.

Rage does have high Frost Resist, similar to how Supremous has high Fire resist.
#350SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
ran through 04,05 and 06 (since they all have the same spellhit). Kicked out each and every fight that might have some problem.
- Kael, Akama, A'lar, Illidan and Solarian all have low levels adds in the fight.
- SR gear is used for Mother, different gear for RoS as well.

The bosses that remain provide 635 casts, of which only 4 misses! At a hitchance of 99% there is a 24% chance of such a luck streak (or better) happening. At a hitchance of 97.2% though there is only a 0.0086% chance of 4 resists or less on so many casts. Maybe I am overlooking something, but it seems pretty conclusive to me.
#351SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Somehow I feel the spiritual father of this phenomenal discovery...

Many of you seem to adhere to EP bugging out and giving 3% hit in excess. Granted, it's more plausible than the malarkey with the 5% boss resilience, but if we're registering so low miss rates, and the EP situation is indeed the case, why are we not seeing this 5% anywhere? Last I read about it blizz mentioned this 5% is "impossible to mitigate in any way".

Could this herald the return of the Frostmage? Oh where art thow, long gone days of 31.0.20 raiding spec!

Plankel: fantastic statistical analysis. What you mean to say, (because you lost me somewhere) is that the chance that your theoretical hit rate and observed hit rate match is infact 0.lol%, yes?
#352SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
The 5% boss resistance only happens with non-binary spells, and only happens with partial resists.

I don't think Blizzard has ever acknowledged it exists, unless you count the spell penetration that keeps popping up on PvE gear.
#353SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Endage
The extra hit on Frostbolts has already been discovered some time ago but never really looked into further because it wouldn't make it competitive anyway.
The talents that may cause it are Elemental Precision, Winter's Chill or Empowered Frostbolt. That's as far as the discussion went at that time. With the removal of the damage tax it might indeed make a difference.

I've been full frost until I got my T5 set, never went any higher than ~120 hitrating because WWS' never showed any higher than 1.5% resist rate.
#354SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
The 5% boss resistance only happens with non-binary spells, and only happens with partial resists.

I don't think Blizzard has ever acknowledged it exists, unless you count the spell penetration that keeps popping up on PvE gear.
That's one of the main things that kept me for a long time not believing in the 5% partials vs bosses, and the fact that I saw far to many conflicting reports.

I have been working the numbers for partials vs bosses and the varying spell penetration numbers, but I put it on hold a few months ago to not enough raiding mages not have more than 50 spell penetration, and 93% of all the data I gathered being on 30 spell penetration.

With myself now having enough spell penetration, I can keep easier track of the numbers, but I fear that it will lead to the same result as with the data I already have: To much variance in the partial % seen.

Would be really nice if Blizzard would give us the exact number for partials, and the same for melee with exact glancing blow % and damage reduction.
#355SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
I may be mistaken but two months ago i recall either Aeus or Vaneras specifying the 5% partial on bosses to be unmitigatable by any circumstances. Clearly this is not the case for binaries and we all know how notorious blizz can be with the accuracy of their posts, but I was under the impression penetration would have approx. 0 net effect on them.
#356SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Endage View Post
The extra hit on Frostbolts has already been discovered some time ago but never really looked into further because it wouldn't make it competitive anyway.
The talents that may cause it are Elemental Precision, Winter's Chill or Empowered Frostbolt. That's as far as the discussion went at that time. With the removal of the damage tax it might indeed make a difference.

I've been full frost until I got my T5 set, never went any higher than ~120 hitrating because WWS' never showed any higher than 1.5% resist rate.
Hm, I read quite a few mage threads and never heard about it that before now.

I remember that in early beta, Empowered Frostbolt added +5% hit - which was scrapped in favour of 5% crit as mages had high hit anway. Maybe they somehow left that in?

From people who know their gear and log their fights - does the +5% crit on empowered frostbolt work correctly? Or ar there indications that it's broken, and thus might still add 5% hit?
#357SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Endage View Post
The extra hit on Frostbolts has already been discovered some time ago but never really looked into further because it wouldn't make it competitive anyway.
The talents that may cause it are Elemental Precision, Winter's Chill or Empowered Frostbolt. That's as far as the discussion went at that time. With the removal of the damage tax it might indeed make a difference.

I've been full frost until I got my T5 set, never went any higher than ~120 hitrating because WWS' never showed any higher than 1.5% resist rate.
This would've been nice to know like 9 months ago when I was making spreadsheets. We certainly never discussed it on EJ.

Frost has never been affected by partial resists, and I've always accounted for the 6% "buff" in damage relative to fire/arcane. If it's really bugged to have an even lower hit rating requirement this just makes frost that much more attractive. Maybe 2% more dps overall from needing a lower hit rating.
#358SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I may be mistaken but two months ago i recall either Aeus or Vaneras specifying the 5% partial on bosses to be unmitigatable by any circumstances. Clearly this is not the case for binaries and we all know how notorious blizz can be with the accuracy of their posts, but I was under the impression penetration would have approx. 0 net effect on them.
Yea I've seen that information thrown around a bunch, but the problem is that the amount of work they have done to come up with that number is very small. Compared to the information I've gathered up, their numbers are so small. But like I said the numbers I've gathered consist of 93% of them falling on the 30 spell penetration value, the other 7% is numbers of less than 30, or greater than 30, hardly an acceptable gathering to confirm anything. The reason I haven't asked for any public help with this is the chance for tainting the results with the same data multiple times causing the numbers to go bad.

I do wonder what other mage talents have hidden bugs to them if the Elemental Precision is bugged for 6% hit for frost too.
#359SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
What I really want to know now is whether or not fire has the lower hit cap as well. From a coding standpoint this would almost certainly be the case if EP was bugged.
#360SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
That brings up another thing...

If the 5% partial resists is actually true, that is only possible with the bosses still having resist left up, and then since spells can get a full spell resist from resist alone, are the full resists fire sees from the resist or the level, harder to tell...

Nearly impossible to test for fire if such would be true.
#361SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
That brings up another thing...

If the 5% partial resists is actually true, that is only possible with the bosses still having resist left up, and then since spells can get a full spell resist from resist alone, are the full resists fire sees from the resist or the level, harder to tell...

Nearly impossible to test for fire if such would be true.
I don't know enough about actual resist mechanics, so someone can help me calculate what the fire full resist rate should be with this information. If using 121 hit rating and EP is NOT bugged for fire, you'd have first a 4% base miss chance. Now, the additional chance to miss would be based on 24 fire resist on the target. What is the chance for a FULL resist against 24 fire resistance? Tack that on and we have our expected value, and tests can be made to confirm/deny. Unfortunately it's really unusual for fire mages to run without fully hit capping.
#362SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
I don't know enough about actual resist mechanics, so someone can help me calculate what the fire full resist rate should be with this information. If using 121 hit rating and EP is NOT bugged for fire, you'd have first a 4% base miss chance. Now, the additional chance to miss would be based on 24 fire resist on the target. What is the chance for a FULL resist against 24 fire resistance? Tack that on and we have our expected value, and tests can be made to confirm/deny. Unfortunately it's really unusual for fire mages to run without fully hit capping.
To my knowledge, Blizzard has never been so forthcoming as to reveal what the algorithm is that generates the probabilities for the resistance table (i.e. the probabilities of full hit, 75% hit, 50% hit, 25% hit, and full resist due solely to resistance). The average damage reduction is well known, but the actual probabilities of each outcome have eluded me. I once combed their page trying to figure out some pattern (assuming, for kicks, that the expected value of each case might be the same, just on a hunch) but to no avail.
#363SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Blizzard clearly states the chance of a full resist at 50 resistance on lvl 50 is zero on their site, so the logical conclusion would be it is 0 for 25 on lvl 73.

Oh and btw, partial resist have been figured out, although in a different context, namely resisting elemental melee hits. Seeying how their data fits the data on blizzards site, I think we can assume it works identical to how spell resists work, with the exception that the 75% resist and 100% resist ain't clumped together.
#364SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Well let's assume for a second that bosses need 350 resist to mitigate 75% of the damage incoming to them, for the 3 level difference and such. That would mean 467 resist would theoretically provide 100% mitigation. So now if the 24 fire resist is the true average of boss innate resist level, 24/466 = .0514, or 5.14%, this alone would confirm the 5% partial resist rate, but thats not the end of it. That 5% means that 5% of all incoming spell damage gets mitigated, through partials or full resists.

So here comes the problem, if we get 1 resist on a fight, no partial resists, how can we tell if the resist was based off the level or the resist. Is it possible to tell?

Now if I didn't confuse myself just now, didn't I just debunk the 5% partial resists during a fight? Because it's 5% mitigation through full/partial resists, and if it's through a full resist, our thought tells us thats a level based resist. It should be stated that "Fire suffers a 5% damage mitigation through a bosses resist." Now about breaking the 5% damage suffering through spell penetration, still more testing needs to be done there?

It seems we can't fully answer this question till we are able to figure out how to tell the difference between a level base resist and a resist based resist. Fuck.
#365SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Infyrion
After doing some digging on thottbot I've noticed something interesting about the mage version of Elemental Precision as compared to similar talent for other classes.

Here's the Rank 3 mage version: Elemental Precision
Reduces the mana cost and chance targets resist your Frost and Fire spells by 3%.
Apply Aura: Add Flat Modifier (Resist/Miss Chance)
Value: 3

Now check out the elemental shaman version: Elemental Precision
Increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 6% and reduces the threat caused by Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 10%.
Apply Aura: Increases Spell % To Hit (Fire, Nature, Frost)
Value: 6

The aura given by those two talents is clearly different yet the perceived bonus is supposedly the same: a +hit% bonus for the specified spell types.

This got me to thinking, perhaps the mage version of elemental precision is both giving a +hit bonus and reducing the resist rate due to resistances. This "double-dipping", while likely unintended or a bug, would account for the ~6% hit instead of 3% for frost.


Eg. Assuming 96% hit before elemental precision against a monster with 5% average damage reduction due to resistances.

Without elemental precision
Chance to hit with frost = 0.96 * (1-0.05) = 0.912

With elemental precision
Chance to hit with frost = (0.96+0.03) * (1-(0.05-0.03)) = 0.9702

Total observed gain in +hit% = 0.9702 - 0.912 = 0.0582 or ~5.8%
#366SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
People always throw this 5% around, but I've never seen any tests that would actually claim to have come to this conclusion based on controlled data collection. All I've seen indicates it to be 6%. Can someone show me a link to a study supporting the 5% theory?
#367SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
Blizzard clearly states the chance of a full resist at 50 resistance on lvl 50 is zero on their site, so the logical conclusion would be it is 0 for 25 on lvl 73.

Oh and btw, partial resist have been figured out, although in a different context, namely resisting elemental melee hits. Seeying how their data fits the data on blizzards site, I think we can assume it works identical to how spell resists work, with the exception that the 75% resist and 100% resist ain't clumped together.
If a higher level mob is attacking you, you need higher stats to counter his attacks. But if you're attacking a higher level mob, you need higher to break through his stats. But for the higher level mob he does not need higher stats to counter your attacks. So your first argument is not valid as it uses the wrong logic.

And for your second one, thats for melee attacks which follow the Miss/Hit/Partial resist/Crit/Be dodge/parried stuff, it is not the same for casted spells, so that one has no meaning for what we want. That is because mob based spells can either Hit/Resist and in some cases Partial resist.
#368SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
People always throw this 5% around, but I've never seen any tests that would actually claim to have come to this conclusion based on controlled data collection. All I've seen indicates it to be 6%. Can someone show me a link to a study supporting the 5% theory?
What I just posted is that bosses have a 5% chance to mitigate incoming spell damage through their resist, which in turn for fire is a partial/full resist, and for frost is a straight up full resist, and for a full resist in either case we cannot tell if its a level based or resist based resist. And since both suffer a 1% innate chance to be resisted through the level, assuming hit cap, Fire would suffer an additional 5% damage mitigation chance.

That is, idealy if all damage done + 1 fireball= 100% damage done, and there are 2 resists, we could assume 1 from level based, 1 from resist based, but the problem occurs at 1 resist for a fight.
#369SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
What I just posted is that bosses have a 5% chance to mitigate incoming spell damage through their resist, which in turn for fire is a partial/full resist, and for frost is a straight up full resist, and for a full resist in either case we cannot tell if its a level based or resist based resist. And since both suffer a 1% innate chance to be resisted through the level, assuming hit cap, Fire would suffer an additional 5% damage mitigation chance.

That is, idealy if all damage done + 1 fireball= 100% damage done, and there are 2 resists, we could assume 1 from level based, 1 from resist based, but the problem occurs at 1 resist for a fight.
That is not true. Assuming a hit capped fire mage the total mitigation from a typical boss would be 0.99 * 0.94 = 0.9306, meaning on average 6.94% damage would be mitigated combining misses and partials.
#370SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Hate Monkey
No you're misunderstanding there.

Of all damage incoming to a boss, 5.14% is mitigated through partial/full. Of all spells CAST, 1% of them will be a full resist. There is a difference between damage done, and spells cast.

Of course this is going to take a lot longer to elaborate on, but if you can't differ between spells cast, and the damage done being different roles then you need to do some research as I am unable to assist you with that learning because I can't explain it any clearer.

Edit:

I just figured out how to explain this to you.
Ok, so you cast 200 spells, now lets say the average hit is going to be 3000 damage, and your crit rate is 40%, assuming fire spec. Now 2 of those spell are going to resist due to level resist, 6000-9000 damage lost.
So now with the 40% crit/60% hit of those 198 spells, thats 119 hit, 79 crit.
119*3000=357,000
79*4500=355,500
Total of 712,500 damage done. Now assuming of that damage 5.14% mitigated, 18,349.8 damage mitigated, That leaves us at 694,150.2 damage done.

Since the damage mitgated seems to be a nice 2 crit(4500), 3 hit(9000) oriented, getting 7 full resists total, thats 3.5% equated missed chance, not 1% missed, 2.5% resisted like it should be, and thats where the problem is.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 10/26/07 at 9:54 PM.
#371SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
No you're misunderstanding there.

Of all damage incoming to a boss, 5.14% is mitigated through partial/full. Of all spells CAST, 1% of them will be a full resist. There is a difference between damage done, and spells cast.

Of course this is going to take a lot longer to elaborate on, but if you can't differ between spells cast, and the damage done being different roles then you need to do some research as I am unable to assist you with that learning because I can't explain it any clearer.
I don't have a problem. We're just talking about different things, for you a missed spell doesn't count as damage incoming to a boss, to me it does. But this is beside the point. What I was questioning was the value of 5%. Now that I see that what you really mean is 5.14%, I see that you're refering to the 24 innate resistance that was established pre BC. What I'm questioning is your use of this value at level 70 when tests indicate it to be 28 instead.
#372SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
That is not true. Assuming a hit capped fire mage the total mitigation from a typical boss would be 0.99 * 0.94 = 0.9306, meaning on average 6.94% damage would be mitigated combining misses and partials.
We're trying to ascertain the individual effects of resistance and level-based resist chance. It makes no sense to combine the two and look at the damage reduction in this context. We're trying to separate the two.
#373SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
We're trying to ascertain the individual effects of resistance and level-based resist chance. It makes no sense to combine the two and look at the damage reduction in this context. We're trying to separate the two.
You're trying to separate the two, but since there is no way to distinguish resist based miss and level based miss in combat log you have to take both into account when doing resist analysis. To calculate level-based resist mitigation you would compute total mitigation and then offset it by known level miss. Either that or you assume all misses are from level difference, but you can't use that with high resistance mobs or for binary spells.
#374SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Our goal is not to figure out when a spell is resisted based off level or resists, just the overall chance for the 5.14% mitigation chance to give a full resist. And thats what you're not quite seeing.

And you're still trying to assume that the 5.14% damage mitigated, and the 1% level based resist turn out to be an inflated number, which is not true. If you take the damage done out to an absurd amount you'll see you're wrong.
#375SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
People always throw this 5% around, but I've never seen any tests that would actually claim to have come to this conclusion based on controlled data collection. All I've seen indicates it to be 6%. Can someone show me a link to a study supporting the 5% theory?
It's probably 6%. 5% would make sense if mobs resisted as if they had some form of level-based resistance (8 resist/level), while 6% would make sense if it was a flat percentage (2%/level). At level 60, those two numbers would have been equal, so I think it started at 8 resist/level when it was initially looked at. Figuring out what it is would take a huge amount of data though.

Or Blizzard actually telling us how it worked.
#376SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Kavan
Here's some data for Morogrim Tidewalker with arcane spells.

118 penetration, 84 hit rating, 14% hit
Full resist: 1
75% resist: 12
50% resist: 51
25% resist: 124
No resist: 902

118 penetration, 84 hit rating, 11% hit
Full resist: 1
75% resist: 14
50% resist: 66
25% resist: 147
No resist: 1004

138 penetration, 52 hit rating, 11% hit
Full resist: 5
75% resist: 3
50% resist: 46
25% resist: 80
No resist: 719

138 penetration, 52 hit rating, 10% hit
Full resist: 9
75% resist: 26
50% resist: 122
25% resist: 269
No resist: 1966

This and a lot more data like this doesn't give any evidence that normal bosses would fully resist as a result of innate level-based resistance. If you have any data to suggest otherwise I'd like to see it.

Here's a link to the last discussion about 24 vs 28: TBC Mage Theorycrafting

Last edited by Kavan : 10/26/07 at 11:57 PM.
#377SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zure
Just a reminder, AV weekend is a great chance to gather data! Just use your test spell on Bal/Van/Galv/Drek, and an off spec spell for everything else.
#378SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Sancus
just the overall chance for the 5.14% mitigation chance to give a full resist.
If you believe Blizzard's chart then it's impossible for 24 or 28 resist to be causing full resists.

A boss needs 350 resist to have 75% resist to your spells, vs 250 if you were level 50, so that means that if you adjust the table for resist-vs-level-70-spells, the first column is 70 resist, and yet still there are 0% full resists, and 0% chance to resist 100% of the damage even.

Now, it seems to me that you can prove whether 28 resist produces full resists or not pretty easily IF you assume that we know the correct formulas for hit chance. In this case, if you gather enough data for nuking level 73 bosses with *known spellhit ratings* you can subtract the expected number of full resists due to level from the actual number, and if you were consistently left with a certain number of unexplainable full resists, then you'd have found something.

How much data you would need to be sufficiently confident in proving though, I have no idea, since it's likely that, if 28 spell resist DOES produce full resists, it produces an extremely small amount of them.

Last edited by Sancus : 10/27/07 at 4:16 AM.
#379SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
frosty
So i worked through the parses 03-06 again, checking my crit rates this time. I left out 01, 02, 07 and 08 b/c i had a Moonkin in my group there, and due to its limited range i definitely didn't have the critbonus full time.

03 - 282 crit rating - 584 int - 20.96% theoretical base crit chance - link: Frostbringer - WWS
04 - 299 - 575 - 21.63% - Frostbringer - WWS
05 - 299 - 575 - 21.63% - Frostbringer - WWS
06 - 300 - 571 - 21.62% - Frostbringer - WWS

Note: i read the int-based crit chance off the ingame tooltip, i.e. i put on gear with 584 int and used the 8.2% crit chance that was shown there, and then added 282/22.1 to get to 20.96% base chance excluding Emp. Frostbolt and Winter's Chill.

I left out Kazrogal, Council, Astromancer, Mother and RoS b/c i switched gear there. I also excluded Kael and Akama, b/c the ramp-up-time for WC is too high there. There is still ramp-up on Illidan, but all the parses were wipes, mostly in p2 i think, were ramp-up shouldn't have been a big deal - it's hardly an issue in p1 that is 35% of the fight, and you also only do it twice in p2 too.

Considering no ramp-up on WC you would expect something around 36.5% crit chance (~21.5% base + 5% emp fb + 10% WC), the result over the remaining boss fights (Azgalor, Archimonde, 8 Illidan Wipes (YAY), Alar, Voidreaver, Najentus, Supremus, 2* Gorefiend, Bloodboil) was however:

752 normal hits
481 crits
= 39%

That doesn't indicate, that Emp. Frostbolt is buggy. I'm actually wondering why it is even higher than expected.

Edit: I finally realized that i was using Molten Armor which explains it all. So the crit% in practice is pretty much where it should be.

Last edited by frosty : 10/28/07 at 12:33 PM.
#380SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Plankel
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
If a higher level mob is attacking you, you need higher stats to counter his attacks. But if you're attacking a higher level mob, you need higher to break through his stats. But for the higher level mob he does not need higher stats to counter your attacks. So your first argument is not valid as it uses the wrong logic.
uhm, that is completely wrong.

The amount of resistance you need for a certain lvl of mitigation is solely based on the level of the attacker. So if a lvl 50 mob attacks you and you have 50 resist (no matter what level you are), you will have 0% chance of a full resist

If a lvl 73 boss attacks you, you will need 365 resist to reach the resist cap, no matter what level you are. Against a lvl 70 the cap is 350 resist, against a lvl 67 it is 335 etc.

the 50 resist from the chart is equivalent to 70 resist at lvl 70. If blizzards table is correct and there is indeed 0% chance to have a resist on a target with 70 resistance, then it must be 0% as well for a target with 24 resistance.

And for your second one, thats for melee attacks which follow the Miss/Hit/Partial resist/Crit/Be dodge/parried stuff, it is not the same for casted spells, so that one has no meaning for what we want. That is because mob based spells can either Hit/Resist and in some cases Partial resist.
Blizzards data sheet is intented for resisting spelldamage and yet looking at that thread I see graphs which perfectly match with data blizzard provided us, with the following adaptions:

1 All 100% resists, are counted as 75% resist
2 Above 68% resist orso you will always partial resist the damage (not 1% full hits as blizzard said)
3 The average resist in not lineair increasing past 50% resistance and caps out at 70% resist

If we assume 1 and 2 to be characteristics of melee elemental damage, then we can explain reason 3 easily enough: your 100% resists are converted to 75% resists without compensation (except the 1% full hits).

If we assume all resist graphs are piecewise lineair between 0-25%, 25-50% and 50-75% resist and the data points blizzard gives us are correct I can think of two models for 100% resist between 0-25%:

Best case scenario:
- a flat 0, meaning they never happen till you reach 25% resistance

Worst case scenario:
- the resistance goes lineair from 0 at 0% to 0.49 at 15% (50 resist at lvl 50, blizzards first data point) This means that you get 0.168% full resists at 5.14% resistance (24 resist at 70) and 0.196% full resists at 6% resistance (28 at 70).

the boss will thus resist between 0 and 0.2% of your spells because of partial resist, this is low enough to be a non-problem when we are looking for a 3% difference.

Last edited by Plankel : 10/27/07 at 8:34 AM.
#381SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Not to nitpick or anything, but there's always a 1% chance of a full resist. I've had Defias Pillagers resist my ice lance.
#382SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
uhm, that is completely wrong.

The amount of resistance you need for a certain lvl of mitigation is solely based on the level of the attacker. So if a lvl 50 mob attacks you and you have 50 resist (no matter what level you are), you will have 0% chance of a full resist

If a lvl 73 boss attacks you, you will need 365 resist to reach the resist cap, no matter what level you are. Against a lvl 70 the cap is 350 resist, against a lvl 67 it is 335 etc.
Maybe you didn't understand what I posted, but you just said the same thing as me, so I'll assume you just didn't comprehend my sentence.

the 50 resist from the chart is equivalent to 70 resist at lvl 70. If blizzards table is correct and there is indeed 0% chance to have a resist on a target with 70 resistance, then it must be 0% as well for a target with 24 resistance.

Blizzards data sheet is intented for resisting spelldamage and yet looking at that thread I see graphs which perfectly match with data blizzard provided us, with the following adaptions:

1 All 100% resists, are counted as 75% resist
2 Above 68% resist orso you will always partial resist the damage (not 1% full hits as blizzard said)
3 The average resist in not lineair increasing past 50% resistance and caps out at 70% resist
Couple problems here. First off the Blizzard's chart doesn't work for Binary spells. Second they say there is a difference between resisting 100% of the damage, and resisting the spell, and this is what we're trying to get to. When can you tell the difference. Third, that chart is for player vs player, all the examples are using the player based casting on a player for those numbers.

And as long as the chance to full resist based of resistance exists, it is a big enough problem to be concerned about.

Now to get back to where we were a bit ago, Elemental Precision really being bugged to grant 6% spell hit for frost. Need more testing and possibly bugged for fire too?
#383SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Couple problems here. First off the Blizzard's chart doesn't work for Binary spells.
This made my jaw drop. Ofcourse a chart for partial resists does not work for binary spells. Binary spells also dont have the 5% (or 6) boss resistance, so I am at a total loss why you would bring this up.

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Second they say there is a difference between resisting 100% of the damage, and resisting the spell, and this is what we're trying to get to. When can you tell the difference.
You can't distinguish between these two in the game, only thing you can do is calculate the chance of them happening and account for that when you are looking at results from experimental testing. I don't see why that is a problem with what I posted though.

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Third, that chart is for player vs player, all the examples are using the player based casting on a player for those numbers.
and yet they match the data of of a mob hitting a tank with resistance gear. If elemental melee attacks use the same chart, then do you have any reason why mob magic attacks would not?

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
And as long as the chance to full resist based of resistance exists, it is a big enough problem to be concerned about.
This sentence had me puzzled for a bit, but maybe I know what you are thinking. You think it there are 3 kinds of full resisted hits:

- full resist because you "miss" the boss
- full resist because the target "resists" the attack from resistance
- 100% of damage resisted from spell because of resistance.

For some reason you seem to think the last two are different, when they are in fact one and the same. I don't have a clue where you would get this idea from though, but it is the only reason I can see behind your post.
#384SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3galzohar
I can't really follow the 11 pages but after reading the initial post I have to say you're not going to be as mana efficient with frost as you will with fire if you're spccing 61 in frost. Clearcasts are requirered for frost to not get greatly beaten by fire's DPM, and IIRC even with clearcasts fire is slightly more mana efficient.
#385SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
This sentence had me puzzled for a bit, but maybe I know what you are thinking. You think it there are 3 kinds of full resisted hits:

- full resist because you "miss" the boss
- full resist because the target "resists" the attack from resistance
- 100% of damage resisted from spell because of resistance.

For some reason you seem to think the last two are different, when they are in fact one and the same. I don't have a clue where you would get this idea from though, but it is the only reason I can see behind your post.
Show me where I explicitly stated that please. I know they are the same, and I've said nothing to counter it.

And since when were we talking about attacks made against a tank, or melee elemental attacks? There are a few difference's: Mob based spells cannot crit, however melee elemental based attacks can crit, and so forth with the differences. You need to stop bringing in that part, it's not help us here.

As for the chart part, what I tried to imply was that only posting information about the non-binary spells doesn't help us with the problem at hand. We want the chance that the resistance a boss has, without funky resist levels, to fully resist a spell. And if the binary spell parts were to be stated, we wouldn't be talking about this right now.
#386SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Show me where I explicitly stated that please. I know they are the same, and I've said nothing to counter it.
You never did, I just got that idea from reading your post. Good to know that was not the problem though

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
And since when were we talking about attacks made against a tank, or melee elemental attacks? There are a few difference's: Mob based spells cannot crit, however melee elemental based attacks can crit, and so forth with the differences. You need to stop bringing in that part, it's not help us here.
I have brought in melee elemental attacks from the very start. I did so for a good reason: There is a lot of testing done with them and that testing showed how they work and they match the chart blizzard provided us with a few adaptions.

From that I assumed partly resisted spells work the same, only without the adaptions (seeing how the chart blizzard make was intented for spells in the first place). This seems a very reasonable assumption to me, unless you have some kind of evidence that it does not work that way?

About the crits, I made a typo there. I mean players casting spells on mobs and those can crit for sure. My bad.

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
As for the chart part, what I tried to imply was that only posting information about the non-binary spells doesn't help us with the problem at hand. We want the chance that the resistance a boss has, without funky resist levels, to fully resist a spell. And if the binary spell parts were to be stated, we wouldn't be talking about this right now.
ehm.. binary spells are not effected by the 5% resistance the boss has. So the chance that a boss resists a binary spell because of his 24 (or 28 resistance) is 0. This has been common knowledge for ages and said at least 5 times in this thread.
#387SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
ehm.. binary spells are not effected by the 5% resistance the boss has. So the chance that a boss resists a binary spell because of his 24 (or 28 resistance) is 0. This has been common knowledge for ages and said at least 5 times in this thread.
Common knowledge? Must be why I've never seen the work done on it. Would you like to provide me with a link to show me it? Because as you should know, that with binary spells when you reach the resist "cap" you'll resist 75% of the attacks, or should.

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is the fact that melee elemental attacks cannot be fully resisted, normal hits that is. Thats the big difference there.
#388SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
The 5% boss resistance only happens with non-binary spells, and only happens with partial resists.

I don't think Blizzard has ever acknowledged it exists, unless you count the spell penetration that keeps popping up on PvE gear.
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Frost has never been affected by partial resists, and I've always accounted for the 6% "buff" in damage relative to fire/arcane.
Two credibely posters in this thread.

Just look at any WWS frosty posted. If binary spells where effected by the 5% resistance the boss had he should have around 6% missrate or higher in all of them.
#389SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
The latest tests I remember being done were by Yeonora (TBC Mage Theorycrafting), unfortunately the screenshots he posted aren't there anymore. But it's basically the same data as we are having here. That is if the hit chance is over/near the cap, the actual miss rate will be close to 1%, not 6-7% you would expect if binary was affected by level-based resistances.

If you want to claim that binary spells are affected by level-based resistances you would have to show that either:
1) level-based resistances are not the same for all spell schools (you can easily test this with partially resistable frost spells)
2) binary spells miss rate is not product of level based and resistance based miss (harder to test in pve, but I believe there were tests done regarding this in pvp)

So far I have no reason to believe that either of the two is true.
#390SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
nvm, wrong button - delete please
#391SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3chase
Originally Posted by Plankel View Post
Two credibely posters in this thread.

Just look at any WWS frosty posted. If binary spells where effected by the 5% resistance the boss had he should have around 6% missrate or higher in all of them.
The semantics of the english language and non-native speakers is hitting us hard here.

A boss has 24 (26?) resist from level difference.

For non-binary spells that means 5% of your damage will be mitigated by partials. (A full resist IS a partial resist. Resist and miss are different beasts, hence the semantics.)

What is up for debate is what exactly that 24 resist is doing with binary spells.

Group A) It is totally circumvented by binary spells and therefore can be ommited.
- The partial resists in 25%, 50%, 75% catagory can not happen, because frost is...well binary.
- The partial resist in the form of 100% resist can not happen because 24 resist doesn't allow for full resists in the weighted average table.

Group B) It is totally circumvented by binary spells and therefore can be ommited.
- The partial resists in 25%, 50%, 75% catagory can not happen, because frost is...well binary.
- The partial resist in the form of 100% resist can happen because 24 resist does allow a full resist in the weighted average table.

Therefore the difference in oppion is what is happening in the weighted average table.

Some are using PvP tables. Some are using melee PvE tables. Some are saying we have no clue on how level based resist tables are handled. Maybe in level based resist tables there is a weighted value for full resists.

I'm personally of the oppion that level based resistance can be left out of the discussion. If we see a larger amount of data supporting a lower hit cap for frost, and find that lower band than we can look into level based resist tables a bit further. To be looking at it now seems to be counter-productive at this point.
#392SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by chase View Post
The semantics of the english language and non-native speakers is hitting us hard here.

A boss has 24 (26?) resist from level difference.

For non-binary spells that means 5% of your damage will be mitigated by partials. (A full resist IS a partial resist. Resist and miss are different beasts, hence the semantics.)

What is up for debate is what exactly that 24 resist is doing with binary spells.

Group A) It is totally circumvented by binary spells and therefore can be ommited.
- The partial resists in 25%, 50%, 75% catagory can not happen, because frost is...well binary.
- The partial resist in the form of 100% resist can not happen because 24 resist doesn't allow for full resists in the weighted average table.

Group B) It is totally circumvented by binary spells and therefore can be ommited.
- The partial resists in 25%, 50%, 75% catagory can not happen, because frost is...well binary.
- The partial resist in the form of 100% resist can happen because 24 resist does allow a full resist in the weighted average table.

Therefore the difference in oppion is what is happening in the weighted average table.

Some are using PvP tables. Some are using melee PvE tables. Some are saying we have no clue on how level based resist tables are handled. Maybe in level based resist tables there is a weighted value for full resists.

I'm personally of the oppion that level based resistance can be left out of the discussion. If we see a larger amount of data supporting a lower hit cap for frost, and find that lower band than we can look into level based resist tables a bit further. To be looking at it now seems to be counter-productive at this point.
In my mind, it seems clear we are not dealing with uniform resistance to all schools. Either we're dealing with different resistance to schools (something I consider unlikely, but certainly provable with Ice Lance), or we're dealing with something that is simply not really resistance as we know it, unless resistance works in ways not (to my knowledge) predicted by any theory of the stat, as it's supposed to (on paper) have uniform effects on long-run output regardless of binary or non-binary nature of the spell affected.

In short, unless it was already known that magic resistance has non-uniform effects on long-run output (and I'm just slow in hearing about it), I would say this effect is either evidence of that or evidence that it's not really boss "resistance" at all.
#393SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Gandalf
I put my stats into: 2.3 Theorycraft

The values used (not inluding crit from talents, not including dmg from MM etc):

Int:550
Spi:250
Haste:0
Hit:Capped
Crit:18%
Damage:1100
Armor:Mage Armor
Dedeuff:COE,COS,Misery
Set Bonus:2xT5

The results (with AP, WE etc averaged):

Spec	Rotation	DPS	DPM
40/0/21	ABx3, Frostx3	1305	10.41
10/48/3	FBx8, Scorch	1294	14.06
33/28/0	ABx3, Scorchx4	1262	9.95
50/11/0	ABx3,AM,Scorch	1254	8.32
10/0/51 Frost		1202	14.30
I'm currently arcane and struggle a bit with mana due to lack of SP. If the above is true then I guess it's back to full fire for me in 2.3 - it seems the best DPS/DPM combo for long boss fights.

I'm a bit disappointed that arc is so low even with 2xT5. It should be higher DPS as a trade off for the horrible mana efficiency. Also ABx3, Frostx3 is highest DPS? Maybe there's a bug in the TC script?
#394SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Gandalf View Post
Spec	Rotation	DPS	DPM
40/0/21	ABx3, Frostx3	1305	10.41
10/48/3	FBx8, Scorch	1294	14.06
33/28/0	ABx3, Scorchx4	1262	9.95
50/11/0	ABx3,AM,Scorch	1254	8.32
10/0/51 Frost		1202	14.30
I'm a bit disappointed that arc is so low even with 2xT5. It should be higher DPS as a trade off for the horrible mana efficiency. Also ABx3, Frostx3 is highest DPS? Maybe there's a bug in the TC script?
There are two issues.

- First, a 40/18/3 spec (with Master of Elements, leeching Imp. Scorch from another mage) is missing.
This spec with balanced gear and a 3*AB/2*Fiba will usually net you the highest damage from a 3*AB/X rotation. It is also more mana-efficient than 3*AB/AM/Sc, giving you more mana to dump via AB spam.

33/28/0 is an APPoMPyro spec mostly, going for 40 points in arcane (and losing some in fire) will weaken your fire spells a bit, but your AB damage will rise significantly, netting you more damage from rotations and AB spam.
40/18/3 would be better for AB/Fire rotations.

- Second, you have balanced gear. You said you're hitcapped. Great! Now drop 10% of it or regem to get more damage/crit/intellect, drop your weaker trinket for a TLC and then look at 3*AB/AM/Sc again.

This cycle is all about synergy effects. Most damage is arcane, so you can kick most of your +hit for other stats. You use 4 fast spells and 1 AM volley, this just screams for TLC.
Try to toy around with your stats and see if you can get more out of 50/11/0


On a totally different note:
Arcane scaling past T5 level gear blows. There are too few damage talents for it.
#395SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Gandalf
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
There are two issues.

- First, a 40/18/3 spec (with Master of Elements, leeching Imp. Scorch from another mage) is missing.
This spec with balanced gear and a 3*AB/2*Fiba will usually net you the highest damage from a 3*AB/X rotation. It is also more mana-efficient than 3*AB/AM/Sc, giving you more mana to dump via AB spam.
Thanks, I'll try that.

Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
- Second, you have balanced gear. You said you're hitcapped. Great! Now drop 10% of it or regem to get more damage/crit/intellect, drop your weaker trinket for a TLC and then look at 3*AB/AM/Sc again.

This cycle is all about synergy effects. Most damage is arcane, so you can kick most of your +hit for other stats. You use 4 fast spells and 1 AM volley, this just screams for TLC.
Try to toy around with your stats and see if you can get more out of 50/11/0
I dont need gems or trinkets to meet the hit cap due to +hit item budget. My best gear for each slot, such as Tirisfal Legs, Belt of Blasting, Boots of Blasting, Merciless Spellblade just happens to have a lot of +hit. I already use TLC and MSD in my current 50/11/0 spec.

Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
On a totally different note:
Arcane scaling past T5 level gear blows. There are too few damage talents for it.
Agree, I dont expect to use arcane beyond T5.
#396SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
There are two issues.

- First, a 40/18/3 spec (with Master of Elements, leeching Imp. Scorch from another mage) is missing.
This spec with balanced gear and a 3*AB/2*Fiba will usually net you the highest damage from a 3*AB/X rotation. It is also more mana-efficient than 3*AB/AM/Sc, giving you more mana to dump via AB spam.

.

One little issue with 40/18/3 specs in 2.3, if the latency fix actually ends up working then this spec won't work anymore as an option since 2xFB=6seconds and then with the Fully Debuffed AB casting in 1.5 you are too fast to lose the debuff before that AB completes.

40/0/21 seems to be the only spec in 2.3 that has a rotation that will work well with AB and that will allow some breathing room for even a tiny bit of haste gear.

Personally, I'm debating between a 10/0/51 or a 40/0/21 spec when the patch goes live and it will all depend on whether I get my 4T6 together in time or not (may even go 2/0/59 if mana turns out to not be much of an issue considering I get to use the new Mad Alch Pots).
#397SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
Deep frost always seems quite attractive to me in 2.3 and I seriously consider it. Then I remember pushback and forget about it. I really go through that process at least twice a day. :p I refuse to wear 2 pieces of t4 on pushback fights and there's far too many of them, in my opinion, to really consider frost for a good all-purpose raiding build.

If frost magically got some pushback talents that didn't include ice barrier, I'd be all over that. But that's not happening.

2.2 arcane was as close to an all-encompassing spec as we've found. 2.3 fire won't be as versatile as 2.2 arcane but I believe it will better fit the role than 2.3 frost for BT at the very least. We'll have to see what Sunwell has in store for us.
#398SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 zepi
Is there a reason why 40/21/0 couldn't use Nx AB + 2x Fireball + Fireblast / Scorch as a cycle?
#399SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Gandalf
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
One little issue with 40/18/3 specs in 2.3, if the latency fix actually ends up working then this spec won't work anymore as an option since 2xFB=6seconds and then with the Fully Debuffed AB casting in 1.5 you are too fast to lose the debuff before that AB completes.
If FB is only to be used inbetween ABs then I could spec impact instead of Imp Fireball since the faster casting time provides no benefit as you say.

Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
40/0/21 seems to be the only spec in 2.3 that has a rotation that will work well with AB and that will allow some breathing room for even a tiny bit of haste gear.
The numbers posted agree with you. Also 40/0/21 has piercing ice (6% dmg) and ice shards but in 40/18/3 only ignite improves the dmg of fireball.
#400SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostx
If you want to compare, here's my values using Lhivera's.

Stats used (used my arcane gear for all specs, not optimal for non-arcane but i wanted to keep things consistent):

Intellect: 513
Spirit: 281
Haste: 39
Hit: 70
Crit: 21%
Arcane Damage: 1113
Fire Damage: 1063
Frost Damage: 1063
Armor: Mage Armor
Debuffs: COE, COS, Misery
Set Bonus: 2pc T5

WE/AP etc all averaged

Spec		Rotation				DPS		DPM
43/0/0+18	Arc Blast x3 / Arc Missiles + 2 Sc	1,223.70	8.54
33/28/0		Arc Blast x3 / Scorch x4		1,190.45	9.49
40/0/19+2	Arc Blast x3 / Frostbolt x3 		1,245.39	9.81
10/47/3+1	Fireball x8 / Scorch x1			1,227.20	13.30
10/0/48+3	Frostbolt + Waterbolt			1,145.19	13.41
0/0/48+13	Frostbolt + Waterbolt			1,145.19	11.86
I guess arcane kinda let me down here, even with arcane gear, the traditional Fire build and surprisingly, 40/0/21 build outdps'd and outdpm'd my current deep arcane. Considering that i can still vastly improve my gear in terms of Fire and Frost specs, this is really disappointing. I would go back to fire in 2.3 even with my crappy amount of +hit if not for Illidan p2. Fire looks set to be -the- spec again come Sunwell though, barring a(nother) "well" designed encounter with Fire immune mobs.
#401SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Myrdinn
Got a quick question for people in Hyjal/BT (working on KT atm, we expect to down him soon).
Is deep frost and utilities talents useful there ? I mean permafrost, imp blizzard especially.

With my numbers : 546 int, 1000 +dmg, 300 crit rating, 167 hit rating, 17 haste rating, molten armor, no totems, no bloodlust, T5 bonus, RED enabled (I hope Vontre model it like CSD)

10/48/3
======
8:1 fb/scorch rotation : 1323 dps
AB spam : 1397 dps

40/18/3 (AP not included)
======
8:1 fb/scorch rotation : 1251 dps
ABx3 FBx2 : 1302 dps
AB spam : 1748 dps

40/0/21 (WC on target)
======
Frostbolt : 1262 dps (1156 without WC)
ABx3 FBx3 : 1352 dps (1291 without WC)
AB spam : 1748 dps

0/0/61
=====
Frostbolt : 1308 dps

Technically, 10/48/3 is better in 2.3 but I feel not comfortable with this spec which is awful in PvP... Was about to give 40/18/3 a try, but frost numbers look interesting finally.
Is pet easy to keep alive in Hyjal/BT ? What pet uptime is ok to expect ?
#402SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
I'd say no but I honestly am not deep frost right now. In general however, uncontrolled roots are bad and blizzard is just plain lousy as an AE period these days. I guess you can keep hyjal trash snared if you are so inclined but I see little point.

Pet survivability is an ongoing problem as is the lack of pushback protection. The WE is going to die in a number of nasty ways on a number of MH/BT fights and that's all there is to say about that really. He could really use at least some basic resists or AE immunity or something. The lack of any pushback protection at all is going to seriously hurt dps on a number of fights also but that's a design issue that's been around forever. These two together are the biggest obstacle right now for frost overall use, although hey, it all will depend on what parses come out for me later when 2.3 is released. There are very few fights right now that actually hinge on mage dps to say the least.
#403SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Just a heads up that if you didn't think mages were nerfed enough this patch, TLC now has a 2.5 second cooldown (on the lightning bolt, not on charges). It no longer works on aoe. I guess this removes any doubt of arcane bringing inferior dps and utlity, as the cooldown will also screw up AB spam.
#404SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Vonwen
Nevermind*

Last edited by Vonwen : 10/29/07 at 7:53 AM.
#405SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
Just a heads up that if you didn't think mages were nerfed enough this patch, TLC now has a 2.5 second cooldown (on the lightning bolt, not on charges). It no longer works on aoe. I guess this removes any doubt of arcane bringing inferior dps and utlity, as the cooldown will also screw up AB spam.
Ouch. <headdesk>

I don't see how it affects AB spam though?
The cooldown only matters if you get 3 crits within 2.5 seconds, or am I missing something?
So, it only affects crit streaks with hasted AM, and AoE. But you said it won't work on AoE anyway.
I don't really see how it impacts AB spam, hm.


Also, 25ms spellcast spam with a G15 is out again, cast attempts trigger a GCD now (GCD disappears when the client receives the "cannot cast yet" message from the server).

Last edited by Roywyn : 10/29/07 at 6:57 AM.
#406SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Yeah I see what you mean with that, I guess I missed out one important note. Apparently the new tooltip says the charges themselves have a 2.5 cooldown, and right now it is working on a bolt 2.5 cooldown. It's likely Blizzard will fix it and properly nerf it harder.
#407SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Lame with a capital L... Making the bolts go off on, say, 5sec CD was decent of them, it would impact the item little, but making the charge-gain one-per-2.5sec max means it losses value moderately on arcane blast rotations, hugely on arcane blast spam and scorch spam and becomes worthless for AM spam all together... Happily, it's still (in terms of game mechanics) valid for frostbolt and fireball, but any haste will relatively reduce it for frost. Not that anyone sane would equip it outside a BG;

On the other side I'm happy to see a kara trink get nerfed into it's place. It's simply unacceptable to have a dilema along the lines of "TLC simply can't go, so it's either going to be Gul'dan or Sextant that gets the bankage".
#408SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vonwen
Yes but it also affects pvp, with Molten + TLC, and I even wonder if it's not the main reason to this nerf, rogues whining about being killed by a trinket ?

So if we sum this up, AM spam is destroyed with the MSD nerf, AB just doesn't scale enough anymore compared to fireball, and even the TLC will no more grant a decent output while aoeing and AM spamming. I guess with T6 gear a 17/44 will be appropriate then.

Is anyone here using AToI with fireball spam ?
#409SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I may be a little too optimistic, but all these changes specifically hurting Arcane specced mages, could that mean they have some bone to throw us? Could it mean they realized the stupid item dependancy for arcane and will compensate one way or the other?
#410SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3aznxk3vi17
Unfortunately, rather than throwing a bone to Arcane Mages, they have put in the final nail in the coffin: WoW Forums -> Lightning Capacitor Nerfed on PTR?

Looks like there's no hope for Arcane whatsoever in 2.3. Get out your Scryer Bloodgems, folks, time to start gearing back up for Fire.
#411SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3koetjeka
I was wondering, are there any dps simulations that do include the pushback of frostbolts?
#412SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Malentra
Interesting changes to TLC and MSD. It looks like they are trying to make a paradigm shift for Arcane dps. Without those two items available for maximum dps, it looks like the devs can truly gauge how effective Arcane dps is at the end-game and tweak it accordingly. Perhaps not for 2.3, but hopefully in time for the 51-pt talent trees in anticipation of WotLK.

Also, in terms of combat log parses and/or theorycraft, has anyone checked out a 33-28 build utilizing a 3xAB 2xFireball rotation in the 2.3 patch? I remember reading a post by galzohar calculating dps higher than 10-48-3 at the 2pc t5 level. I'm wondering if this still holds.
#413SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Malentra View Post
Interesting changes to TLC and MSD. It looks like they are trying to make a paradigm shift for Arcane dps. Without those two items available for maximum dps, it looks like the devs can truly gauge how effective Arcane dps is at the end-game and tweak it accordingly. Perhaps not for 2.3, but hopefully in time for the 51-pt talent trees in anticipation of WotLK.
You say this as though it weren't possible for them to create an Arcane Mage wearing full T6 themselves and run fights with him. They did not need these nerfs to see what kind of numbers Arcane is putting out. These nerfs are to kill a spec/combo that they consider exploitative.

Also, in terms of combat log parses and/or theorycraft, has anyone checked out a 33-28 build utilizing a 3xAB 2xFireball rotation in the 2.3 patch? I remember reading a post by galzohar calculating dps higher than 10-48-3 at the 2pc t5 level. I'm wondering if this still holds.
This exact question has been asked several times in this thread already.
#414SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frostie
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
Just a heads up that if you didn't think mages were nerfed enough this patch, TLC now has a 2.5 second cooldown (on the lightning bolt, not on charges). It no longer works on aoe. I guess this removes any doubt of arcane bringing inferior dps and utlity, as the cooldown will also screw up AB spam.
Nail? Meet coffin.

Thread's over, folks. Nothing to see here. Come 2.3, us arcane lovers get to wait for the expansion where there will be new talents, probably complete talent reviews and new items for us to get nerfed. Fun while it lasted. I'm not one to complain but I really don't see what Blizzard sees as arcane's obvious advantage as a primary tree. Like, what makes it on par, situationally, with frost or fire. I guess grats on your 40% threat reduction. You won't need it.
#415SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I'm just as frustrated as everyone else and have deleted more than a few posts before posting because I figured I would just get an infraction for whining. The more I think about it though, couldn't this easily mean they actually realize the problem with Arcane? That is the extreme dependance on gimmicky items TLC MSD and tier5 to be competitive? I agree it's a weird way to go around it, but realistically they couldn't directly buff arcane before these items were "normalized". I may just be a fool for putting a little trust in Blizzard's design team and woe will most likely be me, I'll await further changes anyway - I think they are quite sure to come.
#416SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vonwen
They would have to greatly increase AM's scaling, for instance with buffing empowered AM, and add few things to buff AB (crit chance, base dmg...), or add AM to Arcane Impact. This would make arcane spec competitive (if done right) without being that dependant to specific gear. Bit I highly doubt it will happen, I personnally think that blizzard never intended the arcane tree to be a primary dps spec, hence the 40% threat reduction, and they realized in 2.2 that arcanes actually became a viable, if not top, raiding spec.

There will be no bone I'm afraid...
#417SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zinaida
Some quick napkin math shows the LC losing about 35% of its damage output with an AB rotation (with a 28% average crit chance) which seems to balance the trinket quite nicely with the others (sextant, icon), so on first impressions the trinket itself doesn't seem to have become useless. Note that my model here is fairly inaccurate, so i may be a little off. If someone can do some more accurate theroycraft then please do.

Despite this it's still a nerf to arcane dps and something is needed to bring arcane back in line with fire and frost if it is to be seen in raids again. I do like seeing these "gimmick" items nerfed though, it just remains to be seen if arcane will get its core dps buffed.
#418SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
My point was more so that in order to actually go ahead and MAKE those changes, however difficult it may be, they HAD to normalize said items before they could work on balancing the spec without making it extremely overpowered in conjunction with those items. Now the slate is clean and they COULD fix arcane, they may not, but it will be alot easier now.
#419SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, as I said before, they need to do some serious makeover of the arcane tree if they want it to compete at all. I even called the TLC nerf if they wanted to homogenise things. I think that the arcane tree should scale towards the rock bottom DPM end of things (in a non-AB fashion, 1min spam is not usefull under any circumstances for the most part). To fix arcane scaling they need to either fix the crit multiplier, or vastly increase the crit rate to make up for it. Like for instance, just adding +1% crit per imp. missiles would be a start. Then I still firmly believe in what I said earlier, that probably the cleanest way to fix AM scaling would be a new 2 point talent that reduces by 10% / 20% AM cast time. They can't just give straight up better DPS and DPM to the arcane tree; that would not give any incentive to pick arcane over fire or frost, in the sense that it wouldn't offer a 'extra mana -> less threat' convertion over the other trees.

thinking back about it, here's what I propose:
imp missiles: +2% crit / point
emp. missiles: +20% / 40% / 60% spell damage.
new talent (2pt) (req. 3pt emp. missiles) : Reduces AM cast time by 15% / 30%.

These changes wouldn't mess up PVP in contrast to my earlier proposed increased crit multiplier.
#420SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Tyrian
Surely the Blizzard class designers use this forum (and threads just like this) as a great resource when designing or changing talents/spells for a given Class spec. They'd be foolish not to, since this is where the best results/conclusions of their game design come from.

Put me in the fan-boy corner if you will, but I do trust that Blizzards nerfing of these items surely means they are well aware of the Arcane-spec state at the moment and want to address it. Of course, this might not happen until the expansion..

thinking back about it, here's what I propose:
imp missiles: +2% crit / point
emp. missiles: +20% / 40% / 60% spell damage.
new talent (2pt) (req. 3pt emp. missiles) : Reduces AM cast time by 15% / 30%.
If blizzard intends to wait until WOTLK before major talent restructure / changes - fair enough.

But small, modest changes like these should be something they really can add in to any content patch. I really do hope they consider it, even if the changes are somewhat temporary until WOTLK until a more thorough review.

Last edited by Tyrian : 10/29/07 at 12:41 PM.
#421SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Malentra
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
This exact question has been asked several times in this thread already.
I went through every page, I saw 33/28 mentioned but not against other specs using 3xAB/2xFireball rotation, just the 10xFB/1xScorch comparison and the 3xAB/4xScorch comparison, and also a write-off that the Arcane portion of the spell damage in an AB/Fireball rotation doesn't benefit from the 202 hit rating. I would just like to see the dps comparsions recently posted with 33/28 instead of 40/18/3 spec and the 3xAB/2xFB rotation instead of 10xFB/1xScorch or 3xAB/4xScorch that I've seen above.

Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
You say this as though it weren't possible for them to create an Arcane Mage wearing full T6 themselves and run fights with him. They did not need these nerfs to see what kind of numbers Arcane is putting out. These nerfs are to kill a spec/combo that they consider exploitative.
Perhaps they want to see how players react in the new patch without benefit from MSD/TLC before they consider how much to modify the Arcane tree for WotLK. Also, they probably want to see actually in-game numbers vs. their own in-house numbers. We all know how valid Blizzard's in-house dps tests are after the introduction of the Fireball/Frostbolt damage tax, even though almost any mage could have proven with theorycraft that it made Warlocks scale better than us in the end-game. In-house tests rarely represent reality. If only the players on these boards could be involved in such testing, I'm sure we'd see a more finely tuned Arcane tree.

Regardless of the intent, the effect will be that Arcane will do less damage in 2.3 unless more changes are incoming. This will probably mean even fewer mages spec Arcane, which will in-turn result in changes to the tree. (we can hope)

Originally Posted by Tyrian View Post
Put me in the fan-boy corner if you will, but I do trust that Blizzards nerfing of these items surely means they are well aware of the Arcane-spec state at the moment and want to address it. Of course, this might not happen until the expansion..

If blizzard intends to wait until WOTLK before major talent restructure / changes - fair enough.

But small, modest changes like these should be something they really can add in to any content patch. I really do hope they consider it, even if the changes are somewhat temporary until WOTLK until a more thorough review.
Yes, I agree completely. Even if they are trying to gauge Arcane dps in-game without the "exploitation" of certain items, they shouldn't make an entire spec nearly redundant for a class. Especially while they work extra hard to make all 3 trees raid viable for Druids, Paladins, and Shaman.

It would be nice if Blizzard would give some clear communication on how they consider the current state of Arcane dps/utility. Do they intend for it to be a low/equal dps spec to fire while being more mana hungry and harder to use, just for the added value of lower threat generation? It seems Blizzard needs to advise the player base on their current vision of the tree and where they are trying to go with it, so we can give more constructive criticism.

Last edited by Malentra : 10/29/07 at 1:06 PM.
#422SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
They clarified the wording:



Sidenote: How many people believe the Blizz Class designers (responsible for all these types of changes) actively read this forum, threads like this - and use information/conclusions from here when it comes to game design? I know Tigole etc reads and posts - but wouldnt you think a forum like this would be considered must-read-material for game designers at Blizzard?
#423SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Malentra View Post
I went through every page, I saw 33/28 mentioned but not against other specs using 3xAB/2xFireball rotation, just the 10xFB/1xScorch comparison and the 3xAB/4xScorch comparison, and also a write-off that the Arcane portion of the spell damage in an AB/Fireball rotation doesn't benefit from the 202 hit rating. I would just like to see the dps comparsions recently posted with 33/28 instead of 40/18/3 spec and the 3xAB/2xFB rotation instead of 10xFB/1xScorch or 3xAB/4xScorch that I've seen above.
What other spec would use 3xAB/2xFB? Why would you spec any other way with that rotation?

Perhaps they want to see how players react in the new patch without benefit from MSD/TLC
Scrubs will do whatever they want and min-maxers will spec whatever is most effective. Just like always.

They know what is most effective (except when there's some combination oversight like MSD + TLC + AM) so they know what people will do.
#424SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3tedv
I certainly haven't played my mage as much as most of the posters here have, but my general feeling was that Arcane Missiles simply cost too much mana. Is that still part of the core problem, and would, say, a 10% reduction in mana cost help that? Or have Judgement of Wisdom and Shadow Priests made that a non-issue?
#425SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alruna
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
I certainly haven't played my mage as much as most of the posters here have, but my general feeling was that Arcane Missiles simply cost too much mana. Is that still part of the core problem, and would, say, a 10% reduction in mana cost help that? Or have Judgement of Wisdom and Shadow Priests made that a non-issue?
JoW and SPs have made that far less of a problem. AB spam is far more mana consumptive than AM spam as well...
#426SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
My reaction to the changes is to respec forst to see if its competative now, then to fire if frost doesn't hold me.

Unfortunately without msd/tlc/etc... the am spam build is gone and with the 10% unnerfs on frost/fire the ab/am spam drops to third place in all categories.

Basically Blizz made arcane viable through changes and in one patch took that viability away and the mana issues no longer merit the only positive left for the build and that was the 40% threat reduction. 3rd place within a class talent selection that is still struggling to maintain dps against the other classes isn't a spec raiders will use.

My other issue is 5manning. Arcane spam is hard to use in 5 manning with limited mana pool and not shadow priest/jow. I hate to burn mana pots doing Heroic Mech. :|
#427SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
Scrubs will do whatever they want and min-maxers will spec whatever is most effective. Just like always.
The bit you missed is where many min-maxers liked having some choice when it comes to alterrnate specs. In 2.2/2.3 it wasnt so much that you *had* to go fire or arcane (assuming medium t5/t6 gearing) it was that you could do pretty darn well in either** and simply go with your favourite playstyle. That was great - you spec for what you enjoy. Being forced to spec into a spec simply because 'its the only spec that is competitive' is a little dull.

** assuming you had correct gear, which is another problem.
#428SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Navaash
Quick comment: [complete massacre of the Arcane spec aside,] if they want to reduce the dependence on 2 piece T5, they're pretty much going to have to redo the set from the ground up given that it lacks hit.
#429SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kir
Question: Are these 40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2 rotations requiring 2pc T5 to be effective or are these numbers without it?

I was hoping to go frost spec next patch, switching from AM like everyone else, but if 40/0/21 with an AB/FrstB rotation is going to be higher dps then fire too, I may do that. I can live with losing ~30dps for going deep frost over fire. But, if I can get ice block and do the same or more damage then fire, that seems more appealing.
#430SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
Question: Are these 40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2 rotations requiring 2pc T5 to be effective or are these numbers without it?

I was hoping to go frost spec next patch, switching from AM like everyone else, but if 40/0/21 with an AB/FrstB rotation is going to be higher dps then fire too, I may do that. I can live with losing ~30dps for going deep frost over fire. But, if I can get ice block and do the same or more damage then fire, that seems more appealing.

Do you have a winters chill mage in your raid?

If so I do think you will do fine spamming frost bolt. If not I think Fire will win out and so will a full frost build.

I think AB and AM had their last hurrah with this patch and the coeficient un nerfs. Maybe to be seen again in a future patch.
#431SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
I have scoured threads and either missed it or it isn't present. Is there a listing with Spell haste and its effects on casting speed now?

I would love to see a mega thread compilation like the first page of the enhance shaman theorycrafting. A one stop shop of details.

I am looking to get a few Haste items in the next patch and am looking how much and what gear to swap out for spell haste gear.
#432SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
Question: Are these 40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2 rotations requiring 2pc T5 to be effective or are these numbers without it?

I was hoping to go frost spec next patch, switching from AM like everyone else, but if 40/0/21 with an AB/FrstB rotation is going to be higher dps then fire too, I may do that. I can live with losing ~30dps for going deep frost over fire. But, if I can get ice block and do the same or more damage then fire, that seems more appealing.
40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2, with WC, with 4t6 : 1548 dps
40/0/21 Frstblt spam, with WC, with 4t6 : 1677 dps
40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2, with WC, with 2t5 : 1638 dps

I'm really not sure why AB is being discussed at this point. Since the patch increases the damage of frostbolt/fireball, it would only make sense that specs that focus on using either one of these spells with t6 is going to give you a higher DPS.

All 3 of these rotations/gear set-ups are weak in comparison to deep fire, and even deep frost when the pet stays alive.
#433SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
macbeet
I ran tests on my Equip with Lhivera's Theorycraft-o-Matic (Lhivera's Theorycraft Script). Similar to many what people stated here before my, I get the result that 40/0/21 with 2t5 does good dps, which is fine for my equip.

Arcane Frost : 1,210.65 Arc Blast x3 / Frostbolt x3 w/AP averaged
Full Arcane : 1,204.05 Arc Blast x3 / Arc Missiles w/AP averaged (1 Scorch injected)
Full Fire : 1,187.00 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/Molten Fury averaged
Arcane Fire : 1,166.55 Arc Blast x3 / Scorch x4 w/AP averaged
Full Frost : 1,106.81 Frostbolt + Waterbolt / Averaged

However when you drop t5 for better Equip, solid Fire and Frost Speccs tend to outdps an 3*AB, 3*FB rotation.

It's clear that Frost and Fire have their debuffs (+15% fire dmg from improved scorch, 10% crit from Winter's Chill) calculated in this simulator, but what is with the arcane specc?
Does it assume that another mage puts the frost debuff up and thats the only reason it works for some time?
Or does it not and can become viable if someone else assists?
The difference would result in plus or minus 71.94 dps approx, so let's say: considerable...

There is no contact address listed, so I could not ask Lhivera, so: Does anyone know if the simulator assumes 10% Frostcrit debuff applied or not, when in 40/0/21 mode?

this Calculation was made with T5 equivalent Equip and is therefore only limited valid... I highly doubt that this will change things in the t6 arena.

Last edited by macbeet : 10/29/07 at 5:06 PM.
#434SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2, with WC, with 4t6 : 1548 dps
40/0/21 Frstblt spam, with WC, with 4t6 : 1677 dps
40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2, with WC, with 2t5 : 1638 dps

I'm really not sure why AB is being discussed at this point.
Some of us aren't in T6 content yet, so +20% AB is a "big deal" =).

I got 2pT5 a while ago, and I settled on a 13/0/48 spec rotating ABxN/Frostboltx3 (where N is usually 3 or higher depending on my mana to boss' life), however I rarely see anyone posting ABx3/Frostboltx3 dps comparisons. A small amount of spell haste makes that workable to catch the cycle (Nimble Thought bracers), and in 2.3 with more spell haste being available outside of HJ/BT, you may see more T5 guilds have mages with spell haste and considering rotation options that weren't available before (at T5 level, soon with ZA). The tiny amount of spell haste also does not negatively impact AB spam hardly at all, since the GCD and the actual casts times are still very close together.

It's just a thought, in 2.3 mages pre-HJ/BT are going to have some "interesting" options that weren't available for the guilds currently at the end of the BC content.
#435SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
Some of us aren't in T6 content yet, so +20% AB is a "big deal" =).

I got 2pT5 a while ago, and I settled on a 13/0/48 spec rotating ABxN/Frostboltx3 (where N is usually 3 or higher depending on my mana to boss' life), however I rarely see anyone posting ABx3/Frostboltx3 dps comparisons. A small amount of spell haste makes that workable to catch the cycle (Nimble Thought bracers), and in 2.3 with more spell haste being available outside of HJ/BT, you may see more T5 guilds have mages with spell haste and considering rotation options that weren't available before (at T5 level, soon with ZA). The tiny amount of spell haste also does not negatively impact AB spam hardly at all, since the GCD and the actual casts times are still very close together.

It's just a thought, in 2.3 mages pre-HJ/BT are going to have some "interesting" options that weren't available for the guilds currently at the end of the BC content.
With my current gear (mostly ssc/tk gear with a few items out of Hyjal)...I'm still seeing a 100dps increase with deep fire over a 3ab/3frostbolt rotation. This is if I change out gems for some +hit and take off TLC for icon.
#436SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Logun
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I'm just as frustrated as everyone else and have deleted more than a few posts before posting because I figured I would just get an infraction for whining. The more I think about it though, couldn't this easily mean they actually realize the problem with Arcane? That is the extreme dependance on gimmicky items TLC MSD and tier5 to be competitive? I agree it's a weird way to go around it, but realistically they couldn't directly buff arcane before these items were "normalized". I may just be a fool for putting a little trust in Blizzard's design team and woe will most likely be me, I'll await further changes anyway - I think they are quite sure to come.
If the cook pissed in your soup would you think he did it to make the next course taste better?

Blizzard could have introduced buffs to the arcane tree in conjunction with the MSD and LC nerfs. They did not. Blizzard has given us no reason to believe they are planning on buffing the arcane tree. It is foolhardy to assume that just because we received these nerfs, that arcane buffs are around the corner.

Last edited by Logun : 10/29/07 at 7:42 PM.
#437SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
My only thought is that they believe the aoe dominance of the arcane tree justifies being completely inferior for anything else. I guess there's some merit to that thinking, would you want arcane mages for Hyjal? Maybe, but you sure as hell wouldn't want them around for the bosses.

Aside from that the only other explanation is curse synergy. After all, on your typical fight an arcane mage with CoS will hit a little bit harder than a fire mage without CoE. Maybe if you only have 2 warlocks? I don't know, this whole debate is kinda silly. It is really not fun to argue about which would be better, or accept those consequences, they ought to merge the curses into an all-magic curse and give our elemental shaman/moonkin friends some love as well. Mages are the only class that really use CoE, which kinda silly considering the other curses buff at least 2 classes.
#438SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
Blizzard has given us no reason to believe they are planning on buffing the arcane tree
Small steps , small changes > large sweeping changes - is there design philosophy.

While you can say they gave us 'no reason to believe they are planning to buff the tree' you can also say the opposite - theres no reason to rule out a chance of incoming changes/buffs after taking these small (necessary) steps to normalise parts of the tree.

Since we're using rhetoric, is the glass half empty... or half full? Could be either - and hopefully we'll find out sooner rather than later.
#439SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Logun
Possible reason for the LC nerf and it is again thanks to a PvP exploitation.

WoW Forums -> If the LC nerf was because of Affix&rsquo;s post

Too bad this is the only time you see Blizzard acting quickly.

Last edited by Logun : 10/29/07 at 8:42 PM.
#440SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 zepi
Is there a better way to model DPS than Vontre's spreadsheet? I ran some numbers with 2p T5 trough it, and got very similar results for 10/48/3 and 40/18/3 with ~T5 level gear. (~1000dmg ~capped hit ~350critrate)

I was however using a self-deviced cycle of 3:2:1 AB:Fireball:Fireblast. I don't know if it's actually usable in real raiding situations due to latency, even with the new improved casting mechanics. Atleast in theory 2x 3sec + 1.5sec should fit into the 8s AB debuff window, atleast if you have a tiny bit of haste gear.

Deep fire seemed to scale better with gear (how suprising...) and had better manaefficiency, but AB cycles win in threat levels and in shorter fights you can get some DPS-advantage with AB-spam. Also, AB cycle is less reliant on CoE due to 45-50% of damage being arcane, rather than fire.
#441SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Originally Posted by Logun View Post
If the cook pissed in your soup would you think he did it to make the next course taste better?
That's a stupid analogy you can't logically apply here, I mean come on...

Arcane was good IF and ONLY IF you had MSD, TLC or 2 piece tier5, without either of these the spec is very subpar on everything but AoE. You could not realistically make any changes to Arcane tree that would be balanced without those items as they used to work, it would be crazy overpowered.

Now it's true we've not heard a single thing about any changes incoming or even a blue post verifying that they recognize the "arcane problem" as real. But with the normalizations in 2.3 PTR we have a much better chance to see a balanced Arcane tree that isn't based on TLC MSD or 2 piece tier5 (if they decide to do something about 2 piece tier5 too).
#442SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Soul
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
That's a stupid analogy you can't logically apply here, I mean come on...

Arcane was good IF and ONLY IF you had MSD, TLC or 2 piece tier5, without either of these the spec is very subpar on everything but AoE. You could not realistically make any changes to Arcane tree that would be balanced without those items as they used to work, it would be crazy overpowered.

Now it's true we've not heard a single thing about any changes incoming or even a blue post verifying that they recognize the "arcane problem" as real. But with the normalizations in 2.3 PTR we have a much better chance to see a balanced Arcane tree that isn't based on TLC MSD or 2 piece tier5 (if they decide to do something about 2 piece tier5 too).
I simply don't understand this mindset that some mages have (in order to get buffed, you have to get nerfed).

I mean, we had people saying this very thing when shared DR was introduced on Frostbite and Frost Nova. Perma rooting even by chance was OP... by nerfing this, Bliz can now FINALLY balance mages for PvP. After, like, a month of Frost Mages getting owned, the change got reversed. Something similar happened when the damage tax got introduced. We got nerfed. Mages said it was a good thing because now they could address damage imbalances by making the class more interesting to play. Well, here we are, the better part of a year after it was introduced... and the primary change we're getting to compensate is that the tax is getting removed, which is Blizzard's way of acknowledging that it was totally uncalled for in the first place. And then there was the Counterspell debate. Counterspell was put on the global cooldown. Many mages protested saying it would drastically impact their playstyle. Other mages said, "Great! Now they can address our weaknesses against casters in PvP!" Months afterward, the only thing that was changed was that CS got taken off the GCD...

What indication is there at all that anything is going to change for arcane aside from these nerfs aimed at gear that made the spec viable? Arcane was not a viable dps spec for the entirety of vanilla WoW (aside from needing Evocation and IAE to be able to, like, play up to 1.10) and only became somewhat useful when 2 Piece T5 came into play and Fire and Frost were taxed. Given this track record, I honestly have little faith that Arcane will be viable again until at least WotLK.
#443SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Guys you mistakenly take "blizzard" to be one union of ten people around a table who discuss every day.

TLC was nerfed not by the board that reviews mages, their PvE dps, their PvP potential or their state. It was nerfed by Item Designers, who (about damn time) decided that for an Ilhoof drop it was way overpowered.


TLC nerf has nothing to do with whether or not they will buff arcane and pointing to the impact TLC nerf has had on arcane does Not mean arcane needs a buff to compensate. It most assuredly needs a buff because it scales shoddily and is ineffective and not competitive. No spec/mechanic should circle around one or indeed any collection of items. Does full fire work without 4xT6? Yes. Can you do it without? Yes. Therefore 4xT6 is balanced. Does AB rotation work without 2xT5? Most likely not, or if it does what's the point. Does this mean it's balanced? No. Same thing with TLC. Easy to abuse, contributed 8% to dmg done in AM spam. Balanced? No.

It is not smart to argue for mechanics/talents/scaling buffs and use item change as an argument. In fact, it points to gimmick abuse, exactly like 2.2 AM spec, something which thankfully is out of this game.

RIP TLC. You will be missed and equipped for BG Icelance abuse.
#444SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
I simply don't understand this mindset that some mages have (in order to get buffed, you have to get nerfed).

I mean, we had people saying this very thing when shared DR was introduced on Frostbite and Frost Nova. Perma rooting even by chance was OP... by nerfing this, Bliz can now FINALLY balance mages for PvP. After, like, a month of Frost Mages getting owned, the change got reversed. Something similar happened when the damage tax got introduced. We got nerfed. Mages said it was a good thing because now they could address damage imbalances by making the class more interesting to play. Well, here we are, the better part of a year after it was introduced... and the primary change we're getting to compensate is that the tax is getting removed, which is Blizzard's way of acknowledging that it was totally uncalled for in the first place. And then there was the Counterspell debate. Counterspell was put on the global cooldown. Many mages protested saying it would drastically impact their playstyle. Other mages said, "Great! Now they can address our weaknesses against casters in PvP!" Months afterward, the only thing that was changed was that CS got taken off the GCD...

What indication is there at all that anything is going to change for arcane aside from these nerfs aimed at gear that made the spec viable? Arcane was not a viable dps spec for the entirety of vanilla WoW (aside from needing Evocation and IAE to be able to, like, play up to 1.10) and only became somewhat useful when 2 Piece T5 came into play and Fire and Frost were taxed. Given this track record, I honestly have little faith that Arcane will be viable again until at least WotLK.
Is it reasonable to believe that systemic problems with the class will be fixed only after bandaids are nerfed? No, of course not. What should be hoped for is that those systemic problems will be addressed themselves, and then the bandaids removed.
#445SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kavan
According to my numbers the TLC nerf is about 2.5% dps loss for arcane single target and about 10% dps loss for aoe (obviously the more targets there are a bigger drop in dps you'll see).
#446SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Logun
Here is the newest blue post on arcane mage concerns, enjoy.

WoW Forums -> Mage Arcane concerns
#447SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Guys you mistakenly take "blizzard" to be one union of ten people around a table who discuss every day.

TLC was nerfed not by the board that reviews mages, their PvE dps, their PvP potential or their state. It was nerfed by Item Designers, who (about damn time) decided that for an Ilhoof drop it was way overpowered.
This reminds me the idea I had a while ago. To log on the PTR, and report the MSD cooldown to be bugged and hope some new programmer reads the bug report and corrects it.

Maybe thats a more effective way to give feedback. Who knows.

In other words, looking at that blue post, I think the proper answer would be giving a big post in the suggestions forums that explains dutifully arcane spec scaling (or lack thereof) versus firespec scaling. But then again, it will probably just get deleted.
#448SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alvira
The problem is with POM and AP. Two conerstone talents that they will never remove. Any proper scaling given to arcane tree may potentially be unstabalizing when AP and POM are added on top of it.

Plus arcane talent scaling adds to damage and crit damage of all spells. As fire and frost tree also alraedy have scaling talents. When combined with arcane talents that scale up crit damage, it could again prove to be destabalising in pvp. So I don't see any easy solution. >_<

Consider spellpower. They could buff it up to 100% instead of 75% and arcane would scale well normally. But then a POM, AP pyroblast with deep arcane spec that crits will be doing so much damage you will have a flood of tears from people who get one shotted in pvp...
#449SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dropsi
TC after 2.3.

Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
The problem is with POM and AP. Two conerstone talents that they will never remove. Any proper scaling given to arcane tree may potentially be unstabalizing when AP and POM are added on top of it.

Plus arcane talent scaling adds to damage and crit damage of all spells. As fire and frost tree also alraedy have scaling talents. When combined with arcane talents that scale up crit damage, it could again prove to be destabalising in pvp. So I don't see any easy solution. >_<
That leads us back to the "pvp-balancing destroys pve-balancing" discussion.

There were - and there are - two classical answers to that:

1. Answer to the equipment - problem: Add specific pvp-equipment to the game that can´t be used in pve content or is useless/less useful in pve-environments.

2. Answer to the talent-problem: Rescript the talents (and maybe the dps-output in general as well as some of the crowdcontrol skills) to have different effects in pvp and in pve. The crowdcontrol abilities already reflect that idea, but not much more at the moment.
#450SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alvira
Yeah, but talents apply to both equally. And blizzard hates to make changes that result in different pve vs pvp treatment if they can help it. They don't want to have to put on the tooltip.

Arcane power - increases all spell damage by 30% for pve, but only increases spell damage by 10% for pvp.
#451SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Soul
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Is it reasonable to believe that systemic problems with the class will be fixed only after bandaids are nerfed? No, of course not. What should be hoped for is that those systemic problems will be addressed themselves, and then the bandaids removed.
The problem being, of course, that many mages cheer or suggest nerfs so that these systemic issues can be addressed even though the nerfs clearly have a ridiculously detrimental effect on the class. For example, mages have issues fighting casters in general. In response to god knows what, Blizzard proposed making CS be affected by the global cooldown. It was a ridiculous suggestion that never should have happened, but it did, and a lot of mages were saying it was a good thing because we'd get so owned by casters now that Blizzard would have to do something about our caster defences. So of course, the change went through. In the meantime, Shadowfury got taken off the global cooldown for reasons that looked suspiciously like why mages would want CS off the global cooldown. Not one warlock protested this this change.

Which brings us to the question of why so many mages see ridiculous nerfs as a good thing. I mean, if Blizzard follows feedback from their classes, then it's no wonder they're so confused about the state of the mage. So many mages say "Nerf us, we're overpowered" when, in fact, that is not the case.

Witness the folks who think that Frostbolt snare should be put on diminishing returns. Who are these retards and where the hell do they come from? If I manage to crank off my 2.5s cast inferior damage nuke at someone, I'd bloody better well get my full snare duration out of the damn thing. If I manage to lock down three meleers with Rank one Frostbolts then good on me! I'd get shut down by mana burners or Fel Hunters in much the same fashion, so what's the big deal? Etc.
#452SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
The problem being, of course, that many mages cheer or suggest nerfs so that these systemic issues can be addressed even though the nerfs clearly have a ridiculously detrimental effect on the class. For example, mages have issues fighting casters in general. In response to god knows what, Blizzard proposed making CS be affected by the global cooldown. It was a ridiculous suggestion that never should have happened, but it did, and a lot of mages were saying it was a good thing because we'd get so owned by casters now that Blizzard would have to do something about our caster defences. So of course, the change went through. In the meantime, Shadowfury got taken off the global cooldown for reasons that looked suspiciously like why mages would want CS off the global cooldown. Not one warlock protested this this change.
It's true, some people are under the mistaken belief or persuasion that they must have their bandaids removed first, the gaping wounds laid bare for all to see, before those wounds can be closed, even though we all know they must heal first before you would ever consider taking the bandaid off.

I must disagree about CS, though. CS was and is too much of a deciding factor in a mage's performance against enemy casters. Landing or missing can mean the difference between victory and defeat. How many other classes can put the pare the bulk of their contribution down to one spell? How many other classes lose much of their utility if this spell is misused or baited?

It wasn't being off the GCD that makes CS so critical, though. It's the length of the lockout and CD. It is the huge CD that makes CS a threat that can be forgotten once blown. It's the huge lockout time that makes it so devastating to enemies if it lands. It is the lockout equivalent of a PoM-Pyro, if you will.
#453SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
I think this discussion is out-dated and pointless. POM-LOL mages haven't been serious in pvp since BC came out. Nobody with half a brain would seriously take a 3m spec to an arena past 1500 rating and expect anything out of it.

Just because back when we all had 4k HP one-button-kill spec used to be feared and loathed in equal amount, turn AP to 10% in PvP? Utter rubbish and a complete shut-down of the tree that is most useless in PvP as well as PvE.

You keep saying the problem is AP-POM. I beg to differ. In the last what? Four months? I haven't seen a single one post on either US or EU mage forums from clueless 13 year-olds going "zomg maeg so OP narf AP insta Frieball". Au contraire, it seems to be excessive "zomgomgz u spams instalance for 2.5k what can then frostbytes me and instalance agains!!!11"

10% dmg buff for a 31 talent? fantastic, because another nerf will pave the way to acceptable arcane talent tree modification...?
#454SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sapphidia
To divert a little, a friend of mine (dedicated 61 point arcane even before she got the LC and the MSD) has recently been trying her usual Arcane Missiles spam with the "healer" meta gem of Insightful Earthstorm Diamond. That's the 12 int and 2% chance to proc a 300 mana restore.

It's confirmed that the mana restore can proc off all the ticks of an AM burst (had several double procs), and seeing as the first cast of AM counts as a sixth cast this should average out as 36 mana off the cost of every Arcane Missile flurry.

Admittedly for heavy raiding in a shadowpriest group the mana wasnt one of the major issues, but for mages working on more small scale stuff or wishing to spam AM rank 10 (rather than the much more efficient Rank 8 I know a lot use for longevity) then this meta might actually make the spec a little more balanced outside of the 25mans.

At the very least, it's an example of a gem/item that procs on spellcasts that can be "abused" by AM spam but is unlikely to get nerfed in combination with it.
#455SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
It's beyond me why people think what I'm saying is praising Blizzard for their nerfs as we artificially 'deserve' it. It's not what I'm saying and if anything I'm more frustrated about this than most people posting here, as I've been/geared for arcane since shortly before our first Vashj kill ages ago.

Arcane is 'competitive' and 'balanced' in 2.2 right now IF and ONLY IF you posses 2 or 3 magic items, these items are the only reason the spec is viable and competitive now. I didn't mind it because it was more or less evident that it was how Blizzard wanted it to work with the MSD changes combined with AM when 2.2 was released, however it can't be that hard to understand that 2 items like TLC and MSD being the Making or Breaking of a spec is far from the optimal.

2.3 hits and Arcane will most likely be dead for all intentions and purposes, all we can hope for is WotLK changes, but trying to excuse that MSD/TLC should exist in their current implementation is out of whack. Arcane scales badly, TLC and MSD won't make it scale better.
#456SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
Some of us aren't in T6 content yet, so +20% AB is a "big deal" =).

I got 2pT5 a while ago, and I settled on a 13/0/48 spec rotating ABxN/Frostboltx3 (where N is usually 3 or higher depending on my mana to boss' life), however I rarely see anyone posting ABx3/Frostboltx3 dps comparisons. A small amount of spell haste makes that workable to catch the cycle (Nimble Thought bracers), and in 2.3 with more spell haste being available outside of HJ/BT, you may see more T5 guilds have mages with spell haste and considering rotation options that weren't available before (at T5 level, soon with ZA). The tiny amount of spell haste also does not negatively impact AB spam hardly at all, since the GCD and the actual casts times are still very close together.

It's just a thought, in 2.3 mages pre-HJ/BT are going to have some "interesting" options that weren't available for the guilds currently at the end of the BC content.
From when I checked before with a 13/0/48 spec and with 2xT5 I had to do 5xAB, 3xFB to even break my DPS only using frostbolt. It isn't really worth it.
#457SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Arcane is 'competitive' and 'balanced' in 2.2 right now IF and ONLY IF you posses 2 or 3 magic items, these items are the only reason the spec is viable and competitive now. I didn't mind it because it was more or less evident that it was how Blizzard wanted it to work with the MSD changes combined with AM when 2.2 was released, however it can't be that hard to understand that 2 items like TLC and MSD being the Making or Breaking of a spec is far from the optimal.
I disagree. You state that Blizz initially intended the spec to work with gimmicks, yet I see no such evidence: In W.O.W. there have been less than four occasions when any spec has been viable as a gimmick and I for one think that is a good thing. Diablo 2 LOD was full of them, and finding the synergy between ability-sharing items and strange blanket abilities like "ignores all armor" or "-%enemy resist" caused some game-breaking unballances. I can see that blizz tried to make AM more viable by allowing it to check per pulse, I do not think they specifically changed it to work only with MSD in mind. Indeed I believe if they had seen it would get so out of hand they'd have thought twice about it.

MSD had it coming, it was about time, and so did TLC. Idiotic game-mechanics abuse like the shaman shock-trooper spec shouldn't exist in a game, let alone break it.

This of course has no bearing on the fact that arcane still needs work...
#458SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
We don't know, but it was clear that the changes had AM in mind one way or the other. We don't know about their intentions, and speculating about it won't get us anywhere. We all agree Arcane needs alot of loving and help.
#459SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Guaicow
Sorry about my ignorance but i googled "G15"... is it actually a logitech keyboard?
For me to have a maximum possible output I'll have to buy a new keyboard? damn that sucks
: /
#460SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by manly View Post
This reminds me the idea I had a while ago. To log on the PTR, and report the MSD cooldown to be bugged and hope some new programmer reads the bug report and corrects it.

Maybe thats a more effective way to give feedback. Who knows.

In other words, looking at that blue post, I think the proper answer would be giving a big post in the suggestions forums that explains dutifully arcane spec scaling (or lack thereof) versus firespec scaling. But then again, it will probably just get deleted.
Actually I really wish you or Vontre would take a minute and post the theorycraft in the Suggestion forums on Arcane-2.2 dps at T5 and T6 gear levels as well as the hypothesized dps for 2.3 Fire/Frost with the damage tax removed at the T5 and T6 levels. Then show what the Arcane damage will be with the new MSD and TLC so that there can be no argument that the problem was not brought to Blizzard's attention in the forum they asked it to be placed in.

Personally I'm just going to make 3 skyfire diamonds (MSD is pure crap with that cooldown imo) now in preparation for the patch and start planning to go back to Frost spec. I can always throw 2T4 on for Essence or any severe Pushback fights and at least then I won't have to plan on respeccing to deal with Illidan every week.
#461SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
I want to respec fire but my main apprehension is im not sure how consistent I can get Curse of Elements.

If we have 2 locks in the raid it would probably be Shadow+Reck. Unfortunately, as I play a caster - I have no idea how valuable Curse of Reck is for all the melee combined (on a balanced raid group without class stacking) compared to the value Curse of Elements would have for 3-4 mages combined.

So I dont feel very qualified to say 'You should put up elements instead of Reck' - but id like to...! Can anyone with knowledge on how much CoR affects melee help shed some light?
#462SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
It's not as easy as saying CoE is 10 or 13% more dmg for Fire mages. Since the value of -armor is based on the armor value already on the boss.

[RAID] Boss armor values

This thread has some information you could use, but generally it's between 5-10% if I'm not entirely mistaken.
#463SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
It's not as easy as saying CoE is 10 or 13% more dmg for Fire mages. Since the value of -armor is based on the armor value already on the boss.

[RAID] Boss armor values

This thread has some information you could use, but generally it's between 5-10% if I'm not entirely mistaken.
-Armor, COE and spells? I don't quite see the connection.
#464SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Goggles
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
-Armor, COE and spells? I don't quite see the connection.
It's a reply to the post before it (#461) and it does make sense.
#465SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Guaicow View Post
Sorry about my ignorance but i googled "G15"... is it actually a logitech keyboard?
For me to have a maximum possible output I'll have to buy a new keyboard? damn that sucks
: /
A few pages back the G15 auto button spam was discovered to not work. Current spell-casting mechanics on 2.3 ptr indicate if you do indeed send multiple messages to cast a spell the first one will triger a GCD if it's too early thus making the G15 spam needless.
#466SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Actually I really wish you or Vontre would take a minute and post the theorycraft in the Suggestion forums on Arcane-2.2 dps at T5 and T6 gear levels as well as the hypothesized dps for 2.3 Fire/Frost with the damage tax removed at the T5 and T6 levels. Then show what the Arcane damage will be with the new MSD and TLC so that there can be no argument that the problem was not brought to Blizzard's attention in the forum they asked it to be placed in.

Personally I'm just going to make 3 skyfire diamonds (MSD is pure crap with that cooldown imo) now in preparation for the patch and start planning to go back to Frost spec. I can always throw 2T4 on for Essence or any severe Pushback fights and at least then I won't have to plan on respeccing to deal with Illidan every week.
Unfortunately I don't think it will result in anything good. The core of the issue is that we don't know how classes are balanced. We ask them openly to rebalance an entire tree, and while we do have an idea of the impact it will have on the other trees, we still don't know how they came to conclude the way they were right now is balanced. (And to be honest I am still at a loss how they could possibly pretend mages were DPS KINGS pre 2.2 - I'm sorry but that was pure hogwash.), And this is why I don't think we will get any kind of answer from them -- they would have to admit their balancing procedures and that would open them to a cesspool of people asking for nerfs with this new gleaned insight.

For example, lets assume for a second that classes are balanced using some predetermined stats (keep in mind here that gear is made far after class balance was created, so we must rule out the fact that they used stats that match what we can get from gear/set bonuses/trinkets). Let's say they put 400 int, 1000 dmg, 300 crit, etc. Now if you think about it, this means they balance things without taking procs or trinkets into account (still assuming here that my theory is true). Its probably another guy that makes those. If that is how they balance classes, then that means if they reply to my post illustrating scaling issues and that they indirectly confirm that what I say is true, then next thing you know this means lots of people will report every single trinket as bugged (since scaling did not take them into account) or unbalancing the game as a whole. If a mage with bland stats has a DPS perfectly in line with a rogue DPS using bland stats, and they are unwilling to make changes, because, to them, everything is, in fact, balanced, then we hit the problem that the next logical step for me, a mage, is to go visit every single trinket from the other classes and get them nerfed because thats the only way I can get my dps back in line. I sure as hell don't expect blizzard to balance classes by creating new items specifically for that purpose. Likewise, I do expect that new items can create unwittingly class imbalance because ultimately scaling doesn't take those into account.
#467SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Muphrid
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Unfortunately I don't think it will result in anything good. The core of the issue is that we don't know how classes are balanced. We ask them openly to rebalance an entire tree, and while we do have an idea of the impact it will have on the other trees, we still don't know how they came to conclude the way they were right now is balanced. (And to be honest I am still at a loss how they could possibly pretend mages were DPS KINGS pre 2.2 - I'm sorry but that was pure hogwash.), And this is why I don't think we will get any kind of answer from them -- they would have to admit their balancing procedures and that would open them to a cesspool of people asking for nerfs with this new gleaned insight.

For example, lets assume for a second that classes are balanced using some predetermined stats (keep in mind here that gear is made far after class balance was created, so we must rule out the fact that they used stats that match what we can get from gear/set bonuses/trinkets). Let's say they put 400 int, 1000 dmg, 300 crit, etc. Now if you think about it, this means they balance things without taking procs or trinkets into account (still assuming here that my theory is true). Its probably another guy that makes those. If that is how they balance classes, then that means if they reply to my post illustrating scaling issues and that they indirectly confirm that what I say is true, then next thing you know this means lots of people will report every single trinket as bugged (since scaling did not take them into account) or unbalancing the game as a whole. If a mage with bland stats has a DPS perfectly in line with a rogue DPS using bland stats, and they are unwilling to make changes, because, to them, everything is, in fact, balanced, then we hit the problem that the next logical step for me, a mage, is to go visit every single trinket from the other classes and get them nerfed because thats the only way I can get my dps back in line. I sure as hell don't expect blizzard to balance classes by creating new items specifically for that purpose. Likewise, I do expect that new items can create unwittingly class imbalance because ultimately scaling doesn't take those into account.
Trinkets are part of gear, though. The most common trinkets--passive damage stat and an on-use effect--are really no different from other items. It's only the "interesting" items that come into play; procs with asymmetric effects like that of the Lightning Capacitor, like that of Mystical Skyfire Diamond (which, to be fair, was in part result of the funky nature of Arcane Missiles).

I've always felt that items should not be valued based on some fuzzy idea of "item value" or level, one that Blizzard bases on an algorithm completely unrelated to balance, but on maximum potential value to a class/spec. With this principle in mind, it becomes clear that, for any "equal" item level, every class should be able to see the same increase in capabilities--not that they should from the same item, only for some pair of equally valued items. It is also this principle of maximum potential value that demands proportional scaling and, indeed, exponential scaling.

Last edited by Muphrid : 10/30/07 at 2:35 PM.
#468SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kir
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
Do you have a winters chill mage in your raid?

If so I do think you will do fine spamming frost bolt. If not I think Fire will win out and so will a full frost build.

I think AB and AM had their last hurrah with this patch and the coeficient un nerfs. Maybe to be seen again in a future patch.
That's.. not really what I asked. I think it was shown that 40/0/21 is mostly inferior to x/0/51+ frost if the WE lives, even assuming someone else stacking WC. I was asking if an abx3/frstblt x2/3 rotation was putting out higher dps then x/0/51+ and/or 10/48/3. Some of the above tests suggested it was, but they did not state if they were using 2pc T5 for the tests, and the same gear for the frost/fire builds. I.e. at a T4/T5 level that spec may do well, but as you enter into T6, it scales worse. Or, if they were putting out higher numbers even in T6, was what I was curious about.

Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2, with WC, with 4t6 : 1548 dps
40/0/21 Frstblt spam, with WC, with 4t6 : 1677 dps
40/0/21 ABx3/Frstbltx2, with WC, with 2t5 : 1638 dps

I'm really not sure why AB is being discussed at this point. Since the patch increases the damage of frostbolt/fireball, it would only make sense that specs that focus on using either one of these spells with t6 is going to give you a higher DPS.

All 3 of these rotations/gear set-ups are weak in comparison to deep fire, and even deep frost when the pet stays alive.
It's being discussed because fully stacked AB is still highest dps in the game, no? Especially with 2pcT5. It's just horrible dpm. Since you can grab some of the frost dmg talents early in the tree, and most of the arcane talents that help AB, it's at least worth an inspection to see if that spec is now viable. Previously you went ABx3/AM/scorch or ABx3/Fireballx2 or something like that, with fire spells as filler generally.

Automatically assuming a spec is no good is why it took awhile for people to catch onto arcane in the first place. I wasn't saying some AB rotation is optimal, but some of the numbers people posted above were somewhat surprising. Hell, the numbers you posted seem kind of high for 40/0/21 compared to other posts. I'm hoping to just go full frost, it offers the most utility and 'fun' for me. But, I prefer to spec highest dps first, so I'm trying to make sure there isn't an alternative that I'm overlooking.
#469SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
The issue is deeper than that. I just gave a simple example. Let's say they balanced classes using DR BOOM style mob and with actual endgame gear. Every class 'falls in line' according to blizzard (ie: rogue>mage>hunter/lock/shamans>...). But then, my complain would still apply just as much - are group buffs taken into account ? Is balancing done using the most commonly used group compositions? If so, that means we can be boned, or any class for that matter.

Lets say mages are balanced around having an elemental shaman in their group (assuming here they balance DPS and not DPM, thus why I am ignoring here spriest). Then that means, looking forward, mage dps will never compete without a shaman in their group. Imagine now that rogues are balanced around having WF + feral druid. If such a group comp gives them a DPS in-line with blizzard expectation, that means ultimately rogues are boned to require those for their group comp in the future. Maybe blizzard views mage DPS as requiring moonkin + elemental shaman to compete with rogue DPS. Maybe blizzard never imagined that mage can have serious mana issues without a shadow priest, or that they didn't expect shadow priest mana returns to be beyond absurd to a point where they've allowed the most terrible DPM spec (AB rotations) to be workable, We don't know. Its probably better that we don't know too.

But then, lets say we break common grounds, blizzard and the community, about what are the expected group comp for every class and that things are balanced that way. What happens if someone figures out that - waitamin - what if all 5 players in the group were leatherworkers and chain popped drums? And that this could imbalance a class to a point where it scales absurdly its dps beyond the point of expectation? This can go on for a long time.

I don't think we will ever see any response from blizzard assuming someone would detail well the problem of arcane scaling, simply because I doubt blizzard can elaborate on class balancing mechanics.
#470SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Kir View Post



It's being discussed because fully stacked AB is still highest dps in the game, no?

It is, but as soon as you mix in anything and let the 3rd stack drop, the dps goes to crap. I'm showing 2050dps spamming AB with no ramp time...but that's only 100-150 dps better than I could get Fireball to show.
#471SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
With all the mana concerns, chance to mess up your cycle, latency making 1.5 second casts odd, and the coefficient unnerfs with the new patch I think Arcane becomes a support tree again. Sad though, the How can Arcane Damage Work thread was amazing. Tons of theory crafting and min maxxing, 120+ pages of discussion. We all know how to dps frost and fire.

I think in the end, the discourse on spec benefit and strengths with the new patch is what I will miss.

My ulitmate goal is to go frost and put up winters chill and have a few support talents for AE spam and mana endurance. If it lags too much ill go back to fire.
#472SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
The problem being, of course, that many mages cheer or suggest nerfs so that these systemic issues can be addressed even though the nerfs clearly have a ridiculously detrimental effect on the class. For example, mages have issues fighting casters in general. In response to god knows what, Blizzard proposed making CS be affected by the global cooldown. It was a ridiculous suggestion that never should have happened, but it did, and a lot of mages were saying it was a good thing because we'd get so owned by casters now that Blizzard would have to do something about our caster defences. So of course, the change went through. In the meantime, Shadowfury got taken off the global cooldown for reasons that looked suspiciously like why mages would want CS off the global cooldown. Not one warlock protested this this change.

Which brings us to the question of why so many mages see ridiculous nerfs as a good thing. I mean, if Blizzard follows feedback from their classes, then it's no wonder they're so confused about the state of the mage. So many mages say "Nerf us, we're overpowered" when, in fact, that is not the case.

Witness the folks who think that Frostbolt snare should be put on diminishing returns. Who are these retards and where the hell do they come from? If I manage to crank off my 2.5s cast inferior damage nuke at someone, I'd bloody better well get my full snare duration out of the damn thing. If I manage to lock down three meleers with Rank one Frostbolts then good on me! I'd get shut down by mana burners or Fel Hunters in much the same fashion, so what's the big deal? Etc.
You make excellent points and highlight the exact reason I was up in arms warning them during beta not to make Pyro have a 170% coefficient up front. I was booed, insulted, chastised and torn to shreds by other mages when all I was trying to do was help with a little foresight. If the 170% coefficient went live we would still be swarmed by a bunch of nerf threads about AP+POM+Pyro... except rather than complaints of 6k crits they would be 9k crits because of the ridiculous scalability of an instant 170% upfront coefficient.

Sometimes the best thing for your class in the long term can be the worst thing for your class in the short term. Does this apply to arcane and itemization issues? I don't know but if you were hoping for an arcane tree buff I'm willing to bet that you are a lot more likely to see one post-2.3 than you are pre-2.3.
#473SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lhivera
Originally Posted by Empyrea View Post
Inspiring Presence - Spells - World of Warcraft
The aura doesn't show up on the draenei's buff list, but its there. And to the best of my memory grouping with a draenei shaman and mage last night showed no stacking auras on my buffs.
Doesn't one of the totems give +3% hit?
#474SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lhivera
Originally Posted by Endage View Post
The extra hit on Frostbolts has already been discovered some time ago but never really looked into further because it wouldn't make it competitive anyway.
The talents that may cause it are Elemental Precision, Winter's Chill or Empowered Frostbolt. That's as far as the discussion went at that time. With the removal of the damage tax it might indeed make a difference.

I've been full frost until I got my T5 set, never went any higher than ~120 hitrating because WWS' never showed any higher than 1.5% resist rate.
Hm, perhaps the +5% hit effect was left in Empowered Frostbolt? Be interesting to compare a 40/0/21 mage with a deep Frostie.
#475SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3sambjo
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
Hm, perhaps the +5% hit effect was left in Empowered Frostbolt? Be interesting to compare a 40/0/21 mage with a deep Frostie.
I'm pretty sure that it's elemental precision adding an extra 3% hit.

Here's some frostbolts from me as 10/0/51 for a night of illidan attempts:




I didn't have an ele shaman or a draenei in my group. By the looks of this I was getting 3% extra hit from somewhere.

Now last night we did SSC and someone brought their alt mage who is 0/5/56. He has all the same frost talents of me except one: ele precision. He was well below the hit cap and he was getting the proper amount of resists. While he didn't really throw 1500+ frostbolts his miss rate was right where it should be without ele precision.
#476SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3[DRF]Solmyr
I'm really bad at math, and I wouldn't even know where to begin figuring out item budgets, so I'm going to pose a question to those that are more gifted:

Let us assume Equal Item Budgets (4pc T5).

(x) being the number of Arcane Blasts in the rotation, at what point does (x)AB/AM/Scorch >= (8)FB/Scorch rotations? And what is the DPM difference? Can any of that DPM difference be mitigated by the improved mana regeneration talent and the improved shaman mana springs?
#477SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Keyne
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Trinkets are part of gear, though. The most common trinkets--passive damage stat and an on-use effect--are really no different from other items. It's only the "interesting" items that come into play; procs with asymmetric effects like that of the Lightning Capacitor, like that of Mystical Skyfire Diamond (which, to be fair, was in part result of the funky nature of Arcane Missiles).

I've always felt that items should not be valued based on some fuzzy idea of "item value" or level, one that Blizzard bases on an algorithm completely unrelated to balance, but on maximum potential value to a class/spec. With this principle in mind, it becomes clear that, for any "equal" item level, every class should be able to see the same increase in capabilities--not that they should from the same item, only for some pair of equally valued items. It is also this principle of maximum potential value that demands proportional scaling and, indeed, exponential scaling.
I'm not entirely sure as to what the thesis of your post is, even as a response to Manly's post, but reading it incited me to develop an opinion on the matter.

The 'problem' with MSD and TLC is not that they are items with asymmetric effects. In fact it is likely arguable that the effects of the two items are entirely symmetrical. What IS asymmetrical is arcane missiles as a spell. All of the single target spells (namely fireball, pyroblast, scorch, frostbolt, arcane blast, fire blast, and icelance) essentially have a 1:1 damage instance:cast ratio. TLC and MSD are largely uninteresting here. TLC gets interesting when looking at its behavior with AoE spells (CoC, frost nova, arcane explosion, flamestrike, dragon's breath) as these spells have an X:1 ratio. The essential quality that makes AM an abberation in comparison to the other spells in a mage's arsonal is that it is essentially a single-target AoE. That is, unlike the other spells that have a single target, AM is, at heart, six 'spells' packed into one 'cast.'

What mages have been enjoying (and likely other classes bemoaning) since the 2.2 patch are not broken items, but the maximization of a broken spell. Assuming for rhetorical sake that I know the intentions of Blizzard's designers, frostbolt and fireball are both subject to the same intented effect when used with MSD: 5% of the time, the next spell with a cast time outputs double the standard DPS. Because of the mechanics of AM, MSD essentally reads: 26.xx% of the time, the next six spells output double the standard DPS, because, as we all know, AM is really just six spells tied together.

If Blizzard decided to change MSD in the 2.3 patch SOLELY because of its interactions with the AM spell, the best fix* is to recode AM such that if a 'tick' triggers MSD, then the next 'tick' would resolve itself in half the time and consume the buff. This would result in AM gaining the same percentage DPS increase as all the other spells.

TLC is another animal. MSD was 'broken' because a particular spell checked six times as often, and extended the haste bonus to six times as many spells as any other. TLC is 'broken' because the DPS that it accounts for is a linear transformation of crittable damage sources per unit time. When combined with a spell that outputs 1.2 casts per second, this trinket puts out an amount of damage that accounts for more damage as a percent of total damage output than the developers feel should come from a Karazhan-level (possibly any-level) item.

TLC is seen as pernicious not because it's damage is a cast time scalar**, but because it can turn a spell that WoW-economists would otherwise consider unusable into a powerhouse simply (read: ONLY) because of its casts per minute. I would imagine that items are developed with a certain value-added metric in mind (nominal DPS added for DPS classes, some survivability metric for tanks, etc). If Blizzard only intended for TLC to add DPS in the range from X to Y, then the 'fix' we see in 2.3 is a correct one* in that it tightens the range between X and Y and thus reduces the variance of the average of this range.

If these two explanations are not proof enough that AM is really the thing that we should be calling asymmetric, it should be pointed out that if it didn't exist, Blizzard would likely not believe that any changes to 2.2 MSD and TLC were warrented. MSD would have the exact same marginal effect on all mage nukes. Without AM around to skew the range of DPS-added that TLC provides, the best use for TLC on a single target would be with scorch spam, and it is quite obvious that even here, TLC is not enough to make this a viable strategy in any situations where scorch spam is not already optimal.

That is my AM/TLC/MSD thesis. Stop reading now if you don't want to read about magery that is unrelated to the post I am responding to. If permitted, I would like to make an aside about the nature of a large portion of discussions I have encountered in these threads.

* My conclusions about 'the best fixes' for TLC and MSD are obviously opinion based, but I think they are clearly justifiable as ways to push the functionality of the two items towards what the designers seemed to have in mind.
** 'Scalar' might not be the right word here. I think I might want to say 'scales with', but I am not sure if that would be using the phrase in a manner that most on this forum use it. I don't know.

___________________________________________________

I would like to start off by saying that my writing is generally in the stream-of-thought style, which may be harder to read for some, but I hope that my theses are understandable (and I also apologize in advance for being long-winded; I have ADHD). Secondly, the ideas that I put forth in this aside are admittedly based on opinion, as they are a consequence of my way of looking at the world. As is true for many opinion based expositions, mine is likely to be controversial. If a moderator or equivilent finds that this part of the post is in any way inappropriate for how discussion on this thread has developed (warranting deletion), or is better suited for being posted in a different place, I will gladly comply. I just thought that my two cents might shed some light on a pervasive matter.

I'm reading a lot of posts in this forum that look like a debate between whether the 2.3 changes that make the AM spam strategy economically inferior are warranted. I.e.: Is what Blizzard is about to do 'good' or 'bad'? The reason that people complain that whatever group they are a part of is underpowered or overpowered is really a psychological one. The group can be something like mages as a whole compared to rogues as a whole; or slightly more specific like version x.x frost spec vs fire spec. I personally think that there there are two flavors of this complaint that appear on these forums. One flavor is warranted, the other is not:

The warranted complaints about group imbalance are the result of the imbalance that arises when Blizzard adds new material to the game. WoW is obviously a complex network of formulas and variables, but given a strong enough computer it is solvable (by this I guess I really mean balanceable). The Blizzard developers are not 'computers' that are capable of this, however, and it would be completely unfair for us to expect them to be. The introduction of things like the new spells for each class in TBC tipped scales of class balance, which caused discussion of possible solutions to these new imbalances, and eventually results in 'fixes' to rebalance the game (usually patches).

The unwarranted complaints about group imbalance, I believe, are generally-speaking, derivatives of natural human greed. As humans, we begin to identify with the group(s) that we play, especially since we spend so much time playing them. It is therefore natural that we desire the best for our group, the same way we desire the best possible for our children. People that don't belong to the 2.2 arcane mage spec group are likely to complain in this way because their group might be seen by others as inferior by comparison. When 2.3 rolls around, people that have grown to identify themselves as AM mages are going to complain in this way because the MSD and TLC changes are going to make their strategy look inferior for the same reason. These types of complaints are, in my opinion, a complete and utter waste of time and forum space. This is because these types of discussion arise from failure to agree on the values of each of the abilities of a group.

To understand this concept, I feel I should explain how I understand the concept of balance between groups. Balance, as I see it, is a state of affairs that describes the comparative value of all of the groups involved. The most talked about type of balance is class balance, that is, the balance between classes or specs of classes that serve the same role (DPS/tank/healing). Balance or imbalance as a state of affairs manifests itself when raid leaders decide who they want to take to a raid. Rogues and mages would be seen as perfectly balanced if the raid as a whole would benefit exactly the same by taking the rogue as by taking the mage. Each class has a slew of factors that add value to a raid. For mages its things like the value of keeping a CC'able trash mob sheeped, the value to the raid of providing the scorch debuff for warlocks, and the value of the DPS numbers they can put up on a boss.

The important result here is that everything that a given class can do in a raid that is any way valuable must theoretically has some sort of value metric associated with it (a number that can be used to compare the value of one ability to another). When the values of all of the raid-relevant abilities are summed up and added to the value to the raid of DPS, class balance is achieved when each class has the same final number.

The thing that irks me is that DPS is directly responsible for 99% of the whining about imbalance that I hear in threads, while at the same time not accounting for anywhere near 99% of the value added to a raid by most classes.*** Imagine there was a class that had a skill- and spell-set that did nothing other than single target DPS. It is not hard to see that claiming class imbalance would be justifiable if there was second class also exists that provided equal or better (and even slightly less) DPS than the first class, while also being able to sheep (or banish, or shackle, etc). But as the contribution of DPS to the total value of a class/spec in a raid setting moves away from 100%, claiming balance or imbalance becomes less meaningful, as that sort of conclusion is more and more dependent on a metric that none of us are equipped to calculate.

Long story short: Whether we know how to do the math or not, being able to iceblock/icewall during a boss encounter has a value associated with it that is in a unit of measure that allows for direct comparison to DPS. Some people value the bells and whistles associated with deep-frost highly enough to make is a more valuable spec than deep-fire, despite the DPS loss. On the mage vs non-mage level, I have heard that 2.2 AM spec is balanced because it makes mages competitive with other DPS classes. I have heard that it is unbalanced because it utilizes game mechanics to pervert MSD and TLC into items that improves damage output on the scale of hundreds damage per second. Both stances are defendable, but, at the same time, both stances are completely meaningless and out of place in a thread about theorycrafting (which as I understand it is supposed to be about min/maxing) as this judgement of balance/imbalance is dependent almost entirely of your personal valuation of non-DPS abilities.

Clearly Blizzard seems to think that the scorch debuff and ability to polymorph, among the other things that a mage can do in-game, are worthwhile enough that they dont want the AM spec to be able to push out DPS numbers comparable to rogues and hunters. If you want to argue about that, or if you want to argue about deep-frost vs deep-fire, that is fine, just don't do it in a thread about TC.

*** My defense of this statement is that, if my theory of class balance is relatively accurate, we would see little difference between the DPS of classes with abilities that are significant in raid settings (mages with poly and imp' scorch and 'locks with banish and curses) and those without (rogues and hunters, who appear to me to be DPS classes in the purest sense).

Last edited by Keyne : 10/30/07 at 5:44 PM.
#478SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
The frost hit rate issue shouldn't be too hard to test. Someone could just run around killing level 70 mobs with 0 talent points allocated and without any +hit gear. You should see a 4% resistance rate. Then put 1 point in Elemental Precision and run the test again. See if it goes to a 2% or 3%resistance rate.

If it's 2%, then Elemental Precision gives frost 2% per point.
#479SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I think this discussion is out-dated and pointless. POM-LOL mages haven't been serious in pvp since BC came out. Nobody with half a brain would seriously take a 3m spec to an arena past 1500 rating and expect anything out of it.
I was lazy last week and used my AM-spec in a 3v3 arena team. We played in the 2100-2150ies and i scored a personal 10-6 record there. It was admitedly harder to kite warriors, and when there was a rogue in the opponents team that focussed on me it got VERY rough (they still had to figure out my spec though). But playing 3 caster teams with that spec was insane, and obviously not b/c of AP/PoM-Pyro but actually for MSD abusing AM-spam. I would go so far and say, that such a spec can be better vs. specific setups, but i still wouldnt want to play it in general, and esp. not in 2.3 after the MSD nerf.
#480SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by sambjo View Post
I'm pretty sure that it's elemental precision adding an extra 3% hit.

Here's some frostbolts from me as 10/0/51 for a night of illidan attempts:

<cut>

I didn't have an ele shaman or a draenei in my group. By the looks of this I was getting 3% extra hit from somewhere.

Now last night we did SSC and someone brought their alt mage who is 0/5/56. He has all the same frost talents of me except one: ele precision. He was well below the hit cap and he was getting the proper amount of resists. While he didn't really throw 1500+ frostbolts his miss rate was right where it should be without ele precision.
What was your hit, what exact talent layout did you have? What was his hit, and what exact talents did he have? Without that information you're kind of just reiterating what we already know... Assuming its something native to the spell, EP Mages still need 125 +Hit Rating, and non EP Mages still need ~164 hit rating (I'm lazy and not doing math, someone can feel free to correct this). He didn't have EP, so he had 8 talents that you didn't already have, but I can't really guess which ones. I'm hoping you have the info, because it will definitely help in the testing.
#481SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
The evidence seems pretty reasonable on this... I'm going to mod elemental precision in my spreadsheet update. Has anyone gotten to do first tests yet?
#482SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
The frost hit rate issue shouldn't be too hard to test. Someone could just run around killing level 70 mobs with 0 talent points allocated and without any +hit gear. You should see a 4% resistance rate. Then put 1 point in Elemental Precision and run the test again. See if it goes to a 2% or 3%resistance rate.

If it's 2%, then Elemental Precision gives frost 2% per point.
Or someone could level a Mage to level 13 (for EP), find a level 16 npc, have a tank debuff (Demo Shout, it a few times to establish a ton of threat, and then have the mage start casting level 1 Frost Bolt at it.

It might be easier if someone has a mage around level 30 though. A level 33 mob could probably survive a lot of level 1 Frost Bolts, making for superior testing.

I don't have a mid level mage to test with though.

Of course, this presumes that lower level spells would have the same impact.
#483SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
diag
deleted

Last edited by diag : 10/30/07 at 7:35 PM.
#484SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lhivera
Originally Posted by sambjo View Post
Here's some frostbolts from me as 10/0/51 for a night of illidan attempts:

(snip)

I didn't have an ele shaman or a draenei in my group. By the looks of this I was getting 3% extra hit from somewhere.
Be interesting to see what happens if you drop another 25 hit rating (I know that may not be possible). If it's still pegged close to the 99% hit area, that could indicate an extra 5% hit at work from Emp. Frostbolt.

Now last night we did SSC and someone brought their alt mage who is 0/5/56. He has all the same frost talents of me except one: ele precision. He was well below the hit cap and he was getting the proper amount of resists. While he didn't really throw 1500+ frostbolts his miss rate was right where it should be without ele precision.
That's an interesting data point as well. One thing's for sure: this is weird.
#485SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
The evidence seems pretty reasonable on this... I'm going to mod elemental precision in my spreadsheet update. Has anyone gotten to do first tests yet?
Our Illidan kill and some wipes.
Wow Web Stats

Most frostbolts were against Illidan or Flames of Azzinoth. I shot maybe 2 on Shadow Demons (Blizzard spammer mostly) and Parasitic Shadowfiends got Ice Lance'd.
We all had Elemental Precision and Empowered Frostbolt. No shaman/totem of wrath.

Diffindo - 7.37% hit on gear, 9.63% resist before talents. 181 hits, 102 crits, 10 resists.
=> 3.4% resist rate (303 casts), Elemental Precision may give 6%, and the data would fit.
If Empowered Frostbolt gave 5%, I should have had 1.6% resists, but I had "significantly" more.

Expelliarmus - had 11.65% hit from gear, 5.45% resist before talents. 3 resists, 118+69+3=190 casts.
=> 1.6% resist rate. If Elemental Precision gave 6%, he would have been capped. 1.6% can probably be seen as "capped".


Lumos - hat 10.38% hit from gear, 6.62% resist before talents. 3 resists over 151+82+3=236 casts.
=> 1.3% resist rate. If Elemental precision gave 6%, he would have been capped. Seems to fits.


Conclusion from a 303 cast data set - my best best would be that Elemental Precision gives 6% hit.
This data set has about no statistical relevance, it's just an indication at best.
#486SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3sambjo
Originally Posted by Nadiar View Post
What was your hit, what exact talent layout did you have?
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
My hit rating's shown in the second picture, the spec's also in my armory.

What was his hit, and what exact talents did he have? Without that information you're kind of just reiterating what we already know...
Like I said, he was pvp spec'd deep frost so he had every pve talent I had except for ele precision. His hit rating was low (mostly pvp gear) and his resists were right where they should have been.

He didn't have EP, so he had 8 talents that you didn't already have, but I can't really guess which ones. I'm hoping you have the info, because it will definitely help in the testing.
Pvp talents such as imp cone of cold and permafrost. Nothing that affects frostbolt.

Next time he's on his mage I'll see if I can get a bigger sampling size and some screenshots and/or wws parses. He was only around for 2 bosses and there was trash between, so our sampling size against level 73 targets was less than 200 frostbolts rather than the 1500+ I had for my night of Illidan wipes.
#487SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Vand1
I may have missed it somewhere, but with all this evidence pointing towards elemental precision giving frost spells +6% hit, has anyone checked to see whether it is doing the same for fire? It would seem strange that it would have separate coding for fire and frost spells, since according to the tooltip, it affects both schools the same. Or is there other non-related evidence elsewhere that fire does indeed need 164 hit to be capped?

Last edited by Vand1 : 10/30/07 at 8:28 PM.
#488SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
From when I checked before with a 13/0/48 spec and with 2xT5 I had to do 5xAB, 3xFB to even break my DPS only using frostbolt. It isn't really worth it.
Hm, that's odd. Some of the basic math I did with my own gearset showed that rotating was a DPS increase. I'd like to hear about how you arrived at that conclusion, perhaps I've made an error somewhere.
#489SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
classes with abilities that are significant in raid settings (mages with poly and imp' scorch and 'locks with banish and curses) and those without (rogues and hunters, who appear to me to be DPS classes in the purest sense).
I think claiming that rogues and hunters are classes without 'raid significant non-dps abilities' is a fallacy to begin with. Misdirection alone is used far more often and to much greater effect in boss encounters than polymorph or remove curse.

I'll agree that this is totally off-topic though so I won't persist in this line of argument!
#490SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
It's being discussed because fully stacked AB is still highest dps in the game, no?
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
It is, but as soon as you mix in anything and let the 3rd stack drop, the dps goes to crap. I'm showing 2050dps spamming AB with no ramp time...but that's only 100-150 dps better than I could get Fireball to show.
Let's be dead honest. AB spam is not and never has been the best dps in the game. It is the best dps a Mage of a certain spec and gear standpoint can bring to a single target but I've seen Rogues beat it out of course. It also doesn't scale with haste or bloodlust as well. Notably it also has zero pushback protection.
#491SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
Hm, that's odd. Some of the basic math I did with my own gearset showed that rotating was a DPS increase. I'd like to hear about how you arrived at that conclusion, perhaps I've made an error somewhere.
I tested it in the spell rotations section of Vontre's spreadsheet. This tested with full raid buffs and a shadow priest and I did several different spell rotations to see at what point the AB cycle took over the pure frostbolt cycle.

Interestingly at that gear level I could spam pure frostbolts using evoc, crystals and pots in the raid for 57 minutes, it may sound a bit extreme but I would consider it accurate as it is rare that I use evocation in a raid and tend to chug destro potions over mana pots.
#492SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
Let's be dead honest. AB spam is not and never has been the best dps in the game. It is the best dps a Mage of a certain spec and gear standpoint can bring to a single target but I've seen Rogues beat it out of course. It also doesn't scale with haste or bloodlust as well. Notably it also has zero pushback protection.

Agreed. It's worthless with haste gear and effects AND loses 20% without T5 (another item dependency I'd like to see absolved). It's a weak spell which was good when it was conceived. i.e. Before BC came to bear. Back then when haste was something that didn't happen and Bloodlust was a distant concept, yes AB had the birthmark of a good spell if hugely situational. As things turned out? Abysmal. If AB ramped with increased damage instead of decreased cast time, it'd be a lot more usable, but as it is now, the only thing it is "best in game" at is draining your manapool at over 400mana/sec. Only thing that's more mana-draining is chain-arcane brilliance, though that's slightly less dps.
#493SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
I have no idea how you guys do it, you must have the most insane manabatteries. On al'ar with frostspec i ran OOM with chainpotting, chaingeming and evocating.

There isn't a single fight in SSC/TK with the exception of KT I don't go OOM on with shadowpriest, chainpotting, geming and evocating with spiritstick and for good measure I've also had a Shaman and still oom. This is with 10/48/3.

Checking the DPS sheets etc I'm still quite confident 10/48/3 will be the most stable contender though, will be interesting to see exactly what changes stay how when 2.3 is launched.
#494SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
As a long term frosty its nice to see a reason for the miss rate peculiarities I have been seeing for the past six months.

I still think it has something to do with the binary nature of frostbolt as my ice lance is still affected normally.

To the person who asked if this affects fire spells, in my experience it doesn't. I am also pretty certain if it did people would've noticed by now as it had been the main spec used for PvE for a long time, unlike frost.
#495SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
I have no idea how you guys do it, you must have the most insane manabatteries. On al'ar with frostspec i ran OOM with chainpotting, chaingeming and evocating.

There isn't a single fight in SSC/TK with the exception of KT I don't go OOM on with shadowpriest, chainpotting, geming and evocating with spiritstick and for good measure I've also had a Shaman and still oom. This is with 10/48/3.

Checking the DPS sheets etc I'm still quite confident 10/48/3 will be the most stable contender though, will be interesting to see exactly what changes stay how when 2.3 is launched.
As frost it has got to the point now where if I see a healer going OOM then I suggest they replace them with me so they get a shadow priest and I just use pots instead and evocate.

It may be that your DPS as a whole is lacking in your raids, this could be due to a bad raid setup or maybe you are doing content a bit to fast and your gear hasn't caught up yet. These are big assumptions ofcourse, but anything that extends your DPS time will make your chance to OOM more likely.
#496SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
As frost it has got to the point now where if I see a healer going OOM then I suggest they replace them with me so they get a shadow priest and I just use pots instead and evocate.

It may be that your DPS as a whole is lacking in your raids, this could be due to a bad raid setup or maybe you are doing content a bit to fast and your gear hasn't caught up yet. These are big assumptions ofcourse, but anything that extends your DPS time will make your chance to OOM more likely.
Yea I am well aware of the dps synergy creating longer/shorter fights etc. You can take a look at my armory, not much better gear I could have after just killing KT in my opinion.

Our raid DPS might be lacking at times but we do get VR down with 3-4 min left on enrage, we did get Leo down with 1.5 min left, hydross with a couple min etc. So it ain't horrible, but i agree it is at times to low and fights to long. Only fight we really do very high dps on is KT.
#497SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Taja
Finnally, someone who has the same issues as me. Even with a spriest and shaman and chainpotting/gemming from the bat I will run oom. Chugging a destruction potion hasn't even occured to me since i'm so low on mana. At first I figured it was our spriest not returning that much but in my current guild (who are at Vashj) the mana drain just keeps up. Even with the higher raid Dps.
#498SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vanor
Lack of mana seems really odd. You might wanna check s-priest up time on VT or if they are slacking on DPS.
With a S-priest I didn't have to mana pot really untill we hit Hyjal/BT (except Kael maybe and maybe 1pot or so on Vashj,) and even in here I often use Flame Cap. Saving pot cd for that occasional aoe dmg that loves to kill us dpsers nowdays, but a heroism surely will make me pop Destro pot+Flame cap.
What I've noticed works good is I go full burn 2fireball+fire blast and not eating mana consumables to get first Evocation used ,as it returns full mana with spirit weapons, then after that start mana gems+pots, often having Major/unstable mana pots as enough and in most cases still got spare mana for Flame Cap at Molten Fury range.
My specc is classic 10/48/3 and fight expeirence is Hyjal cleared and Mother Shazz almost dead.

edit: Realised one more thing, mentioned before but just giving more examples, how many healers/dps/tanks do you usually run with? We normaly take three tanks, 7-8 healers and rest dps. Sometimes two tanks and letting dps warrior(s) off tank, depending on where we're going.
#499SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Maybe make those lazy palla's put JoW up then

Not that ours do
#500SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Originally Posted by Vanor View Post
Lack of mana seems really odd. You might wanna check s-priest up time on VT or if they are slacking on DPS.
With a S-priest I didn't have to mana pot really untill we hit Hyjal/BT (except Kael maybe and maybe 1pot or so on Vashj,) and even in here I often use Flame Cap. Saving pot cd for that occasional aoe dmg that loves to kill us dpsers nowdays, but a heroism surely will make me pop Destro pot+Flame cap.
What I've noticed works good is I go full burn 2fireball+fire blast and not eating mana consumables to get first Evocation used ,as it returns full mana with spirit weapons, then after that start mana gems+pots, often having Major/unstable mana pots as enough and in most cases still got spare mana for Flame Cap at Molten Fury range.
My specc is classic 10/48/3 and fight expeirence is Hyjal cleared and Mother Shazz almost dead.
I use Evocation as a last resort, it's just such a waste of time, when I do use it I tend to cut it off after two ticks. Really looking forward to getting my 2 set T6 bonus I can tell you :P
#501SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lepew
Touching on some of what Keyne said-

I agree with some of your analysis regarding advocates of certain specs. For me the real acid test is pure classes should outperform hybrids in their chosen function. You give up versatility in being pure, and there should be a real obvious advantage gained by doing that. For instance druids, shaman, paladins clearly are hybrids blending healing, tanking, and dps functions. Warlocks and Hunters combine dps with pet tanking and in my mind are also hybrids. Mages, rogues, warriors, priests are the classic big 4 pure archeotypes and should outperform magic dps, melee dps, tanking, and healing over the hybrids. In some cases this holds, but in the case of mage my impression is warlocks and hunters can top them in ranged dps. Something needs to happen there.
#502SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Janathema
Winter's Chill

I got a question concerning winter's chill:
Did anybody notice that maybe something's wrong with it?

We tried Illidan yesterday and one of our shadowpriests uploaded his WWS for 2 Trys, cause he wanted to show sth to another shadowpriest. I looked up some mage-stuff and noticed that my frostbolts didn't crit that often than the frostbolts of the other 2 mages. Here my quote from another forum:

Try1
------
Janathema: 29 Frostbolts - 23% crits
mage1: 20 Frostbolts - 41% crits
mage2: 29 Frostbolts - 34% crits

Try2
------
Janathema: 35 Frostbolts - 28% crits
mage1: 21 Frostbolts - 46% crits
mage2: 28 Frostbolts - 36% crits

Total
------
Janathema: 64 Frostbolts - 26% crits
mage1: 41 Frostbolts - 44% crits
mage2: 57 Frostbolts - 35% crits


Both tries I had Mage Armor up (wanted to check possible resistance of those Flamebombs), the other 2 had Molten Armor. I don't get it why i have such low critrate when i should have AT LEAST 35% on Frostbolt with Winter's Chill (+10% Critchance for all frostspells - debuff on target) and Empowered Frostbolt (+5% Critchance on Frostbolt)...atm it looks to me as if the mage, who's applying the Winter's Chill debuff to the mob, doesn't get the +10% crit.
I didn't have the opportunity to test it since it was yesterday and I can't raid the next few days, so I'll ask you other mages.
Any suggestions?
#503SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkchani
Our shadowpriest usualy make the joke that he pots so we dont have to, and its pretty much true... the only fights i really pot on is usualy kazrogal and mother because of the mana drain and IC if it drags on too long. Otherwise its destro pots and flamecaps (when i care enough to use them heh)

But its most likely a problem with your shadow priest, we had one for a while that would return such pitty amount of mana we would always be oom like you are talking of. Found out he "didnt had a rotation"... it improved alot since then
#504SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Taja View Post
Finnally, someone who has the same issues as me. Even with a spriest and shaman and chainpotting/gemming from the bat I will run oom. Chugging a destruction potion hasn't even occured to me since i'm so low on mana. At first I figured it was our spriest not returning that much but in my current guild (who are at Vashj) the mana drain just keeps up. Even with the higher raid Dps.
I would look at your shadow priest as the possible issue for both of you. It is very easy to tell the difference between a good and bad shaow priest simply by the amount of mana you're getting back. It's also possible that your locks aren't putting up CoS...which will increase the mana being returned to you.

I didn't look at your spec, but I'm assuming you have 5 points in clearcasting.

If you're really having issues...pay off a paladin to put up JoW. You just really shouldn't have issues running out of mana w/ a SP & Shaman. I can non-stop spam AM on just about every fight and still not run out of mana. I don't even use evocation on a lot of fights.
#505SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lhivera
Well, I didn't get as many frostbolts in last night as I'd hoped due to rotating mages in and out for different encounters -- but I lobbed 141 frostbolts at Kaz'rogal with two misses, a 1.42% miss rate.

I was wearing 122 Hit Rating, and was not grouped with a Draenei, so my miss rate should have been 4.32%.

The difference is awfully close to the 3% everyone else is seeing.

Small sample rate, but boy, they sure are adding up.
#506SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
Originally Posted by Lepew View Post
Touching on some of what Keyne said-

I agree with some of your analysis regarding advocates of certain specs. For me the real acid test is pure classes should outperform hybrids in their chosen function. You give up versatility in being pure, and there should be a real obvious advantage gained by doing that. For instance druids, shaman, paladins clearly are hybrids blending healing, tanking, and dps functions. Warlocks and Hunters combine dps with pet tanking and in my mind are also hybrids. Mages, rogues, warriors, priests are the classic big 4 pure archeotypes and should outperform magic dps, melee dps, tanking, and healing over the hybrids. In some cases this holds, but in the case of mage my impression is warlocks and hunters can top them in ranged dps. Something needs to happen there.
I'm actually going to disagree with this sentiment (although, as a mage, it pains me to do so).

In Vanilla WoW pure classes played those roles better then hybrids could ever hope to and what happened? Well, Warriors were the only tanks and all Shaman were healers and Warlocks were brought to raids only to supplement the dps of Mages and Rogues via 2 curses.

It seems like Blizzard was initially trying to balance Hybrid vs Pure classes by giving Hybrids subpar individual performance but then balancing it by giving them group utility to offset it. It's an approach that has works ok so far but it is starting to have some issues.

I think they need to work it from an other angle. I think they need to make it so that if you are ideally geared and specced for a specific role as a Hybrid that you are completely abyssmal at any other role but that one.

They are changing +healing to give 1/3 damage, well they should change +damage to only give 1/2 healing.

Ret pallys want to do damage (which I actually agree with) then they should barely be able to heal. They also should be unable to do any damage while invulnerable. Change Divine Shield so that you can't do any damage to anything while shielded and that the only healing you can do is on yourself. Then they could place a talent in the holy tree to allow them to heal others while shielded but it would limit their ability to maximize the other trees, somewhat, to spec it.

The issue is that a moonkin can still heal decently well even in their max damage set, sure they have to change forms but they maintain that ability yet they want to be able to do equivalent dps to Mages and Rogues who can't heal themselves at all. If the healing on their spell damage set was cut in half then they would have to choose whether to be able to do dps or to be able to heal and wouldn't be able to do both by just changing forms.

Mage's need some work or both fronts. We should have our dps increased so that we can compete with Hunter's and Rogues and Warlocks but we shouldn't surpass them. At the same time we need to have our "survival" talents brought up to par with those possessed by the other classes.

Improved Blink should remove debuffs

Blazing Speed should make you immune to all movement impairing effects while active.

Playing with Fire shouldn't do additional damage to the mage. Not sure how to fix this one but it really is ridiculous to think that a fire mage has to spec to take more damage just to be able to do equivalent damage to other classes. Maybe make it an activatable ability that lets the mage do 4/7/10% more damage at the cost of taking 4/7/10% more damage for 20 seconds with a 2-3 minute cooldown.

Prismatic Cloak should give you a slight (2/4%) chance to become immune to additional damage for 4 seconds whenever you take damage.

Mana Shield really should to be reworked so that it has a 1:1 ratio of damage to mana.

While they are at it they can also change Arcane Meditation to give a percentage of the Mage's Intellect as mana/5 and change Mage Armor so that it costs no mana to cast and either increases all mana gaining spells and effects by 20% while active or gives a percentage of the Mage's Intellect back as mana.

All of those changes would be perfectly balanced and would stop pretty much all the QQing currently seen on the Mage Forums. Will any of it happen, doubtful, at least not before the number of people playing a mage drops below the level of those choosing to play a Shaman or one of the other under-represented classes.

Edited to add:

For the mages having mana issues, 100 bucks says it's your shadowpriest. The difference between a well geared and good rotationed shadowpriest and one not so well geared with less of an understanding of their dps rotations is night and day. I've actually seen my mana pool start to rise a little during bloodlusts with our best Shadowpriest (its kinda sick to realize the amount of mana he generates).

Get "debuff filter" and add Vampiric Touch to the debuffs it looks for on the target. If his VT uptime is good then you should watch your omen cause unless he is sleeping he should be having aggro issues on just about every fight.

Might want to also grab a WWS parse or 3 and link them in one of the shadowpriest threads and see what they think about his performance. I would recommend reading the thread a bit first just so you have a basic idea about their rotations before posting though since to do otherwise is a bit rude.

Last edited by Rounced : 10/31/07 at 11:55 AM.
#507SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
stuff
A) You say that they need to "have our dps increased so that we can compete with Hunter's and Rogues and Warlocks but we shouldn't surpass them." I gave a philosophy for why we should not even be competeing with rogues for sure, and likely not hunters either. It is likely the Blizzard believes that fundamentally, our ideal place on the DPS meters is behind both, not next to.

B) All of your proposed buffs to mage talents seem pretty greedy to me.
#508SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3irbi
Arcane 2.3

It does appear that the hidden cooldown on the MSD is around 40 seconds.

For those of you skimmers - I try to post a general summary of my thoughts at the end - so that you can take something from my posts.

This translates two things to me.
1. Viable arcane missile spam is dead
2. Weaving arcane missiles in between your primary spell will result in a dps loss

Lucky for me I was a noob during most of the MSD hype. I was raiding arcane without the MSD for every ecounter in SSC and TK. (Ouch?)

Assuming that I was willing to use between 20-40 mana pots (pending wipes) in a given 4-5 hour raiding period I managed to hit top 5 every time on every encounter in SSC and TK. (Every encounter I have managed to place first several times, second when the rogues step it up)

Of course - no matter the encounter I force myself to mana pot every time its up (the mana dump to dps aspect of arcane is the only true strength I have found in the tree). In essence your mana pots function as destro pots (you can force yourself to pot and gem at any time, and doing so will increase your dps)

The translation to me is that a pure arcane rotation can still be viable. I easily hit 950-1036 sustained dps without a dependancy on the MSD proc. Granted, I am one of the fortunate mages that always has a shadow priest.

To put a perspective on gear I am wearing all tier 5 except the robe...Kael is a jerk.

Of course when I started using (or abusing if you prefer) the MSD I noticed a substantial increase in DPS. The nerf will of course devestate that effect. This detail has no effect since my above DPS experience was assuming a 0% proc rate.

I would do some number crunching for you and provide WWS reports if I weren't sitting in a software design course right now. In the mean time, the support of this opinion comes from my raid experiences.

It also appears several of the people here are great at number crunching and better at math than me anyway. Thank you Your posts are great and allow slackers like me to post opinions backed by your hard work. <3

Summary
1. Viable arcane missile spam is dead
2. Weaving arcane missiles in between your primary spell will result in a dps loss (Not enough to make arcane not viable, but yes a weakness)
3. Top 5 dps was easily attainable as an arcane mage - not using MSD
4. Other mages (arcane, fire, and frost) were not even close competition to me then.
5. I am a heavy user of consumables - although I would be regardless of spec.
#509SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Logun
Blizzards 2nd blue post on arcane tree concerns. Scroll down to the 2nd blue poster and follow his link. I could not help but laugh at the irony of it.


WoW Forums -> Elemental
#510SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3tedv
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
For the mages having mana issues, 100 bucks says it's your shadowpriest. The difference between a well geared and good rotationed shadowpriest and one not so well geared with less of an understanding of their dps rotations is night and day. I've actually seen my mana pool start to rise a little during bloodlusts with our best Shadowpriest (its kinda sick to realize the amount of mana he generates).

Get "debuff filter" and add Vampiric Touch to the debuffs it looks for on the target. If his VT uptime is good then you should watch your omen cause unless he is sleeping he should be having aggro issues on just about every fight.
As the well geared shadow priest in question, I'd like to note that I almost never have threat issues. I'm almost always #2 on threat of course, but the tank usually has another 20% on me, even when I use my max burn cycle. Your priest shouldn't have aggro issues, but they should be one of the highest ranked players on threat; I think that's what Rounced was trying to convey.

Regarding the DPS viability of dedicated classes (eg mages) versus hybrids (eg shaman), the system that has worked well is 95% efficiency in the primary role and 80% in the secondary role. It turns out that flexibility is rarely worth paying more for. Druids are 95% as good as Warriors for tanking (-5% for no shield wall and last stand), and scale about 80% as well as rogues. With that, innervate, and rebirth, it's worth taking one feral druid to a raid. If a hybrid is only 80% effective in their primary role, they will never earn a raid slot.

I mean, I'm 60% as effective of a healer as our holy spec priests, and the ONLY time I heal in a raid is Archimonde, when I get airbursted away from the raid and nearby people need healing. A 50% nerf to the effects of healing on damage gear seems pointless because that gear is so rarely used to heal anyway.

I agree that many of the arcane mage talents need reworking though. Prismatic cloak in particular feels really weak, since a continual stream of damage is generally not why mages die. Perhaps something like a 3/6% chance to resist any debuff placed on you would be more appropriate.
#511SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
A) You say that they need to "have our dps increased so that we can compete with Hunter's and Rogues and Warlocks but we shouldn't surpass them." I gave a philosophy for why we should not even be competeing with rogues for sure, and likely not hunters either. It is likely the Blizzard believes that fundamentally, our ideal place on the DPS meters is behind both, not next to.

B) All of your proposed buffs to mage talents seem pretty greedy to me.
A) I have always thought that we should be competitive with Rogues with it all coming down to encounter design. As for Hunter's, I really don't understand why you think they should be doing superior dps to us, considering misdirection and no issues whatsoever with threat. That said I really do think that all classes should be able to do competitive dps if that is the role they are specced and geared for.

B) Why? Very confused about that one. None of the suggestions I posted seemed to me to be at all greedy. First off they are for the most part all associated with Talents and all placed so that no one can get them all. They are also designed around the notion of giving Mages the other side of the equation.

Mana shield being 1:1? Lifetap is 1:1, and all other shields offer far superior damage absorption for the mana cost. Fixing that ratio goes a long way towards fixing the imbalance that is Mage survivability when not specced Frost.

Prismatic shield giving a small window of taking no damage, Warlocks have a similar talent with a similar place in their tree with a MUCH higher percentage of activation.

Playing with Fire? 3% more damage in exchange for always taking 3% more damage just strikes me as lazy developing, especially if that 3% doesn't put you above everyone else in the balancing game. Making it into an activatable ability with a cost would fix that. Think about it this way, 20 seconds of use with a 120 second cooldown means that it gives an overall 1.67% damage increase. So it loses 1.33% of its overall damage boost but gives back a lot more control about when it will be active.

Arcane Med and Mage Armor - the changes are both designed around making Intellect our real Primary Stat and so help the Item designers to better design a single Tiered set that would actually be better suited to mages of any spec.



Frost, currently, is the only tree that feels fully developed and has a clear direction in mind while the other 2 feel more like works in progress. If you consider that dps is being equalized out among so many classes both Arcane and Fire both have too many "glass cannon" talents for a class that the developers don't seem to really want to be a "cannon" any longer.

Originally Posted by tedv View Post

I mean, I'm 60% as effective of a healer as our holy spec priests, and the ONLY time I heal in a raid is Archimonde, when I get airbursted away from the raid and nearby people need healing. A 50% nerf to the effects of healing on damage gear seems pointless because that gear is so rarely used to heal anyway.
That suggestion was more for Arenas and PvP then in regards to raiding. Raiding is too much about pushing the envelope for the healing a moonkin or an elemental shaman could do to matter, if you get to the point where they are trying to heal you've pretty much already lost the encounter anyway.
#512SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Roywyn
Right - I ran Vontre's new sheet, that now includes the TLC/MSD cooldowns.
CSD is modeled as multiplying the final crit damage by 1.03. I don't know if that's how it works,
I have only read source that claims it is more likely to work like it was with the first RED, increasing damage more than that. So, take the CSD a bit carefully.

I'm not sure if TLC is modeled correctly - as there is only a cooldown after shooting a lightning, not after gaining charges.

Setup is endgame gear tailored for the specs, as always.
Assuming 10% CoE, 13% CoS, molten armour, 200 mp5 shadowpriest.
No totems, no bloodlust/heroism.


AM spam - 1620 DPS with MSD, AToI and The Skull of Gul'dan.
Using TLC over TSoG'd is a 24 DPS loss. MSD is still worth 72 DPS, CSD is only 28 DPS.
Sustainable for 12 minutes, 5:30 minutes if JoW is not up.

Fireball spam - 1842 DPS with MSD.
1835 with CSD, including the small loss of having to socket a second blue gem.
1801 DPS rotation scorch in to keep it up (8:1).
Sustainable for 11 minutes with JoW, 8 minutes without it.

Frostbolt/WE spam - 1749 DPS with MSD.
1574 DPS from Frostbolts.
374 DPS from your WE when it's up, said to be averaged at 175 DPS over the fight.
CSD beats MSD by 2 DPS, but you'll lose at least 4 DPS but fitting in a second blue gem.
Sustainable for 17 minutes with JoW, 10 minutes without.


Edit:
With a 10% CoS, AM spam drops down to 1577.
So, at the cost of a pet, mana efficiency and some of the best survival talents in the game, you gain 3 DPS. Yay?

Also, I still haven't figured out how the pet uptime in the sheet can be so high. But ~10% of your damage coming from the pet looks alright, so I'll check it later.

Last edited by Roywyn : 10/31/07 at 2:10 PM.
#513SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by irbi View Post
The translation to me is that a pure arcane rotation can still be viable. I easily hit 950-1036 sustained dps without a dependancy on the MSD proc. Granted, I am one of the fortunate mages that always has a shadow priest.

Summary
1. Viable arcane missile spam is dead
2. Weaving arcane missiles in between your primary spell will result in a dps loss (Not enough to make arcane not viable, but yes a weakness)
3. Top 5 dps was easily attainable as an arcane mage - not using MSD
4. Other mages (arcane, fire, and frost) were not even close competition to me then.
5. I am a heavy user of consumables - although I would be regardless of spec.
Well, some mages I know believe that if you're not specced 100% for maximum DPS, then you're not viable at all. Personally I disagree with that. When I look at Damage Meters I see things like:
1 ||||||||||||||||||||
2 |||||||||||||||||||
3 |||||||||||||||||
4 |||||||||||||||||
5 |||||||||||||||||
6 ||||||||||||||||
7 ||||||||||||||||
8 ||||||||||||||||
9 ||||||||||||||||
10 |||||||||||||||
11 |||||||||||||||
12 ||||||||||||||
13 ||||||||||||||
14 |||||||||||
15 |||||||
16+ ||| (non dps)

I personally consider anyone there in the top 13 to be viable dps. When I see the people in the top 2, I actually start to wonder how much of a hidden drain they're creating. On many boss events, a dead mage means more than simply -1100 dps averaged out over the entire raid. Often it means that the job they were supposed to be working on, such as 'take out the adds on your platform' go unaccomplished, which will often wipe the raid.

I honestly think that Frost and Fire just aren't differentiated enough in Survival. Arcane gets lots of gimmicks, I just think (excluding 2.1 and 2.2) the gimmick's aren't "awesome" enough. Either the talents that differentiate each talent tree should completely differentiate it, or they should all be balanced to do the same dps.
#514SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Right - I ran Vontre's new sheet, that now includes the TLC/MSD cooldowns.
CSD is modeled as multiplying the final crit damage by 1.03. I don't know if that's how it works,
I have only read source that claims it is more likely to work like it was with the first RED, increasing damage more than that. So, take the CSD a bit carefully.
If it is changed to 1.06, you see a 23dps increase over MSD on fireball spam. Has there been enough testing done to say if it's 1.03 or 1.06 yet?
#515SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Roywyn
Also, I still haven't figured out how the pet uptime in the sheet can be so high. But ~10% of your damage coming from the pet looks alright, so I'll check it later.
Probably includes optimal cold snap usage, for example with a 5 minute fight you get three water elementals in a 5 minute fight, which is 45% uptime, your proposed dps average(175/374=46.8%) is pretty close to that.

Water Elemental's contribution to your dps is probably going to shift up and down depending on how the fight length matches up with your cooldowns. If a fight ended at the 4 minute mark, for example, you'd still have 3 elementals for that time. And hopefully one of those elementals is bloodlusted, I wonder if the sheet includes bloodlust's effect on the elemental in any way?
#516SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
It does.

Originally Posted by Nadiar View Post
Well, some mages I know believe that if you're not specced 100% for maximum DPS, then you're not viable at all. Personally I disagree with that. When I look at Damage Meters I see things like:
1 ||||||||||||||||||||
2 |||||||||||||||||||
3 |||||||||||||||||
4 |||||||||||||||||
5 |||||||||||||||||
6 ||||||||||||||||
7 ||||||||||||||||
8 ||||||||||||||||
9 ||||||||||||||||
10 |||||||||||||||
11 |||||||||||||||
12 ||||||||||||||
13 ||||||||||||||
14 |||||||||||
15 |||||||
16+ ||| (non dps)

I personally consider anyone there in the top 13 to be viable dps. When I see the people in the top 2, I actually start to wonder how much of a hidden drain they're creating. On many boss events, a dead mage means more than simply -1100 dps averaged out over the entire raid. Often it means that the job they were supposed to be working on, such as 'take out the adds on your platform' go unaccomplished, which will often wipe the raid.

I honestly think that Frost and Fire just aren't differentiated enough in Survival. Arcane gets lots of gimmicks, I just think (excluding 2.1 and 2.2) the gimmick's aren't "awesome" enough. Either the talents that differentiate each talent tree should completely differentiate it, or they should all be balanced to do the same dps.
I'm sorry, but I cannot and will never agree with this. First and foremost, the very goal of every theorycraft and this forum in some sense is to be at the extreme end of min-maxing. I am not claiming frost has no place in raiding. I can imagine some players need extra survivability. I never had a need for it, much in the same sense that I constantly and happily answer that threat is mostly a non-issue for firespec. Your shadow priest will have aggro issues much before you do. If that should happen, then TA is down, removing any possibility of having aggro issues. Now using the very same logic, I personally flat out don't buy that you need extra survivability for raiding. It simply hasn't been my experience.

However, here's where I have my biggest gripe about that mentality. If you follow this, its not too obvious where the line ends. Are slackers OK because they fit in the general upper half of your dpsers? In my experience the willingness of a player to top meters does go a long way to increase ones' dps. In any case, I don't see why would someone strive to not achieve the best their task. And to elaborate on this - since its not obvious where the line ends, does that mean its ok to gem only with stamina gems, and have every stamina enchant?

Last edited by manly : 10/31/07 at 3:18 PM.
#517SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Nadiar View Post
Well, some mages I know believe that if you're not specced 100% for maximum DPS, then you're not viable at all. Personally I disagree with that. When I look at Damage Meters I see things like:
1 ||||||||||||||||||||
2 |||||||||||||||||||
3 |||||||||||||||||
4 |||||||||||||||||
5 |||||||||||||||||
6 ||||||||||||||||
7 ||||||||||||||||
8 ||||||||||||||||
9 ||||||||||||||||
10 |||||||||||||||
11 |||||||||||||||
12 ||||||||||||||
13 ||||||||||||||
14 |||||||||||
15 |||||||
16+ ||| (non dps)

I personally consider anyone there in the top 13 to be viable dps. When I see the people in the top 2, I actually start to wonder how much of a hidden drain they're creating. On many boss events, a dead mage means more than simply -1100 dps averaged out over the entire raid. Often it means that the job they were supposed to be working on, such as 'take out the adds on your platform' go unaccomplished, which will often wipe the raid.
I would argue that many of the people that top the dps meters are also the people who die the least on bosses that require 100% attention. I have yet to see a boss (My guild is at Teron) that would require mages to have Iceblock. Basically iceblock is only there if you screwed something up. If you wish to look at the rage or Azgalor kill on our WWS from last night, I had the most damage done and very low damage taken in. (I got hit once on the azgalor fight when the tank went down)

WWS - 10/30 - Hardlycore

So if you have 2 mages in the same gear, and 1 does 200 more dps, why would you take the other one when neither one of them should ever die? I'm hard on the mages in my guild if you couldn't guess =)
#518SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
200 dps is a fantastic fucking difference in dps that is accounting for far more than just spec. In fact frost is extremely competitive on paper, and a good ice mage should (in 2.3) be putting out damage much closer to optimal fire.

Basically I know a lot of guilds will look at a damage meter and go "ZOMG SKILL", reality is there are three ways a mage can fail in a raid scenario:

1. not providing enough damage
2. not providing proper control
3. dieing

Funny thing is the two end-game fights right now clearly favor frost, as Illidan needs control (freezes/snares, I don't know details yet) and Archimonde is almost soley focused on duties (decursing) and survival. It is easy to say that ice block is useless because you shouldn't be fucking up in the first place, but if no one fucks up then clearly you're going to win anyway. Unless, of course, you lack enough dps to beat a hard or soft timer. Some encounters are dps races, some are control/survivability oriented, some are a clear mix of both. Effective dps does not mean absolute min-maxed fuck everything else damage is all that matters. Frost has a good balance of control/dps/survivability, it is very much in line with the 2.3 calculations.

You can't measure the contribution of your raiders with a meter, no matter how much you want to.
#519SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I never said that Frost is not a good option...but was only giving Iceblock as an example of survivability. Nadiar was saying that it really doesn't matter if you maximize your spec for dps, which I and obviously manly disagree with. Basically it sounds like he's justifying taking a pvp spec into pve and putting up sub-par numbers.

As far as surviving in the Archimonde fight...iceblock is not needed at all. It is extremely easy to stay out of doomfire as a mage...blink is your friend. But you are correct that the focus is on decursing and staying alive...as you can see by my wonderful dps spot on attempts on archimonde =)
#520SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
aliengrey
Originally Posted by Logun View Post
Blizzards 2nd blue post on arcane tree concerns. Scroll down to the 2nd blue poster and follow his link. I could not help but laugh at the irony of it.


WoW Forums -> Elemental
EDIT: Deleted.

Last edited by aliengrey : 11/02/07 at 1:57 AM.
#521SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
Originally Posted by manly View Post
It does.


I'm sorry, but I cannot and will never agree with this. First and foremost, the very goal of every theorycraft and this forum in some sense is to be at the extreme end of min-maxing. I am not claiming frost has no place in raiding. I can imagine some players need extra survivability. I never had a need for it, much in the same sense that I constantly and happily answer that threat is mostly a non-issue for firespec. Your shadow priest will have aggro issues much before you do. If that should happen, then TA is down, removing any possibility of having aggro issues. Now using the very same logic, I personally flat out don't buy that you need extra survivability for raiding. It simply hasn't been my experience.

However, here's where I have my biggest gripe about that mentality. If you follow this, its not too obvious where the line ends. Are slackers OK because they fit in the general upper half of your dpsers? In my experience the willingness of a player to top meters does go a long way to increase ones' dps. In any case, I don't see why would someone strive to not achieve the best their task. And to elaborate on this - since its not obvious where the line ends, does that mean its ok to gem only with stamina gems, and have every stamina enchant?
I think Lhivera said it best about Frost viability in end-game raiding. Fire is more dps if all you did was standstill and cast the whole time, but if your dps is interrupted due to debuff or having to move from some damage source that a Frostmage could just Ice Block off that difference can be enough to equalize the dps.

In the end there is another simple principal that should be taken into account. Dead Mages do no DPS. Ice Block can keep you alive when you shoulda died - be it your fault or just completely outta your control - and on some encounters you dieing can mean that the raid just wiped.

Last night on Archimonde. I had moved towards the melee to decurse and had a doomfire spawn to my right just as the fear went off, the fear literally moved me into the path of the doomfire and made me run right along it, killing me. WoTF was on cooldown from popping it 3-4 fears earlier to decurse someone who was doomfired and at 50%, trinket was on cooldown from the fear before that one when I was feared directly at the doomfire. There was literally nothing I could do, wasn't lag, wasn't that I misclicked and died, wasn't that I wasn't paying attention, there was literally nothing that I could have done to avoid that death.

However if I had been Frost specced I would have been able to Ice Block and I would have lived. True the raid probably would have wiped on that attempt anyway (I think I was the 2nd or 3rd death that attempt) but I wouldn't have died if I had been specced that way. You can't predict everything, raiding would be very boring if you could, but some tools make it possible to survive things you otherwise shouldn't and that can be worth a lot of dps.

I'm planning on speccing Frost when 2.3 comes out and if my dps really ends up being subpar then I'll spec over to Fire and deal with respeccing for illidan every week, hopefully that won't be necessary but won't know till 2.3 comes out.

Last edited by Rounced : 10/31/07 at 3:55 PM.
#522SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Then you still had your healthstone and pot cooldown up. You were not boned.

In any case, again, thats a case that happens rarely, given that you had to get a number of consecutive bad luck to come to a point where it could have been good to have (although again, doomfire alone won't kill you, you can still get healed and be just fine).

In any case, we can argue until the end of time about which spec provides better DPS. We both know that for every point we can bring a counterpoint and effectively make the debate last forever. I prefer a much much more simplistic approach of looking at WWS, see what works best over time.
#523SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Then you still had your healthstone and pot cooldown up. You were not boned.
I think you missed the part where he was feared.
#524SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Tyrian
As far as surviving in the Archimonde fight...iceblock is not needed at all. It is extremely easy to stay out of doomfire as a mage...blink is your friend.
In about 60 archimonde attempts/3 kills ive never died once stupidly, unless we were wiping already. I could say its all skill, but a strong strategy is the other part. Iceblock is in no way required for Archimonde in any form unless you 1) might not be top notch with survival skills and 2) your guilds archimonde strategy is not solid enough.

Last night on Archimonde. I had moved into melee range to decurse and had a doomfire spawn to my right just as the fear went off, the fear literally moved me into the path of the doomfire and made me run right along it, killing me. WoTF was on cooldown from popping it 3-4 fears earlier to decurse someone who was doomfired and at 50%, trinket was on cooldown from the fear before that one when I was feared directly at the doomfire.
Sorry - but I would still consider this your fault (or more specifically: your guilds archimonde strategys fault).

Why was it you that had to perform this dangerous move, knowing your two prime escape mechanisms (wotf, trinket) were not available? Theres other decursers in the raid and one of them could do it. Running into archimonde to perform a dangerous decurse knowing your trinket/racials are not available is asking for trouble - dont blame 'bad luck'.

Also, why do you have to run to the melee to perform a dangerous decurse? Whats stopping them from running to you? Why not put a druid on melee so he can decurse and you never would have to run in? If the most dangerous area near archimonde is close to him, why have a strat that requires people to run in close to him like this.

The major problem with what you said is the strategy. You wouldnt need to move to decurse melee at all if you put a restro druid standing on your melee and made him responsible for melee/mt decurse.

But you are indeed right, if a Archimonde strat is not solid - a frost spec can help make up for its shortfalls.

Last edited by Tyrian : 10/31/07 at 4:23 PM.
#525SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
fear + doomfire doesn't kill you. You can still get healed if you get doomfired. More often than not you survive. And totems also help greatly at dealing with fears, if that ever becomes a problem.
#526SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3tedv
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
I think you missed the part where he was feared.
The melee should have had [Purification Potion] on them for situations like this. Besides, melee are centrally located for all decursers. Someone with fear trinket active should have handled that decurse. If you have both fear breakers down and don't have tremor totem, you need to be far away from doomfire when a fear is coming up, curses be damned.
#527SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I always throw a resto druid and holy paladin in the melee group...both of them with tremor totems if possible. The resto druid does the majority of the decurses for the melee, but the mages that are grouped to the north and south of them decurse as well without really getting into a dangerous spot for doomfire.

These 2 healers also help with melee getting air bursted into fire.
#528SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
The melee should have had [Purification Potion] on them for situations like this. Besides, melee are centrally located for all decursers. Someone with fear trinket active should have handled that decurse. If you have both fear breakers down and don't have tremor totem, you need to be far away from doomfire when a fear is coming up, curses be damned.
Or you could just have ice block and not worry about it. You guys should stop using the term "need" because it's misleading, as if you're implying that there's some baseline survivability beyond which additional survivability is useless. That's not how it works, and that's not how it works for dps either. You don't need to do more than 1000 dps for most any boss in BT either, but it's fucking stupid to not do more if you can because that makes things easier.

You never need ice block, if you absolutely needed it then everyone would spec ice without question. But once again it's stupid to ignore a rather obvious advantage that's going to make things easier on you. That's the entire point of optimization. You can do Archimonde as fire and win, people do it all the time, but it's incredibly obvious that ice gives you the best tools to beat the encounter, much like fire gave the best tools to beat Patchwerk (a dps race with no other concerns).
#529SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Tyrian
but it's incredibly obvious that ice gives you the best tools to beat the encounter
The best tools to beat the Archimonde encounter are strong guild strategy and player skill. Player spec can play a role, but its very small in comparison and only noticeable if your strategy (or skill) is somewhat lacking as it will visibly compensate for their shortfalls. The above poster had a strategy shortfall and his spec compensated for it - improving the strategy would eliminate the original problem and thus negate any extra use that spec wouldve had in the first place for that situation.

Im not sure if it was your intention, but your quote implies player spec is the most important tool - and thats just wrong.

Last edited by Tyrian : 10/31/07 at 5:00 PM.
#530SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Shocktar
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
The melee should have had [Purification Potion] on them for situations like this. Besides, melee are centrally located for all decursers. Someone with fear trinket active should have handled that decurse. If you have both fear breakers down and don't have tremor totem, you need to be far away from doomfire when a fear is coming up, curses be damned.
I think you and Manly are both missing the idea. Even a perfectly executed raid, with all superstars on vent, on their 47th Archimonde kill would never have this kind of control with all their decursers. Can anyone seriously imagine in the midle of the last boss of Hyjal saying "Oh I'm sorry, I can't decurse, my trinket is down in case we get feared, who can?", then three other people checking their trinket status, one volunteering, and getting the curse off? Nobody could hesitate like that. In situations like this, it's common to just act, as that's nearly always the best course of action, and frost helps buffer these rare times when it wasn't.
That said, if we're talking strictly about minmaxing, shouldn't everyone spec arcane with 4 shadowpriests and just AB spam all day? Haven't we all agreed that's higher DPS than fire, so long as you can spare the mana? Granted, that's hyperbole, but we don't do it. Why? Fire's way more efficient, at a cost of some DPS. Frost, continuing the same logic, is more efficient than fire (save Master of Elements, but Vontre's sheet says I can cast for way longer as frost), plus it adds significant survivability and utility, at the cost of reasonably around the same DPS loss as going Arcane->Fire.
Manly, I'll also disagree that we can debate which is the most DPS. I'm frost and I love it, but I totally think Fire's more dmg, so you're completely right there.

Edit: Totally Tyrian. I've always said it's the player, not the toon.
#531SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
4 Shadow priests + 1 AB mage would be lower raid dps than 1 shadow priest and 4 fire mages I believe. =)
#532SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Shocktar
Yes, that's true, but I'm just extending the minmax idea to the (absurd) Nth degree.
#533SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Shocktar View Post
Manly, I'll also disagree that we can debate which is the most DPS. I'm frost and I love it, but I totally think Fire's more dmg, so you're completely right there.
Every fight will cater to certain specs so that their very innate difference will help your dpsing or not. For example, range can increase your dps. Not often, but on some fights it can. Theres an infinite number of possibility or boss encounters/mechanics vs possible specs. We can argue at length that fire beats frost on vashj because of range, but then someone points out some tangential example that frost can iceblock a silence on gruul and then I can counter that in revenge firespec doesn't suffer pushbacks and then you reply that 2pct4 can bring frost upthere in pushback prevention. Its an endless circle. We can discuss it forever and it won't lead us anywhere except possibly that everyone will maintain their personal opinion on the matter until they are shown repeated WWS parse to prove the contrary.

My point wasn't a matter or 'what spec can do best' but rather that the intangibles or every spec will play the numbers in a way that arguing on this won't lead us anywhere.
#534SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Guaicow
sorry about suddently changing the subject but i've looked around and couldn't find the added CD on TLC i've seen mentioned previously in this thread.
can anyone enlight me?
#535SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Hm, could you put that ever recurring subject of survival talentsbeing needed/helpful/a useless crutch into another topic?

There are two opinions, two sides, both with their pros and cons. Yes, we get it.
And there is no ultimate truth that everyone believes in, nor will there ever be.

I think most of what can be theorycrafted on survival vs. damage has been said, now it's just down to obviously varying personal preferences.


===============================================================


Going back to theorycrafting, can anyone with the [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] on the PTR say for certain (via abilities that do fixed damage) if this meta works by multiplying the final total crit damage by 1.03?

Or does it work like the RED in it's first version?
I.e. a crit that was (100%+50%*(1+crit_talents)) becomes (100%+54.5%*(1+crit_talents))?


Edit:
... couldn't find the added CD on TLC i've seen mentioned previously in this thread.
Check the normal WoW mage/PTR forums, or the 2.3 changes thread here.

You currently cannot get any charges for 2.5s after shooting a lightning bolt. It's now junk for nuking (always was), for AoE (due to CD), and AM spam.
#536SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Then you still had your healthstone and pot cooldown up. You were not boned.

In any case, again, thats a case that happens rarely, given that you had to get a number of consecutive bad luck to come to a point where it could have been good to have (although again, doomfire alone won't kill you, you can still get healed and be just fine).

In any case, we can argue until the end of time about which spec provides better DPS. We both know that for every point we can bring a counterpoint and effectively make the debate last forever. I prefer a much much more simplistic approach of looking at WWS, see what works best over time.
Nope, I was boned plain and simple.

Full Life at almost 12k (gotta love PvP gear when you aren't there for your dps) and I literally was feared along the doomfire and I died with time to go on the fear, I was literally spamming the Healthstone button but didn't matter.
#537SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by manly View Post
It does.


I'm sorry, but I cannot and will never agree with this. First and foremost, the very goal of every theorycraft and this forum in some sense is to be at the extreme end of min-maxing. I am not claiming frost has no place in raiding. I can imagine some players need extra survivability. I never had a need for it, much in the same sense that I constantly and happily answer that threat is mostly a non-issue for firespec. Your shadow priest will have aggro issues much before you do. If that should happen, then TA is down, removing any possibility of having aggro issues. Now using the very same logic, I personally flat out don't buy that you need extra survivability for raiding. It simply hasn't been my experience.

However, here's where I have my biggest gripe about that mentality. If you follow this, its not too obvious where the line ends. Are slackers OK because they fit in the general upper half of your dpsers? In my experience the willingness of a player to top meters does go a long way to increase ones' dps. In any case, I don't see why would someone strive to not achieve the best their task. And to elaborate on this - since its not obvious where the line ends, does that mean its ok to gem only with stamina gems, and have every stamina enchant?
I'm not talking about slackers, slackers are usually evident, as they have better gear, but are doing less damage than their compatriots. I'm talking about the approximate 10% less damage Frost does compared to Fire. The slackers will be showing at the bottom, and there will be a distinct difference between the non-slackers and the slackers.

Theorycrafting can work out a lot of details, but it can't tell you if Ice Block is more or less useful than 10% DPS. 10% works out to what? About 2 pieces of better gear? Better trinkets?

Lets use Lurker Below as an example. If the Mages doing the most DPS get ambushed and get shot from another ambusher on another platform, chances are they're dead. With one of them down, its going to be really hard for the other one to finish killing the other one, which potentially leads to a cascade failure that is more important than just the loss of 1000 dps.

Do you need Ice Block to survive encounters like that? Of course not, you could just make your healers do a better job and keep everyone alive. You could just have awesome paladins ready to bubble you the second you're not going to survive long enough for a heal. Successful raiding happens when risk is minimalized. Rogues can't run around with 6000 HP, or they'd die every time the mob turned a little too far and cleaved them in half. The solution to that question isn't "Make the Tank keep the mob locked in place." But how much, exactly, does Ice Block add to survivability? Does this increase in survivability add up to more than 10% damage? It is virtually impossible to test that. Claiming that a Frost Mage isn't viable because its not an absolute min/max spec points out a lack of understanding of the term "viable."
#538SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Tyrian View Post
In about 60 archimonde attempts/3 kills ive never died once stupidly, unless we were wiping already. I could say its all skill, but a strong strategy is the other part. Iceblock is in no way required for Archimonde in any form unless you 1) might not be top notch with survival skills and 2) your guilds archimonde strategy is not solid enough.



Sorry - but I would still consider this your fault (or more specifically: your guilds archimonde strategys fault).

Why was it you that had to perform this dangerous move, knowing your two prime escape mechanisms (wotf, trinket) were not available? Theres other decursers in the raid and one of them could do it. Running into archimonde to perform a dangerous decurse knowing your trinket/racials are not available is asking for trouble - dont blame 'bad luck'.

Also, why do you have to run to the melee to perform a dangerous decurse? Whats stopping them from running to you? Why not put a druid on melee so he can decurse and you never would have to run in? If the most dangerous area near archimonde is close to him, why have a strat that requires people to run in close to him like this.

The major problem with what you said is the strategy. You wouldnt need to move to decurse melee at all if you put a restro druid standing on your melee and made him responsible for melee/mt decurse.

But you are indeed right, if a Archimonde strat is not solid - a frost spec can help make up for its shortfalls.


Sorry you responded before I edited it, I meant moved towards the melee not into melee range. I moved from my normal 30-35 yard range on him to about 15 yards which is the range at which the doomfires spawn. The person I needed to decurse was on the opposite side of Archi which is why I had to get that close and normally it would have been done by other decursers but they weren't doing it for one reason or another. I don't know why they didn't get him, all I knew was there was a skull on the opposite side of Archi and I needed to decurse him, so I moved into range and decursed and then the doomfire spawned and the fear went off. Since I was full life I wasn't worried about getting doomfired - I figured it would run me through it and I would be fine but instead it ran me along the path (the same way you try to die when a wipe is called) and I died before the fear broke.


Our stragedy is fine. Which doesn't even have anything to do with the point I was trying to make. If I thought there was an issue with our stragedy I woulda been ASKING for help with it.

The point was that Shit Happens and IF the dps is comparable then having Ice Block in your bag of tricks is not something to be looked down upon.

Dead mages do no dps, and right there I was definitely a BONED mage with no chance of survival. If I had been Frost I would lived and who knows maybe we would killed Archi that attempt instead of calling the wipe and having to kill him on the next go around.
#539SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I never said that Frost is not a good option...but was only giving Iceblock as an example of survivability. Nadiar was saying that it really doesn't matter if you maximize your spec for dps, which I and obviously manly disagree with. Basically it sounds like he's justifying taking a pvp spec into pve and putting up sub-par numbers.

As far as surviving in the Archimonde fight...iceblock is not needed at all. It is extremely easy to stay out of doomfire as a mage...blink is your friend. But you are correct that the focus is on decursing and staying alive...as you can see by my wonderful dps spot on attempts on archimonde =)
Ugh, due to work there were a lot of posts between when I started to reply and when I was actually able to reply. I'm not saying you shouldn't maximize your spec. If you want to be a Frost Mage in 25 man content, you should have the talents to back up your Frost Spec. Trust me, people running around with Arc/Frost spec's in 25 Man content drive me crazy. There is some point where shifting some points around can be 'better' for 25 man content, or better for 10 man, or even better for 5 man content (Frostbite isn't going to be worthwhile in 25 man content, but in 5 man content it can be incredibly useful).

Currently I'm specced for KZ, and am neglecting a respec due entirely to 2.3. I kind of have my points balanced so that I can PvP if I choose, but this consideration came after I was finished getting talents for 5 and 10 man content.
#540SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
The difference is waaaaaaaay less than 10%. 10% is the difference between 2.3 fire and nerfed arcane, and why arcane is so terrible. If frost was 10% less damage I wouldn't even be considering it. It's around 2-3% at most.
#541SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I don't get your point, he had 6 focus procs, you had 20. Quite sure that has nothing to do with so called skill.

Edit: Doh, raiding and reading doesn't mix. Was a reply to Cardynal
#542SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Its around 10% without using the pet at all from my testing. With the pet it depends on the length of the fight, but should be reasonably close. (+/- 5% for longer fights). WE damage doesn't show up on most Damage Meters though, which is what I was trying to refer to
#543SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
If these two explanations are not proof enough that AM is really the thing that we should be calling asymmetric, it should be pointed out that if it didn't exist, Blizzard would likely not believe that any changes to 2.2 MSD and TLC were warrented. MSD would have the exact same marginal effect on all mage nukes. Without AM around to skew the range of DPS-added that TLC provides, the best use for TLC on a single target would be with scorch spam, and it is quite obvious that even here, TLC is not enough to make this a viable strategy in any situations where scorch spam is not already optimal.

That is my AM/TLC/MSD thesis. Stop reading now if you don't want to read about magery that is unrelated to the post I am responding to. If permitted, I would like to make an aside about the nature of a large portion of discussions I have encountered in these threads.
I should belatedly reply to this: you're absolutely right. The problem has never seriously been the MSD or TLC procs themselves. The problem has always been Arcane Missiles and its funky mechanics. It's how AM interacts with procs in general that causes many balancing problems and could be seen as why AM is artificially held down.

The problem is that if AM were put on a tick-based mechanic, it wouldn't crit unless Blizzard relents and allows periodic effects to crit. While this would be highly advisable for making balancing easier, I find this even less likely to happen than an honest buff to Arcane.
#544SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
I should belatedly reply to this: you're absolutely right. The problem has never seriously been the MSD or TLC procs themselves. The problem has always been Arcane Missiles and its funky mechanics. It's how AM interacts with procs in general that causes many balancing problems and could be seen as why AM is artificially held down.

The problem is that if AM were put on a tick-based mechanic, it wouldn't crit unless Blizzard relents and allows periodic effects to crit. While this would be highly advisable for making balancing easier, I find this even less likely to happen than an honest buff to Arcane.
AM already crits on a per tick basis...
#545SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
AM already crits on a per tick basis...
Mind Flay or Drain Life would be the tick-based mechanic that Muphrid is referring to. I believe they act like channeled DoTs for most purposes.

Arcane Missiles is the one of the very few ways to generate more than one cast per 1.5 seconds or more than one crit every 1.5 seconds. Which is why anything that is "balanced" for a typical spell becomes unbalanced when used by Arcane Missiles. So the options for Blizzard are to throw random cooldowns onto every single item that procs off of cast/crit, or to fix Arcane Missiles so it acts like most other spells in the game.
#546SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Nadiar View Post
Its around 10% without using the pet at all from my testing. With the pet it depends on the length of the fight, but should be reasonably close. (+/- 5% for longer fights). WE damage doesn't show up on most Damage Meters though, which is what I was trying to refer to
Water Elemental doesn't show up on retarded damage meters, WWS includes them and so does every other one I use except (sometimes) Damage Meters, funnily enough. How is that relevant at all? You are still doing the damage, even if it doesn't show up on the meter.
#547SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Shocktar
Really Vontre? Do you know of a way to split water elemental damage in WWS so it can account for multiple frost mages?
</derail>
#548SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Shocktar View Post
Really Vontre? Do you know of a way to split water elemental damage in WWS so it can account for multiple frost mages?
</derail>
Err yeah, I was just about to ask that same thing :p Also, from what I've seen either the Frost mage has to run the WWS, or the person running it has to manually add Water Elemental as a mages pet.

Damage Meters are much the same way, as long as they're syncing, your pet will show up as your data, but some people don't allow syncing.
#549SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Shocktar
I've done both Nadiar, and all I get is one actor, "Water Elemental", and no way to see who's elemental did what.
#550SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
I think Lossendil posted on the WWS boards that they were going to add pet's synced with their masters. No idea how they are doing it, but it would be nice, it's really annoying to check your actual dps on WWS when there are other frost mages with pets too..
#551SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
It won't work right if there two ice mages, they'll count as the same unfortunately. Whoever is doing your parsing should be used to setting up the hunters to merge with their pets, if they overlook the water elemental they'll just have to fix it. They merge well enough in every in-game meter I've used, too, my guild uses SWstats.
#552SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kikler
Ye indeed lol , WWS + WE sucks , i guess you can't really seperate them since it's "Water elemental" from first mage and "Water elemental" from second mage , Though on SWstats it does seperate them
#553SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
If SWStats can, so can WWS coders and I think they said in v2 notes that something like that would be in a new build.
#554SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Are you sure SWS can separate the Water Elemental? I was almost 100% sure that it can't - certainly you absolutely cannot separate Water Elementals based on the combat log, unless you're going to try to do some weird heuristic. Hunter/Warlock pets are trivial because they're named.

My main objection to Frost continues to be how much of a pain it is to babysit the Water Elemental. It's going to die on a lot of fights, and it seems hard to make sure it always syncs with Bloodlust, at least if you don't have a group of all mages, other party members don't necessarily want lust at the same time as your WE cooldown is up.
#555SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3agoat
I don't think SW stats can. Wasn’t all that long ago I was running heroic Mech with a hunter friend that had his pet named after me, and SW was attributing my damage to him. Was funny to see an undergeared hunter (still wearing a few T2) own the damage meters when the rest of the dps was in SSC/TK gear.
#556SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
It can't, never could, won't until we see how the "ID" system works. SWstats with pet-merge will add up ALL WE damage and add it to every single mage, so to get an approximation take mage damage done - WE damage done + ( WE damage / number of mages with WE ).

Anyways in the future we are supposedly getting mob ID's I'd expect that to go to WE's etc as a way to distinguish between things with the same name.
#557SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
Anyways in the future we are supposedly getting mob ID's I'd expect that to go to WE's etc as a way to distinguish between things with the same name.
Do you have any information about this? Its one of the things Slouken has repeatedly said they will never ever give us under any circumstances.
#558SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plouton
In my experience, SW Stats was always behaved strange with Water Elementals. But synchronized DamageMeters can correctly merge Water Elemental with owner if every mage have checked "merge pet" option. Don't know all details, but your pet damage can always be separated from other's pets and merged, and after sync all have correct data.
#559SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
This discussion is getting out of hand. How damage report addons handle recording of output is utterly irrelevant to mage performance post 2.3.

If you know how many bolts your WE shot you can do your own homework. When we start trying to display our prowess to others "you have to divide water elemental by 3 and add that to mine" we're missing the point.

TC is about the pursuit of excellence. The particularities of record-keeping addons are a distraction.
#560SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3BrTarolg
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
This discussion is getting out of hand. How damage report addons handle recording of output is utterly irrelevant to mage performance post 2.3.

If you know how many bolts your WE shot you can do your own homework. When we start trying to display our prowess to others "you have to divide water elemental by 3 and add that to mine" we're missing the point.

TC is about the pursuit of excellence. The particularities of record-keeping addons are a distraction.
Unfortunately with the new patch i'm quite sure a lot of us have "hmm, 10/48/3 fireball + scorch rotation" hanging in the back of our mind again, and it's simply not very interesting talking about that spec or the rotation :P (even though everyone knows its a pretty solid spec if all else fails and relatively easy to use)

As far as frost goes - I think the main problem with it is that frost actually requires a level of skill higher than 10/48/3 to keep up with damage. However, given that you have that skill, I am still inclined to beleive that two(or more) deep fire mages will outperform the same number of frost mages, one full frost (WC) and the rest of them 40/0/21.

Then again, i'm not too sure how useful iceblock *really* is. I can certainly think of a few times where it would have helped, but then I think back and realise the times where it would help the most are where we wipe anyway
#561SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
I'm not sure if the issue was settled, but I decided to do my own testing of the "elemental precision giving an actual +6% hit bonus rather than +3%" theory.

- I did this test last night on the PTR. If people are noticing it on live they could be right, but it would just mean blizzard is aware of it and fixed it for 2.3 ... however I don't think it is bugged at all just from experience. If anyone still experiences this behavior with frostbolt then I'd argue it is another talent related to frostbolt talent (i.e. Lhivera mentioning empowered frostbolt possibly retaining its hit chance) but certainly not elemental precision.

- I unlearned talents and left 1 talent point remaining while putting zero in elemental precision. I then took off all +hit rating entirely (using my spirit stick to DPS was painful) and went out to the consortium mobs in east NS.
- I used scorch and only scorch on only level 70 mobs.

* After over 200 casts with 0 points in EP and 0 hit rating, I had scorch clocked at exactly 4.0% resists, as expected. No surprise here.

* I then cleared the meter and put 1 talent point in EP. If EP works as intended then I should see a drop to 3.0% resists ... if bugged and granting 2% per point I should see a drop to 2.0% resists.

* Results: After over 400 scorches on only lvl 70 NPCs to really put the stats to the test, the meter showed a 3.7% resist chance. Not the 3.0% or 2.0% I was expecting but it definately rules out the theory that EP grants 2% per point. If anything, I felt like a theory should exist that EP grants 0% hit per point since I was really extending my testing trying to get the resist rate to drop from 4% to 3% but it kept see-sawing between 3.5% and 4.0%.


Again this is on the PTR using scorch, there could be an issue either on live or exclusively with frost/frostbolt, but I did not test that yet.
#562SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
On a completely separate note; since this is likely the beginning of a long road towards returning arcane's viability but through talents/mechanics rather than items/gimmicks .... I really think it is time that AM spends mana per bolt rather than up front.

The time has come to start the tweaking buffs and this is one of the most necessary ones IMO. The mechanics are there in-game to code it (re: hellfire), it just needs to be implemented and tested sooner than later.

If AM is going to behave differently than drain spells and other 'channeled dots' by suffering LOS, then it really needs to lose the front-loaded aspect for charging mana. With so little going for it right now, the spell could use some baby steps like this.
#563SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I don't get your point, he had 6 focus procs, you had 20. Quite sure that has nothing to do with so called skill.

Edit: Doh, raiding and reading doesn't mix. Was a reply to Cardynal
I linked it more to show the damage taken in, not put out. He was saying that the top dps spots were draining the raid because they were lacking survivability in their specs. I am much better geared than the other mages in the guild atm...so it's not really a good comparison in that respect.

It does seem now that he was only talking about the difference between raiding frost and raiding fire...instead of raiding with a pvp spec.

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/01/07 at 11:48 AM.
#564SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
I'm not sure if the issue was settled, but I decided to do my own testing of the "elemental precision giving an actual +6% hit bonus rather than +3%" theory.

- I did this test last night on the PTR. If people are noticing it on live they could be right, but it would just mean blizzard is aware of it and fixed it for 2.3 ... however I don't think it is bugged at all just from experience. If anyone still experiences this behavior with frostbolt then I'd argue it is another talent related to frostbolt talent (i.e. Lhivera mentioning empowered frostbolt possibly retaining its hit chance) but certainly not elemental precision.

- I unlearned talents and left 1 talent point remaining while putting zero in elemental precision. I then took off all +hit rating entirely (using my spirit stick to DPS was painful) and went out to the consortium mobs in east NS.
- I used scorch and only scorch on only level 70 mobs.

* After over 200 casts with 0 points in EP and 0 hit rating, I had scorch clocked at exactly 4.0% resists, as expected. No surprise here.

* I then cleared the meter and put 1 talent point in EP. If EP works as intended then I should see a drop to 3.0% resists ... if bugged and granting 2% per point I should see a drop to 2.0% resists.

* Results: After over 400 scorches on only lvl 70 NPCs to really put the stats to the test, the meter showed a 3.7% resist chance. Not the 3.0% or 2.0% I was expecting but it definately rules out the theory that EP grants 2% per point. If anything, I felt like a theory should exist that EP grants 0% hit per point since I was really extending my testing trying to get the resist rate to drop from 4% to 3% but it kept see-sawing between 3.5% and 4.0%.


Again this is on the PTR using scorch, there could be an issue either on live or exclusively with frost/frostbolt, but I did not test that yet.
I think we had pretty much agreed that this is only for Frost...or possibly only Frostbolt as I remember someone saying they were getting the correct number of resists for icelance.

Doing the same test with a low level frostbolt would be helpful.
#565SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
It is only Frostbolt that is receiving more +hit than it should be. It was me who brought this up several months ago and I have been analyzing my miss rates through WWS ever since. Ice lance is working normally but frostbolt misses far less than it should.
#566SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Logun
Originally Posted by Nadiar View Post
Its around 10% without using the pet at all from my testing. With the pet it depends on the length of the fight, but should be reasonably close. (+/- 5% for longer fights). WE damage doesn't show up on most Damage Meters though, which is what I was trying to refer to
Use Recount or SWstats with pets merged. I prefer Recount. Damage meters just plain out sucks.

Edit: Sorry, posted before I noticed that Vontre had it covered.

Last edited by Logun : 11/01/07 at 12:38 PM.
#567SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Evalara
Originally Posted by Logun View Post
Use Recount or SWstats with pets merged. I prefer Recount. Damage meters just plain out sucks.

Edit: Sorry, posted before I noticed that Vontre had it covered.
How do you set Recount to record your Water Elemental? It's never worked for me.
#568SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Qbert: Nobody ever said anything about Precision giving 6% to fire. If such was the case we'd have discovered it ages ago, surely people would have noticed that 40hit rate or so wasn't changing their results?

What in fact I believe has happened is:

1) Ele pre, or some other talent, mistakenly gives frost extra hit. Perhaps only Fbolt perhaps not.
2) Nobody who delved very deeply into TC bothered with frost due to it's abysmal dps at the time and for the few who did they'd run 164 hit simply because they assumed such was needed.
3) Now with renewd interest sparked in frost, there has been recent cause to believe the buggy nature of FROSTBOLT hit. Note: Not icelance, or CoC or any other spell. There is reason to believe there's something itchy about Fbolt, whether it's ele prec, winter's or empowered, (or indeed, the fact that frostbolt is binary) and this is reason enough to experiment.

Wonderful patch of statistics you have there, no doubt, but I fear you're validating only that Ele Pre does not function wrongly for fire. If you want more critical data, get 2xT4 and repeat results for frostbolt with 0 in empowered, winter's and ele prec, then set of results with winter's and empowered, then set of results with all talents to get meaningful data.
#569SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Evalara View Post
How do you set Recount to record your Water Elemental? It's never worked for me.
Always records it for me using just the default setup. It actually shows your damage merged and then has a separate line for just the elementals damage by itself. If you click on your damage line and look at the breakdown it will show the waterbolt damage there along with the rest of your damage.



As for the +hit and frostbolt, is it possible that they are giving back the 5% damage we lose for the snare as +5% hit on unsnarable targets?
#570SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Zure
Regarding the water elemental, it might be possible to separate them if the mage's had different amounts of +dmg gear, such that the elemental's water bolts could be assigned to different players. So long as you could get one bolt outside of the range of the others, you might be able to then attribute all bolts cast on the same delay to that elemental.

Seems like a herculean task though.

Assuming it's possible to test for the presence of a combat pet, the simplest route is to simply divide water bolt damage done amongst mage's who have a combat pet out when the waterbolt hits. You could even just divide all water bolt damage done amongst the mages, weighted for time a combat pet was active for each and you'd get pretty close to the proper numbers.

Last edited by Zure : 11/01/07 at 2:29 PM.
#571SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Zure View Post
Regarding the water elemental, it might be possible to separate them if the mage's had different amounts of +dmg gear, such that the elemental's water bolts could be assigned to different players. So long as you could get one bolt outside of the range of the others, you might be able to then attribute all bolts cast on the same delay to that elemental.

Seems like a herculean task though.

Assuming it's possible to test for the presence of a combat pet, the simplest route is to simply divide water bolt damage done amongst mage's who have a combat pet out when the waterbolt hits. You could even just divide all water bolt damage done amongst the mages, weighted for time a combat pet was active for each and you'd get pretty close to the proper numbers.

Should be made a lot simpler when Blizzard finally gets around to implementing it's new Combatlog system, I thought it was coming with 2.3 patch but I guess maybe it is supposed to be with 2.4?
#572SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kadaan
Originally Posted by sambjo View Post
I'm pretty sure that it's elemental precision adding an extra 3% hit.

Here's some frostbolts from me as 10/0/51 for a night of illidan attempts:

<removed images>

I didn't have an ele shaman or a draenei in my group. By the looks of this I was getting 3% extra hit from somewhere.

Now last night we did SSC and someone brought their alt mage who is 0/5/56. He has all the same frost talents of me except one: ele precision. He was well below the hit cap and he was getting the proper amount of resists. While he didn't really throw 1500+ frostbolts his miss rate was right where it should be without ele precision.
I ran TK with only 139 hit rating last night as frost. 139 hit rating is +11.02% hit, so I should be getting 3% resists (17% - 11% - 3% from ele precision). If ele precision is adding an additional 3%, I should be at 1% resists. There were no shaman so I had no +hit outside of gear.

Solarian Attempt 1: 6 hits, 0% miss (Kadaan - WWS)
Solarian Attempt 2: 22 hits, 4.8% miss (Kadaan - WWS)
Solarian Attempt 3 (kill): 68 hits, 3.2% miss (Kadaan - WWS)
VR Attempt 1: 43 hits, 2.8% resisted (Kadaan - WWS)
VR Attempt 2: 17 hits, 0% resisted (Kadaan - WWS)
VR Attempt 3 (kill): 71 hits, 2.5% resisted (Kadaan - WWS)

A small sample, but it looks like it's working properly to me.
#573SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Alayn
Very fast PTR test to check the Elemental Precision "bug":
The size of the test is short but enough to see the bug :P The test is made vs lvl 70 mobs.

Talents:
5/5 Imp. Frostbolt
5/5 Ice Shards
3/3 Piercing Ice

Test1:
0 Hit Rating
0/3 Elemental Precision


Test2:
0 Hit Rating
1/3 Elemental Precision


(i do more testing after today raid, since the sample size is too small)

Alayn

Last edited by Alayn : 11/01/07 at 3:19 PM.
#574SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Rounced: If indeed they did something like that, we'd be told. They aren't inclined to think this deeply about mechanics based on previous examinations, and even if they where, 5% hit is a damn-slight much more powerful than 5% coefficient (note, not 5% damage).

Kadaan: Sample is dramatically small. You expect to get a representative result discriminating 1 and 3% resist in sample sizes of 227 is better than nothing but still rather grim. 7 resists in 227 is indeed a spot-on 3% but bare in mind 1% is only 4.5 resists off that. I'd like to see much more evidence than 7 resists before I make my mind up on whether 164 hit is what frost needs.

Alayn: Again, sample size is too small. Triple it and we're talking. When we're comparing two resists to three resists this small a number is non-sensical. Also, this model doesn't account for the possiblity it's Winter's Chill, Empowered Frostbolt or Arctic Winds as has been proposed by some posters. Try speccing only imp. frostbolt and making a sample of 200 at least, then comparing to full spec all other talents except ele pre.

Lastly, nobody seems to think this could be related to the intrisic boss 5% resilience?
#575SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post

Lastly, nobody seems to think this could be related to the intrisic boss 5% resilience?
Never heard of any mechanic in place like that, can you elaborate?
#576SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Nice results Alayn. Hard to argue that one =) It would be nice to see a larger cast sample though, say 500 casts....but even at your 140 or so casts...it looks like it is adding 2% instead of 1% per point.


Kadaan. I would agree that your sample size is a bit too small. 1 resist in 50 casts is already a 2% resist rate.
#577SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post

Alayn: Again, sample size is too small. Triple it and we're talking. When we're comparing two resists to three resists this small a number is non-sensical. Also, this model doesn't account for the possiblity it's Winter's Chill, Empowered Frostbolt or Arctic Winds as has been proposed by some posters. Try speccing only imp. frostbolt and making a sample of 200 at least, then comparing to full spec all other talents except ele pre.
If he has points in WC, Emp and Artic winds for both tests, they would be considered constants...and shouldn't effect the test. The only way it would is if in the calculation of those talents, the Elemental Precision hit rate was somehow calculated differently than base hit rate...which is possible.

I suppose the best way would be to run tests of 200 casts with the following specs and 0 hit gear. All the specs below add a talent that effects frostbolt and not ice lance.

1 point in Elemental Precision
Above + Imp Frostbolt
Above + Frostbite
Above + Permafrost
Above + WC
Above + AW
Above + Emp Frostbolt

The first spec that gives you a 2% resistance rate would tell you which talent or combination of talents is giving the extra hit rating.

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/01/07 at 3:31 PM.
#578SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Rounced: If indeed they did something like that, we'd be told. They aren't inclined to think this deeply about mechanics based on previous examinations, and even if they where, 5% hit is a damn-slight much more powerful than 5% coefficient (note, not 5% damage).

Kadaan: Sample is dramatically small. You expect to get a representative result discriminating 1 and 3% resist in sample sizes of 227 is better than nothing but still rather grim. 7 resists in 227 is indeed a spot-on 3% but bare in mind 1% is only 4.5 resists off that. I'd like to see much more evidence than 7 resists before I make my mind up on whether 164 hit is what frost needs.

Alayn: Again, sample size is too small. Triple it and we're talking. When we're comparing two resists to three resists this small a number is non-sensical. Also, this model doesn't account for the possiblity it's Winter's Chill, Empowered Frostbolt or Arctic Winds as has been proposed by some posters. Try speccing only imp. frostbolt and making a sample of 200 at least, then comparing to full spec all other talents except ele pre.

Lastly, nobody seems to think this could be related to the intrisic boss 5% resilience?
How do you suggest resilience be involved in determining whether a spell lands in the first place?

As for Alayn's methodology, I suggest respeccing with no points in Frost other than Imp. Frostbolt, then systematically testing EP alone, WC alone, and EF alone. Speccing a "full" spec needlessly confounds the results. We want to find out which one it is.
#579SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lepew
Renounced

I read with interest your response on p. 21, and apologize for taking so long to respond. Work has been busy. I find your goal of ( having a class geared for one role perform well in that role and be abyssmal in all other ones) to be something different than what is actually in play now. For instance a Feral druid can tolerably yield melee DPS or tank with a gear switch. So unless they were to overhaul the existing trees to get rid of role synergy within a single branch, I do not see how your goal can ever be achieved. Perhaps for instance with pallys were they to have the 41point retribution talent disable all paladin healing for as long as you held that talent spec, then it might be fair making pally DPS equal to rogue DPS.

Mages have lingering restrictions imposed from the day when there was a benefit to being pure. For instance sheep heals a target and breaks at the slightest tap. This was supposed to have prevented abusive sheep nuking, which they subsequently farmed out to warlocks in the forms of fear dotting and succubus seduce nuking. You used to be able to justify fear dotting and seduce nuking because Warlock DPS was so anemic. They upped warlock damage to mage levels, yet mages are still encumbered by the previous glass cannon limitations they originally linked to that damage level, and their CC has been progressively nerfed, and now the original problems that they nerfed sheep over are evident in warlocks.

So I think they went in a bad direction when they started thinking of hybrids as people who could specialize and perform at equivalent levels of primary classes. I would rather see hybrids strengthened as hybrids, rather than becoming variants on pure classes. For instance I am playing a 30 feral, 31 resto druid right now and I think that is pretty close to an ideal role for a druid. While I am not as strong as a primary healer, or a primary tank or primary DPS, the fact that I can switch as needed between roles make me an asset to the raid. If an encounter requires an OT, I can do that, or if you need a bit more raid healing with HoTs, I can do that as well. The trees should naturally lend themselves to hybrid combos, with talents that make dual function or tri function builds work well.
#580SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Logun
Edit: Deleted.

Last edited by Logun : 11/01/07 at 8:29 PM.
#581SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Lgs
Originally Posted by Logun View Post
This is off topic but I thought a few of you might be interested. I put together a post on the quality of the Blue Posts we were getting about Arcane Concerns. The thread was locked after about 10min.

WoW Forums -> Nethaera, I'm Insulted. Others should be too.

Again, I apologize for derailing the discussion. I at least hope a few of you will be entertained.
Ya, I expressed my disdain for the CM's in that post numerous times. Be thankful for EJF. The best part is that she locked it!! lmao.

The mage class still has issues (regen, sheep healing, mediocre dps) and I really hope they would at least say one thing about them. But no single utterance...ever. Sure, I am happy for the reverse nerfs, and the class is still very useful w/ AE and CC in raids... but I didn't roll a mage for those reasons. I doubt anyone really did.

For example...when reporting "we are increasing regen in arcane med," she didn't continue with "oh, and we're nerfing that tree so it's useless." And I'm not even going to talk about we have three trees that all do the same thing... TC'ing is fun, but maybe if the CM's gave us a little bit of what the hell devs are thinking, it wouldn't be so necessary.


At least 10/48/3 is back. Rejoice.

Last edited by Lgs : 11/01/07 at 6:04 PM.
#582SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Logun
Edit: Deleted.

Last edited by Logun : 11/01/07 at 8:37 PM.
#583SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Lepew View Post
I read with interest your response on p. 21, and apologize for taking so long to respond. Work has been busy. I find your goal of ( having a class geared for one role perform well in that role and be abyssmal in all other ones) to be something different than what is actually in play now. For instance a Feral druid can tolerably yield melee DPS or tank with a gear switch. So unless they were to overhaul the existing trees to get rid of role synergy within a single branch, I do not see how your goal can ever be achieved. Perhaps for instance with pallys were they to have the 41point retribution talent disable all paladin healing for as long as you held that talent spec, then it might be fair making pally DPS equal to rogue DPS.

Mages have lingering restrictions imposed from the day when there was a benefit to being pure. For instance sheep heals a target and breaks at the slightest tap. This was supposed to have prevented abusive sheep nuking, which they subsequently farmed out to warlocks in the forms of fear dotting and succubus seduce nuking. You used to be able to justify fear dotting and seduce nuking because Warlock DPS was so anemic. They upped warlock damage to mage levels, yet mages are still encumbered by the previous glass cannon limitations they originally linked to that damage level, and their CC has been progressively nerfed, and now the original problems that they nerfed sheep over are evident in warlocks.

So I think they went in a bad direction when they started thinking of hybrids as people who could specialize and perform at equivalent levels of primary classes. I would rather see hybrids strengthened as hybrids, rather than becoming variants on pure classes. For instance I am playing a 30 feral, 31 resto druid right now and I think that is pretty close to an ideal role for a druid. While I am not as strong as a primary healer, or a primary tank or primary DPS, the fact that I can switch as needed between roles make me an asset to the raid. If an encounter requires an OT, I can do that, or if you need a bit more raid healing with HoTs, I can do that as well. The trees should naturally lend themselves to hybrid combos, with talents that make dual function or tri function builds work well.

If they made it more that hybrids needed to decide the role they were going to play in each fight before the fight started, by selecting their gear, and then were abysmal at the alternative role if optimized then I think Hybrids would be fine with being able to function just as well as the purer classes.

Changing damage/healing to give less healing with the damage would pretty much fix that issue in my mind. Basically if you want to heal and do crap damage then wear healing gear and if you want to damage and do crap for healing then wear damage gear.

All the shadow damage gear that Shadowpriests get seems to me to be based on that notion, I just think they need to extend the concept (somewhat) to all the other spell damage gear so that it has an effect on the healing an elemental shaman or a moonkin druid can do.
#584SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Logun View Post
I've been Banned but it was worth every second of it.
I'm confused at what you hope to accomplish my making Mages look like whiners.
#585SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Daemion
Well there is a huge thread running now for mage issues that has 'blue' attention. Might be worth for the more educated mages on the forum to post their vision in the thread.

WoW Forums -> Why Mages Are Complaining
#586SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Logun View Post
This is off topic but I thought a few of you might be interested. I put together a thread on the quality of the Blue Posts we were getting about Arcane Concerns. The thread was locked after about 10min.

WoW Forums -> Nethaera, I'm Insulted. Others should be too.

Again, I apologize for derailing the discussion. I at least hope a few of you will be entertained.
Your post was deleted, but I actually read it earlier today. For those who didn't have the privilege, basically it was a listing of number of blue posts received on each class forum in the past X amount of time, and comparing the quality of posts received with an emphasis on the mage posts being poor or irrelevant. In short, nothing interesting or relevant was missed, Netherea deleted the post because it was a poorly thought out whine and blue hasn't given any revelations on the state of the arcane tree or the mage class.

I'd encourage everyone to stop posting about blizzard's attention to our class on the forums, it is really not productive or relevant to theorycrafting discussion.
#587SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Logun
Edit: Deleted. Vontre, I have great respect for you and your opinions, I'll take your advice on this for now. I do, however, hope you will articulate some of our concerns in WoW Forums -> Why Mages Are Complaining. Seeing as it now has Nethaera's full attention.

Last edited by Logun : 11/01/07 at 8:36 PM.
#588SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Vontre
I just finished typing out a long-ass post, I mean really long, for the wow boards. The forums at e it. I thought I did the copy paste before I hit preview, but it didn't work. Fuck this.

Edit: Here is my post.

WoW Forums -> Mother!#!@ing forums

I am angry. Just forget it, it's not gonna get anywhere. Let the whiners whine on the wow forums because of misinformation, let the min-maxers spec fire and do absurd dps, and let the arcane die-hards get owned for using a shitty talent tree. As long as we have at least one way to dominate that's good enough for me.

Edit clarification: I just typed out a bunch of theorycraft and it took me so long to carefully go over the numbers and construct well thought sentences that my session timed out and the whole thing disappeared. And now I'm late to raid.

Last edited by Vontre : 11/01/07 at 9:18 PM.
#589SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Logun
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Edit clarification: I just typed out a bunch of theorycraft and it took me so long to carefully go over the numbers and construct well thought sentences that my session timed out and the whole thing disappeared. And now I'm late to raid.
I know how frustrating it is when that happens to me. I hope that after you cool off you'll make a second attempt at it for us.
#590SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zure
Ran AV a fair bit today... turning on recap for Bal/Van and using only rank 1 frostbolt. Interesting results:

5/5 imp frostbolt
5/5 ice shards
3/3 frostbite
2/2 imp nova
3/3 Piercing Ice
3/3 Permafrost
1/1 Coldsnap
2/2 Arctic Reach
3/3 Frost Channeling
5/5 Shatter
1/1 Ice Block
1/3 Imp CoC

5.5% hit from gear (45 spell pen fwiw). Expected resist rate, 11.5%

541 frostbolts, 13.2% resist rate. This seems high. Either they have more than 45 FrR and I missed a CoE in the second set of tests, or it's just odd.

Adding Empowered Frostbolt:

509 frostbolts, 6.3% resists, which is almost exactly 5% hit more than expected.
#591SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Evalara
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Always records it for me using just the default setup. It actually shows your damage merged and then has a separate line for just the elementals damage by itself. If you click on your damage line and look at the breakdown it will show the waterbolt damage there along with the rest of your damage.
Ah, it does show WE's damage on the summary sheet, but not the pie chart. It would be cool if it did :/
#592SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Eusheka
Vontre, it appears your thread got deleted as well.
Shame, always look forward to reading posts from the more informed mages as opposed to the usual official forum "Mages are fine l2p, we can sheep and stuff" group which seems the norm these days.
#593SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Redbeard
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Never heard of any mechanic in place like that, can you elaborate?
Could be Pinto mistyped resilience while meaning resistance. Resistance would fit in the conversation better

About the intrinsic resistance at least wowwiki has this to say:
Originally Posted by Wowwiki
Note: Level-based resistance (not to be confused with level-based miss) that can play a factor in total resists. For every level that a mob has over the player, there is 5 resist (believed; the exact number may be between 5-8) added. For boss fights, this means there is 15-24 resistance added. This extra resistance means there will be a noticeable amount more resists on binary spells as well partial resists on non-binary spells (with the occasional full resist) from the added resistance.

This level based resistance cannot be reduced by any means.
Wowwiki article: Formulas:Magical resistance - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki
#594SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Maledict
The article is wrong. It was never, ever shown that binary spells had a higher resist rate on level 73 mobs - *ever*.
#595SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
The article is wrong. It was never, ever shown that binary spells had a higher resist rate on level 73 mobs - *ever*.
And thus I have corrected it =)
#596SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Athemeus
I do not agree with all the mages saying that the lack of viability of the arcane tree is not an issue, as long as we have frost and fire as strong DPS trees. I agree, that it doesn't really matter if you shoot blue or red bolts, as long as the DPS is fine, but arcane added so much more to the game. The AB rotations, clipping and more than that the mana regeneration, which became a new factor in the mage game. It really is/was fun to play a mage like a real mana class and not just having a mana bar for sake of it. You had to conserve your mana, you could make use of interruptions of encounters and clever mana use (5SR time) affected your DPS.
Now with fire, its single-spell-spam again with very little possibility to improvement (combining cooldowns and effects), and frankly, i'm not so excited about it.
Note: I'm talking about T5 AB-arcane and not the spam it became with MSD and AM.
#597SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lgs
Originally Posted by Athemeus View Post
I do not agree with all the mages saying that the lack of viability of the arcane tree is not an issue, as long as we have frost and fire as strong DPS trees. I agree, that it doesn't really matter if you shoot blue or red bolts, as long as the DPS is fine, but arcane added so much more to the game. The AB rotations, clipping and more than that the mana regeneration, which became a new factor in the mage game. It really is/was fun to play a mage like a real mana class and not just having a mana bar for sake of it. You had to conserve your mana, you could make use of interruptions of encounters and clever mana use (5SR time) affected your DPS.
Now with fire, its single-spell-spam again with very little possibility to improvement (combining cooldowns and effects), and frankly, i'm not so excited about it.
Note: I'm talking about T5 AB-arcane and not the spam it became with MSD and AM.
I did not like the arcane tree, and I don't think it was good for the class as a pve dps tree. Here is why:

Basically arcane was in competition with fire. Assuming they are roughly equal, mages will have to make a hard decision which way to go. They will have to consider gear, encounters, raid make-up, among other things like survivability, utility, etc. So basically, it could go either way if one tree does not dominate the other.

Why is this bad? Because speccing into fire automatically makes you less useful on certain encounters, where speccing arcane makes you weaker in others. Now you have effectively reduced your usefulness in a certain percentage of boss fights.

On another note, you have also taken a path to need a certain set of gear that is somewhat different from other tree. Now you cannot switch and be as effective as you were had you started with that other tree. You are now locked into a spec that you don't want.

Also, now the devs have to balance the two trees in both pve and pvp. And everyone knows that blizz's class balance is their weakest link. WHEN they make future changes, you may have to switch to be more effective...but you will be in trouble due to gear. I suspect that would have to be done frequently due to blizz's extremely inconsistent class changes, unnerfs, and whatnot.

Lastly, fire has synergy between mages. If both are equal and 50% of the mages in the raid are arcane and the other half are fire, that synergy is lessened.


If there is only one tree to worry about, it will have to be effective on all encounters, at least theoretically. It seems like blizz is slowly catching onto this, but who knows. I would rather see massive buffs to fire than buffs bringing arcane back up. I would absolutely hate to see a situation where blizz alternates which spec is more effective. This would be a disaster for our class.
#598SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
Originally Posted by Lgs View Post
B] I would absolutely hate to see a situation where blizz alternates which spec is more effective. This would be a disaster for our class.[/b]

They have already done that really. Depending on the quality of your gear and the extra bonus's differn't specs have been viable at differen't times.

I spent a lot of time gearing for Arcane and now I have to switch back up my focus. I put low value dkp bids on things like Solarians wand and Grand Cowl of the Engineer only to find that I need spell hit in larger amounts again. I stopped trying to get my cape off prince because as Arcane I was running with 132 hit and wasn't trying to hit the cap. Now I need to get back to the Hit cap and it will require some regemming and a few items being hunted down that if not for Blizzard I would still be paying little attention to them.

These changes do affect pre teir 6 raiders as they move beyond teir 5 with the gear they have only to find they should have picked up a few things along the way.
#599SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lgs
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
They have already done that really. Depending on the quality of your gear and the extra bonus's differn't specs have been viable at differen't times.

These changes do affect pre teir 6 raiders as they move beyond teir 5 with the gear they have only to find they should have picked up a few things along the way.
I said that class balance is blizz's weakest link, but I should revise that. Take a look at the post on the EJ public forums about the RNG....

ITEMIZATION + Class balance are blizzard's biggest faults. The huge differences between the specs obviously aggravates this even more, assuming one has to switch.

There are two good ways for things to go (and obviously many bad ways).

1: They keep arcane useless and gain the intelligence to buff fire.
2: They turn arcane into something that is useful but not straight-up pve dps. This is slightly less desirable, but seriously wth is the point of that tree? It's worse than disc priests atm...
#600SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Why do you feel it's bad to be in competition with another line? Really, each line should be better for one fight or another. If they weren't...why have different lines in the first place?

They are also different play styles. Some people like playing one way over another. I had a mage in my guild that specs differently every month because he gets bored with the same spec raid after raid. He actually just quit the game because he was so tired of arcane...but there is nothing else that touches arcane dps in 2.2.

And the gear that maximizes fire or arcane really isn't all that different in the end. With TLC gone, it's only 4 or 5 pieces of gear that you would need to change to have the best gear for Fire or Arcane.

It is a good thing that they're nerfing items that made the arcane spec all powerful. It lowers the dependance on specific items even more...which makes it easier to switch from spec to spec. They need to make one last item nerf...take the damage of the arcane blast bonus on 2t5 down to 10%. Then they need to increase the base damage of both arcane blast and arcane missiles by a few hundred...or modify the talents to increase the bonus damage or crit % by a large amount on both arcane blast & arcane missiles.

I personally think they should take the raw damage approach since the other 2 lines have such a large bonus increase on crit...it would give it a different feel.

We may not see these changes until we get the 51 point talents.
#601SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vand1
Originally Posted by Redbeard View Post
About the intrinsic resistance at least wowwiki has this to say:


Wowwiki article: Note: Level-based resistance (not to be confused with level-based miss) that can play a factor in total resists. For every level that a mob has over the player, there is 5 resist (believed; the exact number may be between 5-8) added. For boss fights, this means there is 15-24 resistance added.Formulas:Magical resistance - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki
At the risk of being shot down for asking a totally stupid question, are we 100% sure that penetration does not overcome this resistance at all? I have often puzzled over why Bliz insists on putting such a seemingly useless stat on raiding tier equipment. Could this possibly be the reason?
#602SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
Extensive testing showed spell penetration as useless for overcoming level-based 'resists' back some long time ago and I've never seen contrary evidence since then. It is theoretically possible that things have changed but I've never seen any data suggesting that.

Moreover, people have bitched about Spell Pen on gear for quite a while and I would expect Blizzard to have at least popped in with a "Oh, it's more useful than you think! =) =) /wink =) =)" or whatever by now were it to actually have a purpose in PvE.
#603SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Navaash
For what it's worth, the unmitigatable partial resist thing might be the byproduct of some ancient game mechanics.

In the original game's alpha, Arcane, Fire and Frost (the class skills you can see in your Skills tab) had numbers. (Same with all other caster classes.) Originally, you had to cast spells repeatedly to raise the numbers to the current level, just like how weapon skill works. (You can guess how fun this was.) Blizzard quickly realized this was a bad idea and in beta, changed it so that it auto-leveled the number as you leveled up. Eventually they hid the number.

(Of course, I'm not sure why languages still show 300/300...)

The main point I'm making though is that, unlike weapons-based classes who have had weapon skill (until 2.3), casters have never had a way to raise these skills. It's always your spell skill 300/350 vs. the opponent's 315/365.
#604SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Redbeard View Post
Could be Pinto mistyped resilience while meaning resistance. Resistance would fit in the conversation better
Perhaps I missused resilience; A post by Aeus many months ago stated that Boss type mobs have an in-built 5% chance to partially resist spells which could not be mitigated by any means.

My proposition was not that resilience has anything to do with hit, it was that this effect (which I wrongly called resilience) was working wrongly. Here is my evidence:

1) No simulation I've ever looked into takes it into account, yet simulations are often within 1-2% accurate with reality. Thus perhaps:

2) It may be broken, registering as full resist on normal spells but not registering as such on Binary

However, it seems that evidence is mounting towards Empowered Frostbolt granting 5% hit, making this eventuality rather remote and wrong to boot.

Vand1: Yes, Blizz post at the time stated it was 100% unmitigatable (is that even a word?). Penetration does not affect it, or so they say. Poor old penetration... The stat that everyone forgot...

Navaash: This stands up to scrutiny; When WoW was being developed I believe it based a whole lot more than we think on Diablo 2 LOD. There, appart from wanting high armor a player would quite badly need max resist in each of the 4 elements. Particularly for PvP and certain high-resistance encounters, "-% enemy resist" gear became massively powerful. I believe the whole resistance shebang started out to become a big issue in WoW but totaly failed, leaving us with this relic of a half-assed design we have to cope with now. That is, 99% of the time resistance is (ironically) futile. Unless (1) you're a tank on a massive-elemental-specific encounter or (2) you're a lock in PvP, and then only because you can get tons of it just for having a pet out.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/02/07 at 12:37 PM.
#605SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post

Vand1: Yes, Blizz post at the time stated it was 100% unmitigatable (is that even a word?). Penetration does not affect it, or so they say. Poor old penetration... The stat that everyone forgot...
Well there has always been one way to remove those level based resistences, binary spells.

The mechanic for Binary spells means that having +hit over the cap nullifies the target's resistences even if those resistences couldn't be affected by spell penetration. It was proven by a couple of Warlocks just before TBC came out that the 99% cap only applied to the second equation and that the first one is uncapped in the case of binary spells.

The famous Eyonix the mage example

Example:

Eyonix the Mage (level 60) fires a frost bolt at Yeti of Doom (level 63). Eyonix is also wearing a total of +6% spell hit gear. Yeti of Doom has frost resistance such that he takes 50% from level 60 frost attacks. So, here's the hit calculation:

0.83 (83% for +3 levels monster) + 0.06 (+6% spell hit) = 0.89
0.89*0.5 (50% damage from frost) = 0.445.

The game will roll a number between 0 and 1, and if it's less than 0.445, the frost bolt will hit for full damage. Otherwise, a resist message will appear.

2nd Example:

After the resist, Eyonix decides to fire a fireball at Yeti of Doom. Eyonix still has +6% spell hit. Fireball is not a binary spell. Here's the calculation:

0.83+0.06= 0.89

The game will roll a number between 0 and 1, and if its less than 0.89, the fireball will hit. Otherwise, a resist message will appear. After the fireball lands, the game will then apply spell resistance to determine a partial resist, if any. Assuming the yeti also has 50% fire resistance, on average, 50% of the damage will be resisted.
What the warlocks proved was that the first part of the equation:

0.83 (83% for +3 levels monster) + 0.06 (+6% spell hit) = 0.89

is actually uncapped so that if you have +hit over the cap you can get above 1.00 and then when applied to the 2nd equation it will function as spell penetration gear, since the 0.99 cap is applied at the end of the equation. Which is the only way those unpenetratable resistences can be penetrated. I think they worked out that every 1% hit over the cap functioned as ~14 spell penetration.

True this probably has nothing to do with what is currently being seen with frostbolts and boss resist rates, I just think its an very interesting mechanic.




What I'm more worried about is if we find the mechanic functions the same when the patch goes live and then everyone starts gearing to hit that much lower cap as Frost and then Blizzard goes "whoops that's a bug, hotfixing it tomorrow" and now we got to run around and regem and what not to find our way back to the normal 164 hit cap. Also if it is shown that it is associated with Empowered Frostbolt I would probably spec without elemental precision and gear to hit the 140 cap for bosses.

I would just like to find a logical rationale for the lower hit cap for binary spells without it being something like "Blizzard forgot to remove the +5% hit from the Empowered Frostbolt talent".
#606SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Eusheka View Post
Vontre, it appears your thread got deleted as well.
Shame, always look forward to reading posts from the more informed mages as opposed to the usual official forum "Mages are fine l2p, we can sheep and stuff" group which seems the norm these days.
I didn't make a real thread. Profanities in the title were probably not looked upon well.
#607SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Originally Posted by Vand1 View Post
At the risk of being shot down for asking a totally stupid question, are we 100% sure that penetration does not overcome this resistance at all? I have often puzzled over why Bliz insists on putting such a seemingly useless stat on raiding tier equipment. Could this possibly be the reason?
Fact: Penetration does not affect level-based resistances.

Realistically penetration is entirely a pvp stat. My main gripe with it though is that it is entirely useless when your target has no resistances so you're never going to realistically wear penetration on your gear just in case and cannot change gear in combat after you realize you may need penetration.

Good news is that they seem to have wisened up and finally implemented what I've long considered the only true way to make penetration valuable which is to pile it onto weapons (re: season 3 staff & offhand). Penetration is only good when you need it and you never know you need it until you're being resisted since there is no way to ever see a target's resistances ... thus the only viable implementation for penetration is making it swappable in combat, a la weapons.
#608SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Athemeus
Originally Posted by Lgs View Post
I
Why is this bad? Because speccing into fire automatically makes you less useful on certain encounters, where speccing arcane makes you weaker in others. Now you have effectively reduced your usefulness in a certain percentage of boss fights.

On another note, you have also taken a path to need a certain set of gear that is somewhat different from other tree. Now you cannot switch and be as effective as you were had you started with that other tree. You are now locked into a spec that you don't want.

Lastly, fire has synergy between mages. If both are equal and 50% of the mages in the raid are arcane and the other half are fire, that synergy is lessened.

I would absolutely hate to see a situation where blizz alternates which spec is more effective. This would be a disaster for our class.
First, you would at least have the abillity to perform well at those encounters, where fire is less useful, whereas with fire as the only tree, you could only sit out. Although I don't really see those encounters around (except for the resist ****).

Arcane sucks in PvE solo, to a degree where I often die farming, while fire gives you gimmicks like blastwave, dreagons breath and range. Arcane specced, you can basicly just frost nova once and then take the beating until the CD is up again.

One of the best things of arcane is the synergy with other classes or one could say, the lack of it. You just need to worry about CoS, which you can rely on anyways (also malediction).

I agree that the AB mechanics are not so easy to balance around, but at the moment a talent in the arcane tree like 30% more mana cost/damage to AB (instead of prismatic cloak or emproved blink+removal of 2T5)) and a change to empowered AM should be sufficient to solve the situation and make the trees scale similarly.
I would have to do the maths for this first though, before suggesting it seriously.
#609SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kir
Arcane sucks for soloing? huh?

Maybe at other gear levels, but for me, one arcane blast and one arcane missiles kills most any lvl 70 mob that I would farm (I actually take off my MSD helm because I've got a better overall dps helm, since half of the focus procs are wasted). If clearcast procced on the death of the last mob, I open with AM on the next, as the crit chance will often kill the mob with a single AM, with a frost nova+ice lance as a finisher if needed.

With mage armor up and mushroom farming trinket from sporeggar, I can farm effectively non-stop. I use evocation when it's up, and it's almost always up again by the time I would need to use it. But, I do take a few hundred damage per mob, as they hit me a few times before AM finishes them off, but my health goes down slower then my mana as I farm. So, I occasionally bandage/cannibalize if my health is lower then my mana. If my mana is real high, but my health is low, I will sometimes AB/Slow/back up/AM or AB/Frost nova/backup/AM for a few mobs.

Only when my health and mana are both low do I sit and eat/drink. This happens like once every 20-25 minutes. I often summon the highest two ranks of mana gems while in town, and use those while I farm if mana is low and evoke is on CD. Basically, I can delay my mana issues long enough that I have to visit a vendor/town first.

As for taking down 'harder' mobs for a quest or something, well if it's not susceptible to slow, it's not snareable, and you probably need a group anyway.

edit: and if you are on a pvp server like me, slow + AP/Pom/Pyro lets you take down a lot of would be gankers if you aren't oom when they attack. A critted AP pom/pyro + one AP AM takes down a lot of classes by itself. If a warlock ganks you, well.. they are hard 1v1 anyway, especially if they get the jump on you. If you are in a bad position, slow can often let you escape at least. It's still not as strong for pvping as frost, but it's better then 10/48/3, that's for sure.
#610SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Tyrian
Arcane sucks in PvE solo, to a degree where I often die farming
Is this a joke? Do you realise how strange this comment sounds... are you sleeping while you farm! :S

One of the best things of arcane ..... You just need to worry about CoS, which you can rely on anyways
Shadow priest, Shaman? For serious guilds that want to make the most of raid comp setup to maximise player dps, you will want to consider more than 'just CoS' when it comes to helping arcane spec mages.

I would absolutely hate to see a situation where blizz alternates which spec is more effective. This would be a disaster for our class.
I like that arcane and fire require different gear and other classes to get the most out of. However, like others said - Blizzard needs to come clean with their intentions for Arcane.

Personally I would like them to make arcane as equal dps to fire at face value (without the gimmicks) and focus more of the arcane talent tree on ways to change your playstyle while keeping that dps. Im not going to pretend I know how they would balance or go about this.

AB let us play with rotations - I found that fun. Arcane missiles let me have some fun with experimenting with synergy/haste gear and items. But with those gone and seeing that fire is the 'proper' spec for dps in 2.3 (with frost acceptably close, if you want your survivability instead), all the rotations/haste/synergy fun arcane offered to broaden our playstyle if we chose to try it - is thrown somewhat out the window. Sorry blizzard, we'll have to put aside all those fun playstyle mechanics because fire is 'the serious' dps spec once again.

Last edited by Tyrian : 11/02/07 at 4:46 PM.
#611SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Vand1 View Post
At the risk of being shot down for asking a totally stupid question, are we 100% sure that penetration does not overcome this resistance at all? I have often puzzled over why Bliz insists on putting such a seemingly useless stat on raiding tier equipment. Could this possibly be the reason?
There's a more profound question: given the asymmetric effect this has, to the point where it favors Frostbolt over other spells, I'd say we're not even sure this is really "resistance" in the first place.
#612SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3taciturn
[quote=Tyrian;535461]
Personally I would like them to make arcane as equal dps to fire at face value (without the gimmicks) and focus more of the arcane talent tree on ways to change your playstyle while keeping that dps. Im not going to pretend I know how they would balance or go about this.
/QUOTE]

Due to no ramp-up time, **sharing CoS**, superior aoe, and no issues with resists, it seems unlikely they will be ballancing them around equal dps.

Unless range becomes an issue, it just wouldn't make sense to spec fire when you can save a curse (one warlocks seldom want to cast, and almost never gets malediction) and a debuff slot.


Seems more likely to me that they will try and salvage arcane with some gimicky passive brilliance aura.
#613SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
I already answered how they could scale arcane in a balanced way. Bring arcane damage in line with firespec dps. This will lead indirectly to higher DPS than firespec because of no ramp-up time. But to make this a fair deal, make the arcane tree have a *really bad* DPM. Something a bit worse than AM spam we have right now, but for considerably more dps. You give extreme mana consumption in exchange for low threat and no ramp up time.

If I were to make some very very rough numbers, I'd say increase AM DPS by 10-15%, ind decrease its DPM by 15-20%.
#614SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by manly View Post
If I were to make some very very rough numbers, I'd say increase AM DPS by 10-15%, ind decrease its DPM by 15-20%.
Using fire and arcane spec with CSD, Skull of Gul'dan, Hex-Shrunken Head, the numbers are as follows. (No gimmick tricks, not using Ashtongue Talisman and MSD is very noticable. Using a shadow priest and 10% CoE/CoS.)

AM spam:
1488 DPS, 14m with JoW, 6m without JoW
0.621 DPS gain per point of +damage

Fireball spam:
1839 DPS, 12m with JoW, 8m without JoW
0.843 DPS gain per point of +damage

So, we're talking about 24% better damage and 35% better scaling on fireball.

Arcane wins at ramp-up time, spell pushback (and threat, if we were still in BWL).
AM synergises with CoS, and AM longvity has a massive synergy with JoW.
Arcane gains damage from intellect, so the pure DPS/+dmg ratio can be even a tad lower.
Fire has to use scorch, but can compensate for that with using Flame Caps.


If we want AM viable, those differences should be at most 5-10% for the damage, and 10-15% for the scaling.
That means at least 20% better scaling.

AB similarly suffers from bad scaling.
Make 2T5 a talent in the middle of the tree.
Make the mid tier damage talents better - 2% crit on AE/AB but not AM? And crits are only +75% anyway? Make it 3% at least.
AM uninterruptable - 5 talent points just to be able to use that spell.
Add a "crits reduce the cast time of AM by 0.1s for 8 seconds, stacking up 1/.../5 times" to it, and a utility talents for one spell adds DPS and no DPM. Adds a little incentive for crit, and a little ramp-up time so people don't complain about burst in PvP.
15% intellect for 5 points - that's 1.5% crit, 25 damage and 2.5k mana (inc. Evocation) if I stack int. Other trees offer 10% damage for 5 points. Have it add 1% crit per point as well.


It's not impossible to fix arcane, but it takes a lot of thinking and balancing to make it viable without the gimmicks.
Basically, the first 5 lines of arcane talents need to be better to make the tree competitive again.
#615SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Using fire and arcane spec with CSD, Skull of Gul'dan, Hex-Shrunken Head, the numbers are as follows. (No gimmick tricks, not using Ashtongue Talisman and MSD is very noticable. Using a shadow priest and 10% CoE/CoS.)

AM spam:
1488 DPS, 14m with JoW, 6m without JoW
0.621 DPS gain per point of +damage

Fireball spam:
1839 DPS, 12m with JoW, 8m without JoW
0.843 DPS gain per point of +damage

So, we're talking about 24% better damage and 35% better scaling on fireball.

Arcane wins at ramp-up time, spell pushback (and threat, if we were still in BWL).
AM synergises with CoS, and AM longvity has a massive synergy with JoW.
Arcane gains damage from intellect, so the pure DPS/+dmg ratio can be even a tad lower.
Fire has to use scorch, but can compensate for that with using Flame Caps.


If we want AM viable, those differences should be at most 5-10% for the damage, and 10-15% for the scaling.
That means at least 20% better scaling.

AB similarly suffers from bad scaling.
Make 2T5 a talent in the middle of the tree.
Make the mid tier damage talents better - 2% crit on AE/AB but not AM? And crits are only +75% anyway? Make it 3% at least.
AM uninterruptable - 5 talent points just to be able to use that spell.
Add a "crits reduce the cast time of AM by 0.1s for 8 seconds, stacking up 1/.../5 times" to it, and a utility talents for one spell adds DPS and no DPM. Adds a little incentive for crit, and a little ramp-up time so people don't complain about burst in PvP.
15% intellect for 5 points - that's 1.5% crit, 25 damage and 2.5k mana (inc. Evocation) if I stack int. Other trees offer 10% damage for 5 points. Have it add 1% crit per point as well.


It's not impossible to fix arcane, but it takes a lot of thinking and balancing to make it viable without the gimmicks.
Basically, the first 5 lines of arcane talents need to be better to make the tree competitive again.
I must be pedantic on one point: imagine, for a moment, that at the no-gear level, Arcane deals less DPS than Fire. Now, give them "equal" scaling under your definition. With this sort of scaling, the ratio between the two goes to 1:1, essentially trivializing the difference between the two with equal gear increases.

In other words, knowing the added DPS or raw damage added per point of +damage is convenient for calculation, but without the context of base DPS, it is also an incomplete measure of scaling. It does tell us whether one spec will out DPS another; it doesn't tell us which spec is becoming more viable.
#616SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
One of the things i cannot stand is arcane's reliance on shadow priests. There are times when i have to absolutely beg to get into the shadow priest group, and then a person who needed it goes oom (We run with 2, try to keep both in but sometimes one has to go for whatever). Doing Kael without a shadow priest or JoW as AM spam spec i started phase 3 (weapons) at full mana, ended up oom after (2pc t6 evocate with spirit weapons included) at the start of p4 spamming super manas and gems. I literally had no other option but to wand for most of the phase to get enough mana for eggs/shield

My point? I'm very dissatisfied with arcane's current role, and possibly that's what devs are seeing too. Why should a spec's role be completely reliant on Another class being grouped with you.

I don't know about the rest of you mages, but not fearing being 12th on dps just because i don't have a shadow priest next patch is a godsend, at least people understand why fire spec won't be as much damage on fire immune bosses.
#617SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3chase
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
It was proven by a couple of Warlocks just before TBC came out that the 99% cap only applied to the second equation and that the first one is uncapped in the case of binary spells.
I remember seeing this claimed and every time I asked for a link to the data an answer never came.

I think it is possible it isn't capped in the first equation, but I have never seen proof.

Can you link me the data/post?
#618SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Yay, I finally got a [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] on the PTR!

TLDR
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond works like the early RED/resilience crit modifiers.
It's not a straight 1.03 multiplier.
Critical damage talents get amplified with this meta gem.
/TLDR




Untalented AM:
581 hits, 898 crits
898/581 = 1.545611 ~= 1.545 = 1.5 * 1.03
So, the usual 3% increase, yay.

Talented AM
759 hits, 1379 crits
1379/759 = 1.81686 ~= ( 1 + 0.545 * 1.5 ) =/= 1.75 * 1.03
So, it definately doesn't act as a 1.03 multiplier for crits.
It works like the old RED used to work, and how resilience used to work.

I.e. assume a 1000 hit, it becomes a 1500 crit without talents.
The gem increases it to 1545 = 1500 * 1.03. The that damage is split into 1000 hit damage + 545 crit damage bonus.
The spell power talent (+50% crit damage) would then increase the crit damage bonus to 817.5 = 545 * 1.5, and increase the total spell crit damage to 1817.5, instead of the simple 1802.5 = 1750 * 1.03 crit damage.

Checking it with a frost spec Frostbolt:
Talented base damage: 636-686; geared hits: 1735-1782; geared crits: 3630-3733
3630/1735 = 2.092219, 3733/686 = 2.094837

Checking the damage differences (top end minus low end), we see that the hits are 3 points to narrow, and the crits up to 3 points to narrow, giving us an error margin of ~0.35% for each, and ~0.7% when we take the quotient.

So, a 2.09 crit multiplier is very well in our reach, while a 2.06 is far beyond or possible error.


With this, critical spell damage becomes as follows:

150% => 154.5%
175% => 181.75%
200% => 209%
225% => 236.25%

210% => 216.3% for 150% + Ignite (Fire)
245% => 254.45% for 175% + Ignite (Arcane/Fire)
#619SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by chase View Post
I remember seeing this claimed and every time I asked for a link to the data an answer never came.

I think it is possible it isn't capped in the first equation, but I have never seen proof.

Can you link me the data/post?
As far as I know the link is completely gone.

It was one of the old mage stickies which was just a rundown of all the known TC about the mage class mechanics. On the last page before it locked a warlock linked an experiment he had done with another warlock to test binary spells and resistences.

Basically they alternated CoR and CoW on each other with varying levels of spell resistence and varying levels of spell hit and after 1000s of applications they had enough data to prove conclusively that +hit over the cap affected the target's resistences which meant that the equations were uncapped on the first part and only capped on the second part.

About 2 weeks after the post and the thread locked (it was literally 3-4 posts before the lock) the forums (and all of the stickies) were all erased when they updated them in preparation for TBC.
#620SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Yay, I finally got a [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] on the PTR!

TLDR
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond works like the early RED/resilience crit modifiers.
It's not a straight 1.03 multiplier.
Critical damage talents get amplified with this meta gem.
/TLDR




Untalented AM:
581 hits, 898 crits
898/581 = 1.545611 ~= 1.545 = 1.5 * 1.03
So, the usual 3% increase, yay.

Talented AM
759 hits, 1379 crits
1379/759 = 1.81686 ~= ( 1 + 0.545 * 1.5 ) =/= 1.75 * 1.03
So, it definately doesn't act as a 1.03 multiplier for crits.
It works like the old RED used to work, and how resilience used to work.

I.e. assume a 1000 hit, it becomes a 1500 crit without talents.
The gem increases it to 1545 = 1500 * 1.03. The that damage is split into 1000 hit damage + 545 crit damage bonus.
The spell power talent (+50% crit damage) would then increase the crit damage bonus to 817.5 = 545 * 1.5, and increase the total spell crit damage to 1817.5, instead of the simple 1802.5 = 1750 * 1.03 crit damage.

Checking it with a frost spec Frostbolt:
Talented base damage: 636-686; geared hits: 1735-1782; geared crits: 3630-3733
3630/1735 = 2.092219, 3733/686 = 2.094837

Checking the damage differences (top end minus low end), we see that the hits are 3 points to narrow, and the crits up to 3 points to narrow, giving us an error margin of ~0.35% for each, and ~0.7% when we take the quotient.

So, a 2.09 crit multiplier is very well in our reach, while a 2.06 is far beyond or possible error.


With this, critical spell damage becomes as follows:

150% => 154.5%
175% => 181.75%
200% => 209%
225% => 236.25%

210% => 216.3% for 150% + Ignite (Fire)
245% => 254.45% for 175% + Ignite (Arcane/Fire)
That is to say, the real crit bonus for on-hit crit mechanics is given by b' = 1.09*b where b is the ordinary crit bonus? And thus, for Ignite, it's given by b' = 1.09*b-.036?
#621SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkchani
Nice tests !
What would be the crit rating vs spell dmg under such crit damage bonus ?
#622SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Muphrid
Originally Posted by Darkchani View Post
Nice tests !
What would be the crit rating vs spell dmg under such crit damage bonus ?
Well, given the conversion from crit to +damage is...

∆c crit chance ≡ (m/r+d)/(1/b+c)*∆c +damage
Substituting b' for b, knowing b' > b, we see that this expression increases with increasing b. Thus, 1 crit rating becomes worth more +damage than it was before. You can easily substitute b' = 1.09*b or 1.09*b-.036 as needed.

Edit: that is, crit is worth (1/b+c)/(1/b'+c) times as much +damage as it was before.

Last edited by Muphrid : 11/03/07 at 6:52 PM.
#623SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkchani
Obviously crit rating value increases when the crit bonus is bigger, didnt need any formula for that !
Now a formula is nice to know the exact value, thanks for that, except you're not exactly helping alot without indicating what each variable is :/
#624SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Darkchani View Post
Obviously crit rating value increases when the crit bonus is bigger, didnt need any formula for that !
Now a formula is nice to know the exact value, thanks for that, except you're not exactly helping alot without indicating what each variable is :/
For original crit bonus b, crit chance c. And, of course, b' = 1.09*b without Ignites, or 1.09*b-.036 with Ignites.

And base damage m, +damage coefficient r, +damage d.
#625SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Faxmonkey
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
As a long term Frostie I have to agree with shatter being virtually useless in every raiding scenario. Apart from the fact that frost novaing mobs will most likely get some one killed in a general AoE fight you would be lucky to get more than one AoE effect on the mobs due to the changes to FN because of PvP and ice lance.

Spending seven talent points on shatter simply isn't effective for a raiding frost mage these days. I put the points back into arcane and went to 13 so I could get Arcane Impact which is a much better DPS increase while AoEing. I have never used CoC to do damage, it is used as a strong snare combined with permafrost and I will sometimes open with it just so whoever pulls aggro on the AoE has a bit more time to adapt to them pulling a mob.
I'm amazed by both Jayde and Frenzi's comments regarding frost nova. You guys are apparently quite luckly if you have AoE tanks for anything but Hyjal Trash. In my guild, the rule is: Watch where you're standing. There's no AoE tanks on things like Morogrims Murlocks. We just them all cluster at the same point frost nova them and then with a Hunter trap Down, run in circles around the outer edge of the murlocs spamming AoE while the warlocks do SOC from range. If all goes well, everything is dead before it gets off the trapped area -- thanks in large part to frequent frost novas from all the mages.

There are no tanks. They run towards the healing paladins at the trap location, and once they're in a good clump, the first frost nova goes down. The paladins move away -- and from then on, no one gets hit. Maybe one or two people get hit a couple of times if they get too close -- but by and large, the murlocs are sitting there frustrated that they can't reach anyone.

That's how most AoE fights go for us -- except hyjal trash, which involves one warrior tank per every few mobs. If your guild has some sort of different way of doing it, where frost nova is a bad thing, maybe that changes the rules somehow.

This point could be argued indefinitely and we'd never reach a consensus. I specced arcane for DPS until now, but Illidan is dead. DPS is not my top priority anymore and I was only specced for max dps because the difference between arcane spec and "everything else" was so extreme. Next patch, it'll be a choice of frost or fire and the difference won't be very extreme at all. Roughly 100 dps or so according to Lhiveras calc (1450 vs 1570 I think it told me).

Burst damage periods are very short and very furious, and I can usually unload my Combustion with a hefty amount of burst in 15 seconds, even if your burst is a little more sustained 45 seconds and. *gasp* a little weaker.
I don't know. Maybe you're thinking of things like, "zomg Illidans at 32% lets get him to phase 5 before he does another Parasites" where as I'm thinking "Phase 1 Magetheridon is 2 minutes -- and it's the only part of the fight where DPS matters. Thus, frost mage is much better for learning Mag becuase it does the most dps within the 2 minutes where dps makes any difference." I suppose it can go ether way.

Yes, *almost* every is not every. As you said, we place a high emphasis on what performs best. Optimal means optimal. Not almost optimal.
Nothing is optimal 100% of that time. So everything is bad?

Shatter does not make up for the difference between Flamestrike Spam and Deep Frost's crummy Arcane Explosion. Regardless, as I have said before, you almost never should be casting Frost Nova on a big pile of mobs. The damage you lose by wasting a GCD on Frost Nova is not regained via the subsequent Shatter.
This is just silly. Deep Fire's Arcane Explosion is the same as Deep Frosts -- except minus the +50% chance to crit. Your Flamestrike only does like 10% more damage unless you got Improved FLamestrike . . .

At any rate, yes, Shatter MORE than covers the gap of having "slightly better flamestrike". Especialy when TLC was in the Mix, but with it getting nerfed in 2.3 that margin will narrow a bit in Fire's favor.
Still, if shatter can be used, then Frost AoE is far superior.

No. Water Elemental sort of makes up for Frost lacking as much raw damage boosting as the Fire tree does, it doesn't make up for the base Fireball scaling being much better than Frostolt's. Frost has to overcome having less Damage increase via talents (11% vs. 13%), less crit via talents (since Frostbite doesn't work on 90%+ of bosses), lower crit (200% vs. 210%), Winter's Chill being worse than Improved Scorch, Empowered Frostbolt being worse than Empowered Fireball and of course Fireball scaling better than Frostbolt to start with.

Can you honestly say to me you think Water Elemental makes up for all of that? I mean, I'm as big a fan of the little guy as anyone (I peed myself a little when the Mage 41 pt talents were revealed), but he's not THAT good.
As I said, if you wish to consider the question of a frost mage's total +damage per second, That is (His scaling), you have to consider The Water Elementals 35% divided by his percentage of uptime and add that to what you get from Frostbolt Spam. Even if you factor in all raid buffs/debuffs, Frost still comes out a *VERY* tiny bit a head. Why? Well remember frostbolt gets +15% to crit from talents (this counts!) and more +damage% since they altered Arctic Winds. It all ends up being almost identical scaling on the two to be honest . . .

The big issues for Frost Scaling are actually the fact that while your pet will get 35% of your +damage every couple of seconds on his water bolts, he gets 0% of your +hit/+crit/+haste rating. With that in mind, if you have lots of crit/haste frost probably falls back behind again. The point to keep in mind though, that contrary to your assumptions it really is a dead heat. The two specs scale pretty competitively with each other . . .

Last edited by Faxmonkey : 11/04/07 at 5:14 AM.
#626SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Leialyn
Originally Posted by Darkchani View Post
Nice tests !
What would be the crit rating vs spell dmg under such crit damage bonus ?
Fireball Rank 13: 633 - 805 Damage, Avg Damage: (633+805)/2 = 719

100 Spelldamage is equal to 83.333 Critrating in itempoints (according to 12dmg and 10 critrating gems)
22.1 Spell Critrating grant 1% Crit (according to World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Basics -> Character Information)
That means 100 Spelldamage is equal to 3.77% Spell Critchance

Comparing
a) 1000 Spelldamage and 33.77% Crit (means 65,23% normal Hits and 1% Miss)
b) 1100 Spelldamage und 30% Crit (means 69% normal Hits and 1% Miss)

Assuming Hitcap, so Miss Chance is 1%, also improved Fireball and empowered Fireball

so for Patch 2.3 with CSD:
(719+1000*1.15) * 0.6523 + (719+1000*1.15) * 2.163 * 0.3377 = 2584.35 average Damage
(719+1100*1.15) * 0.69 + (719+1100*1.15) * 2.163 * 0.3 = 2656.38 average Damage

Last edited by Leialyn : 11/04/07 at 9:23 AM.
#627SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
I agree with Fax concerning the frost AOE. We use the same tankless Nova-rotation as he describes on solarian and morogrim. In the flurry of TC you all make assumptions which are simply not true: We're not discussing 1xnova + 1xCoC, we're talking your nova, your shattered CoC (jeez these puns), then someone else's nova, and your shattered AE, repeated perhaps 4-5 times. And remember, while Icelance does pop nova a lot, AE and CoC is consistently kinder. It's also almost guaranteed that by the time the adds are down, you'll have CoC'd again.

There is also added utility other specs don't have: Assume the agro-pala gets watery graved while the murlocks are running; you can pull out the elemental and stick em in place for an emergency druid charge before they're out of range. Something you can't do in any other spec. Lets not get all cocky with "but your elemental should be DPSing", in fights like those, your DPS is (a) trivial (b) irrelevant.

As long as the boss is dying, then I believe the mage should save his tricks for the unexpected, the "oh shit" moment. I've seen all sorts of stupidity, from Tanks going disco immediately after Hydros transition, to blinking into a guy who was about to go off with solarian bomb, to karathress add being left at 1% because all the dps thought "someone else will finish it off" and I've been happy I had invisibility, iceblock and ap-pom-pyro in each of these corresponding occasions.

With such an insignifficant difference between fire and frost in 2.3, without taking arcane into account, I think at long last magery will truly have two viable specs to pick from. The differences are accademic and down to play-style as far as I can see.
#628SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
Patch 2.3 with CSD:
(719+1000*1.15) * 0.6523 + (719+1000*1.15) * 2.16 * 0.3377 = 2582.46 average Damage
(719+1100*1.15) * 0.69 + (719+1100*1.15) * 2.16 * 0.3 = 2500.72 average Damage
Three issues:
1) Yellow/spell crits are most likely on a two-roll system, you assumed a one-roll. It doesn't really matter at 1% miss, it increases the importance of +hit before the cap.
Just so you know, for completions sake.
2) CSD+Ignite makes 216.3% crits, not 216%. Minor issue, just for completion.
3) The bolded number is "2654,592" in my calculations, you forgot to update the coeffienct from 1.05 to 1.15

Even with CSD, 1 crit rating ~ 0.7-0.8 dmg at most for fire, making red gems 50% better than yellow ones.
#629SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Whoops, yep you are right, I had wrong numbers in the cache of my calculator :< Corrected it.

And for the one roll/two roll, you have a link to some "proofs" or tests? Because I can't imagine why to use a two roll system if a one roll system does the job well with almost half the resource costs.
#630SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Muphrid
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
I did some calculations for 2.2 a while ago, adjusted them for 2.3:


Fireball Rank 13: 633 - 805 Damage, Avg Damage: (633+805)/2 = 719

100 Spelldamage is equal to 83.333 Critrating in itempoints (according to 12dmg and 10 critrating gems)
22.1 Spell Critrating grant 1% Crit (according to World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Basics -> Character Information)
That means 100 Spelldamage is equal to 3.77% Spell Critchance

Comparing
a) 1000 Spelldamage and 33.77% Crit (means 65,23% normal Hits and 1% Miss)
b) 1100 Spelldamage und 30% Crit (means 69% normal Hits and 1% Miss)

Assuming Hitcap, so Miss Chance is 1%, also improved Fireball and empowered Fireball

Patch 2.2:
a) (719+1000*1.05) * 0.6523 + (719+1000*1.05) * 2.1 * 0.3377 = 2408.44 average Damage
b) (719+1100*1.05) * 0.69 + (719+1100*1.05) * 2.1 * 0.3 = 2473.68 average Damage

Patch 2.3 with CSD:
(719+1000*1.15) * 0.6523 + (719+1000*1.15) * 2.163 * 0.3377 = 2584.35 average Damage
(719+1100*1.15) * 0.69 + (719+1100*1.15) * 2.163 * 0.3 = 2656.38 average Damage

In 2.2 Spelldamage was better than Critrating but now Critrating seems to be better with 2.3.
So in theorie it would be the best for 2.3 to stack 10 critrating gems, but I'm no fan of this. I guess the 6 Spelldamage, 5 Critrating one would be the best then.
As Roywyn pointed out, two roll is very likely. For that matter, what you should come up with is...

Before CSD:
83.33~ crit rating (3.78% crit) ≡ (719/1.15+1000)/(1/1.1+.3)*.0378 = 50.81 +dmg
1 crit rating ≡ .6097 +damage
After CSD:
 83.33~ crit rating ≡ (719/1.15+1000)/(1/1.163+.3)*.0378 = 52.97 +dmg
1 crit rating ≡ .6135 +damage
Not a very huge change, although I guess what you were looking at was the removal of the coefficient penalty? 1.035 would have been the correct coefficient.

Last edited by Muphrid : 11/04/07 at 8:25 AM.
#631SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Edit your quote please, I corrected it.
And can you explain a bit more what the numbers in your calculation mean? I've seen 1.035 at DrDamage as well but couln't get what it means.
#632SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
Edit your quote please, I corrected it.
And can you explain a bit more what the numbers in your calculation mean? I've seen 1.035 at DrDamage as well but couln't get what it means.
Fixed!

1.035 appears because 1.035 = ((3.5/3.5)+.15)*.9. That is, the stacking of Imp. and Emp. Fireball in 2.2 was rather non-intuitive. Rather than being both additive or both multiplicative, the Imp. Fireball -10% penalty was multiplicative, and the Emp. Fireball bonus was additive, with the latter being added before the former was multiplied. Thus, you add the 15%, and then multiply the whole expression by .9.
#633SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
I thought 2 roll was already proven for casters?

Didn't Zaldinar do some testing on the 2.2 PTR that proved that it couldn't possibly be a 1 roll system?

His testing involved a Rogue with Cloak of Shadows in place and a mage with enough crit rating to push normal hits off the table if it was a 1 roll system.

Found the thread, looks like its a 2 roll system to me.

WoW Forums -> Second round of One/Two roll research
#634SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
Originally Posted by Faxmonkey View Post
There are no tanks. They run towards the healing paladins at the trap location, and once they're in a good clump, the first frost nova goes down. The paladins move away -- and from then on, no one gets hit. Maybe one or two people get hit a couple of times if they get too close -- but by and large, the murlocs are sitting there frustrated that they can't reach anyone.

That's how most AoE fights go for us -- except hyjal trash, which involves one warrior tank per every few mobs. If your guild has some sort of different way of doing it, where frost nova is a bad thing, maybe that changes the rules somehow.
I was talking about Kael Weapons Phase and Hyjal Trash originally. Apparently you weren't paying attention? Obviously for "quickie" AOE packs like Solarian's and Morogrim's you want to use Dragon's Breath, Blastwave and Shattered Cone of Cold because none of those packs should be up for more than 3-4 seconds.

This point could be argued indefinitely and we'd never reach a consensus. I specced arcane for DPS until now, but Illidan is dead. DPS is not my top priority anymore and I was only specced for max dps because the difference between arcane spec and "everything else" was so extreme. Next patch, it'll be a choice of frost or fire and the difference won't be very extreme at all. Roughly 100 dps or so according to Lhiveras calc (1450 vs 1570 I think it told me).
Wait, wait, wait. If your job is no longer DPS, what is it? Do you hand out water during fights? No, it's still DPS. You're just one of those DPSers who says "OK it's on farm now, I can slack off." That's fine if your guild is fine with it, but personally I don't subscribe to that theory. Once it's on farm my goal is to do it faster and better, not just say "Hey it's farm, I don't have to respec from my PvP spec anymore!"

I don't know. Maybe you're thinking of things like, "zomg Illidans at 32% lets get him to phase 5 before he does another Parasites" where as I'm thinking "Phase 1 Magetheridon is 2 minutes -- and it's the only part of the fight where DPS matters. Thus, frost mage is much better for learning Mag becuase it does the most dps within the 2 minutes where dps makes any difference." I suppose it can go ether way.
DPS always makes a difference. Faster DPS, shorter fight, less time for people to screw up and cause a wipe.

Nothing is optimal 100% of that time. So everything is bad?
Yes something is optimal 100% of the time, the point of Theorycrafting is to tell us what that is. Yes in practice you may have variant outcomes, but the prior math has told you what will have the optimal outcome if you do your part correctly.

This is just silly. Deep Fire's Arcane Explosion is the same as Deep Frosts -- except minus the +50% chance to crit. Your Flamestrike only does like 10% more damage unless you got Improved FLamestrike . . .

At any rate, yes, Shatter MORE than covers the gap of having "slightly better flamestrike". Especialy when TLC was in the Mix, but with it getting nerfed in 2.3 that margin will narrow a bit in Fire's favor.
Still, if shatter can be used, then Frost AoE is far superior.
This was disproven by earlier math in this thread which apparently you felt you could simply skip over. With Improved Cone of Cold FN + CoC is slightly better, without Improved CoC then FN is a wasted GCD. Personally I've never found a good way to fit Imp CoC into my raid spec.

As I said, if you wish to consider the question of a frost mage's total +damage per second, That is (His scaling), you have to consider The Water Elementals 35% divided by his percentage of uptime and add that to what you get from Frostbolt Spam. Even if you factor in all raid buffs/debuffs, Frost still comes out a *VERY* tiny bit a head. Why? Well remember frostbolt gets +15% to crit from talents (this counts!) and more +damage% since they altered Arctic Winds. It all ends up being almost identical scaling on the two to be honest . . .
No, Frost does not come out ahead. Are you not paying attention at all to this thread? It comes out a little bit behind.

And no the scaling is not identical. You cannot simply make the claim that it does come out identical and have it be so. You must support your assertion.

The scaling is not remotely close, I laid out how the talents are currently stacked in favor of Fire for PvE and instead of addressing that you simply respond by repeating yourself.

If you want to count Winter's Chill OK we'll do that and count Fire Vulnerability too.

Fireball Gets:
+9% crit
+28% damage
210% crits
134% coefficient over 3.5sec

Frostbolt Gets:
+15% crit
+11% damage
200% crits
128% coefficient over 3.5sec

So the difference for Frostbolt is:
+6% crit
-17% damage
-10% damage on crits
-6% coefficient


That's not even counting Molten Fury and Combustion. You think the Water Elemental makes up for all that? I love him, but no. He doesn't. Even without premature deaths.

It's also not accounting for more esoteric advantages of +6 yd Range and 70% pushback protection. Frost's main advantages are Ice Block and Frost Barrier, both of which are simply "death protection" not "do more DPS protection", and in fact using either lowers your DPS.

The big issues for Frost Scaling are actually the fact that while your pet will get 35% of your +damage every couple of seconds on his water bolts, he gets 0% of your +hit/+crit/+haste rating. With that in mind, if you have lots of crit/haste frost probably falls back behind again. The point to keep in mind though, that contrary to your assumptions it really is a dead heat. The two specs scale pretty competitively with each other . . .
The big issues for Frost Scaling are listed above. Please pay attention to this thread if you're going to post in it.

edit:

The main thing working in Frost's favor is the extra hit it gets due to some bug, which may or may not even be an advantage depending on if your gear will allow you to ditch that extra hit for more damage or crit.

I'd like to clarify also that this is not meant to be a "Frost vs. Fire" post. I agree with manly that's not very productive and I think the real proof will be in the WWS pudding after 2.3 goes live. But, I cannot abide when people come into the thread and toss around blatantly incorrect statements like that. I'm simply trying to point out the underlying facts of the situation as opposed to the unsubstantiated claims some people like to throw around.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/04/07 at 11:25 AM.
#635SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkchani
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
After CSD:
 83.33~ crit rating ≡ (719/1.15+1000)/(1/1.163+.3)*.0378 = 52.97 +dmg
1 crit rating ≡ .6135 +damage
I fail to understand why you're additionning the spell coefficient and the spell damage ? by all logic shouldnt it be a multiplication ???
Same thing with crit% and crit bonus too...
#636SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Also not counting that 10-20% of your fire dps is scorch.

Frost also doesn't really lag behind at all until you pass up the ~5 minute mark.
#637SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Also not counting that 10-20% of your fire dps is scorch.
Much closer to 10%. I don't know anyone who uses a 4 fireball 1 scorch rotation.

Frost also doesn't really lag behind at all until you pass up the ~5 minute mark.
Wouldn't this be because you're using WE + Snap + WE early on?

Anyway the point of my post wasn't that your numbers (or anyone else's) are wrong and there's no way Frost is within 2% of Fire once 2.3 goes live, it was that Faxmonkey's assertion of Frost scaling better than Fire is wrong.

Whether your numbers were right or not will be obvious after we have some WWS.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/04/07 at 3:51 PM.
#638SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Much closer to 10%. I don't know anyone who uses a 4 fireball 1 scorch rotation.
Scorch never needs to be restacked?
#639SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ebbv
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Scorch never needs to be restacked?
Yes once in a while something goes bad and Scorch has to be restacked, whether it's Supremus being out of range or one Naj'entus' shield being up too long when the debuff was going to fall off soon, yes sometimes this happens. But that exception doesn't account for Scorch being a full 20% of your DPS*. Unless you're stacking and maintaining it all by yourself it's really not a big deal at all. And remember you don't sacrifice an entire Fireball to cast Scorch, only half a Fireball. So you're not losing as much DPS as you may think.

* - Even my off the cuff "4 fireball 1 scorch" rotation wouldn't be 20% of my DPS as Scorch. It would be 12 seconds of Fireball followed by 1.5 seconds of Scorch, or 11.11% of my Time on Target as Scorch. In a fairly typical 8 Fireball 1 Scorch cast rotation you're only spending 5.88% of your time casting Scorch. So yes, even with Restacks 10% is a pretty conservative number.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/04/07 at 4:12 PM.
#640SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Faxmonkey
No, Frost does not come out ahead. Are you not paying attention at all to this thread? It comes out a little bit behind.
I haven't actually done the math for 2.3 with the coefficient removal. That could possibly tilt it slightly in fire's direction. I was referring to 2.2. As was the post was I was referring to. I do not believe there is relevant math for that in this thread.

The scaling is not remotely close, I laid out how the talents are currently stacked in favor of Fire for PvE and instead of addressing that you simply respond by repeating yourself.
You forgot one major frost advantage in your list of things. Namely that Improved Frostbolt improves dps by significantly more than Improved Fireball. 1/6th of casting time vs 1/7th.

At any rate, the scaling probably changes in Fire's Favor in 2.3 given that the coefficient change is a bigger buff to fire (since it originally lost 10% of it's whole coefficient, while frost lost like more like 8% -- since 10% of 80% is 8%)

Let's assume you have a 20% crit rate. Fireballs +damage% per second is going to be:

(115/3)x1.3x1.29x1.09 (assumes all raid debuffs are in place) 70.7% per second

Frostbolt would be

(91.43/2.5)x1.15x1.35x1.11 = 63.023%

Now, lets add in the water elemental. We'll assume he's up for 45 seconds out of every 120 (instead of 180, we're assuming efficient coldsnap usage).

Waterbolt will get 71% of 35% of my +damage every 2.5 seconds. This works out be exactly or 10% every 1 second. So:

10%x1.15x1.20 (I'm assuming the water elementals *base* crit rate is around 10% -- it's not very high).

So take that, multiple by 45 and divide by 120 to get average contribution of 5.175% per second over the course of the entire fight.

Add that into frostbolts and we get 70.7% vs 68.2%. Pretty close still, but a definite edge for fire. The edge for fire increases a bit if you consider that fire crits are 210% instead of 200% and if you add in values from Molten Fury and Combustion.

Frost, on the other hand, benefits if you consider the shaman totem Wrath of Air. As your Water Elemental gets 135% of that +damage instead of just 35%.

All of this, unfortunately, also ignores chance to miss as a factor. It assumes everyone's at equal hit rating. Of course we know that frost seems to be getting extra hit% from talents somehow and that the water elemental is likely to have a high miss rate as well.

My point was never that frost is better than fire in 2.3, merely that it's an option. You seem to have it in your head that for scaling fire blows frost out of the water, and this simply isn't true. It carries an edge, but hardly one that leaves frost unacceptable.

Last edited by Faxmonkey : 11/04/07 at 4:30 PM.
#641SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Originally Posted by Faxmonkey View Post
I haven't actually done the math for 2.3 with the coefficient removal. That could possibly tilt it slightly in fire's direction. I was referring to 2.2. As was the post was I was referring to. I do not believe there is relevant math for that in this thread.
You made this mistake before and I responded to you at that time that this thread is about 2.3. I'm not sure why you continue to talk about 2.2 in a thread entitled "[Mage] TC after 2.3". It's really not helpful at all.

And yes the relevant math is present if you read the thread. There's a lot of good posters here contributing worthwhile data to the discussion. Please enjoy it!
#642SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Faxmonkey
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
You made this mistake before and I responded to you at that time that this thread is about 2.3. I'm not sure why you continue to talk about 2.2 in a thread entitled "[Mage] TC after 2.3". It's really not helpful at all.

And yes the relevant math is present if you read the thread. There's a lot of good posters here contributing worthwhile data to the discussion. Please enjoy it!
If you read what you quoted, I make it quite clear I was responding in reference to 2.2 BECAUSE the person I was responding to was referring to 2.2. If you feel the need to interject yourself into someone's conversation, please at least know what is being discussed first.

You may believe that a discussion on past scaling is not relevant in a thread discussing future options, but apparently someone felt that it was and I felt obligated to clear up a misconception. It's as simple as that.
#643SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Darkchani View Post
I fail to understand why you're additionning the spell coefficient and the spell damage ? by all logic shouldnt it be a multiplication ???
Same thing with crit% and crit bonus too...
I'm not adding them. I have base damage divided by coefficient, and this quantity is added to +damage. This is, essentially, base damage + coefficient*+damage all divided by coefficient.
#644SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Faxmonkey
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
I was talking about Kael Weapons Phase and Hyjal Trash originally. Apparently you weren't paying attention? Obviously for "quickie" AOE packs like Solarian's and Morogrim's you want to use Dragon's Breath, Blastwave and Shattered Cone of Cold because none of those packs should be up for more than 3-4 seconds.
This, believe it or not, changes nothing. Hyjal Trash gets shattered just as much as non-hyjal trash. I merely meant they were different in that Hyjal Trash has tanks. The nerf to Lightning Capacitor should change the math, possibly in Fire's favor -- though I've seen your own math and when it came out showing an advantage for frost, you simply dismissed it and said "Oh well, CoC is hard to aim".

You choose to be as condescending as possible in your replies, telling me to "read the thread", and yet you apparently have not even read your own posts.

Wait, wait, wait. If your job is no longer DPS, what is it? Do you hand out water during fights? No, it's still DPS. You're just one of those DPSers who says "OK it's on farm now, I can slack off." That's fine if your guild is fine with it, but personally I don't subscribe to that theory. Once it's on farm my goal is to do it faster and better, not just say "Hey it's farm, I don't have to respec from my PvP spec anymore!"
DPS is one of my jobs. But it's rarely my primary job. For example, my *primary* job on Bloodboil, is taking a bloodboil rotation. I couldn't, for instance, ignore this job to do extra dps -- it's crucial. Frost makes me better at this job. It lets me fill in the gaps if someone dies and take two, but iceblock them off.

On Illidan, my job is mostly killing parasites. This is better done with frost.

I have many, many jobs in many fights and DPS Is just one of them. You obviously measure your self-worth by damage meters, and I understand how fun that can be given my current arcane spec.

DPS is important on so few fights, these days. They're mostly technical fights. No one cares how much dps I do on Archimonde, only that everyone near me is decursed asap and I don't run into the doomfire or die of falling damage. That's it. That's my job. If I do it right, and everyone else does theirs right -- we win. Enrage timers on most bosses are there only to keep you from limping past he finish line with 5-10 people -- even with low dps you will never hit them with everyone alive.

DPS always makes a difference. Faster DPS, shorter fight, less time for people to screw up and cause a wipe.
This is an interesting philosophy we could argue. Longer fights do mean more idiot checks (more spouts, more thaladred glares, more air bursts, more parasites, etc, etc) -- but I don't think the way you're meant to deal with idiot checks is by minimizing their number -- I think it's by "not being idiots".

This was disproven by earlier math in this thread which apparently you felt you could simply skip over. With Improved Cone of Cold FN + CoC is slightly better, without Improved CoC then FN is a wasted GCD. Personally I've never found a good way to fit Imp CoC into my raid spec.
The closest relevant math that I read, and I did read this thread, concluded frost to be better. And it ignored Frost's largest advantage (at the time it was posted) of Lightning Capacitor which procs obviously way more often for a frost mage. This will continue to be *an* advantage I suspect, but significantly less of one. Still, by your own math as long as you can AIM coc and you have Imp CoC in your spec then frost comes out ahead.

Since I only need 2 points into arcane (never understood bothering for clearcast in a frost spec -- maybe some guilds need to recruit more shadow priests), it's easy for me to get there.


The big issues for Frost Scaling are listed above. Please pay attention to this thread if you're going to post in it.
The issue I listed is actually far more significant. Hidden hit rating and impenetrable partial resists for fire seem like bigger issues simply because we know less about them, and thus they are hotter debate topics. But in terms of what actually impacts frost's scaling the most, it's the fact that the source of a significant chunk of my dps does not scale at all with 3 major stats -- while 100% of fires damage scales with every stat.

An extra 3% hit rating, should it exist, provides only for a bit of extra crit rating on gear, perhaps -- not nearly enough to make a *significant* splash to scaling.


I'd like to clarify also that this is not meant to be a "Frost vs. Fire" post. I agree with manly that's not very productive and I think the real proof will be in the WWS pudding after 2.3 goes live. But, I cannot abide when people come into the thread and toss around blatantly incorrect statements like that. I'm simply trying to point out the underlying facts of the situation as opposed to the unsubstantiated claims some people like to throw around.
And thus the pickle we find ourselves in. My response was prompted by someone else's "blatantly incorrect statements" and now I find further responses provoked by yours. How do we end this vicious cycle?

The proof will not be in WWS, by the way. Nobody argues that Frost will do more DPS. Certainly not me. WWS will only confirm that fire does more damage. While a WWS parse can tell you a bit of the story, it can't tell you the whole story and frankly relying it on to determine which spec is better is just silly.

But hey, if you honestly believe your *primary* job is DPS go nuts. But unless we're talking about a fight with a fast enrage timer where you can stand still and DPS like nuts (like old school patchwork when people's gear was bad) then I just don't agree. And maybe what the two of us think about everything else is colored by that disagreement.
#645SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ReignConfused
While I'm not in favor of frost being King DPS, it's unarguable king Utility, always has been. Iceblock alone, not even as an idiot save, is one of the best, if not THE best spell a mage has in his arsenal. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of saying that no matter what Fire is better because the fireball scales better than frostbolt. I think anyone arguing that should spam Pyroblast more, because it scales better!

But while we can run tests on PTR all day, and run TC all day. Right now it's all theory and there's no reason for anyone to get heated about one person saying this is better and another saying this is better.

My personal thought on the subject is that Blizzard has historically opted to give Fire "King DPS" and Frost "King Survivability" and Arcane's been kinda batted around all over the place. So in all seriousness I think it's silly to argue the subject because even if Frost is better in one patch, the majority of the time it will be worse.

For the record, I'd like to see WWS parsings proving how amazingly awesome Shatter is. Or even screenshots of meters. Have 2 mages spec frost, have both spam frost nova on every cooldown, at least 3 other AoEing people (warlocks, hunter multishotting etc etc.) And both shoot their CoC's off on every nova as soon as they can. And then next week repeat the fight doing everything the exact same except shoot your CoC before you nova and spend the GCD on AE or something. Because from what I've personally seen, unless you have 3 mages and maybe 2 warlocks and NO one else AoEing, too many shatters will break too fast to justify the global cooldown on a spell that's insanely low DPS on it's own. And for that matter, even you Fax pointed out that you can shatter another mage's nova with AE. Which IMHO fucks your DPS even more. Cause your shattering his CoC which would have hit harder, and he in turn is going to break your CoC (I'm having so much fun with CoC! *HA DID IT AGAIN*) with HIS AE and screw your CoC (WoW)


Just having fun with numbers, pretend your AE hits for 700 crits for 1150. Your CoC 900 crits for 1800 (I'm sure these numbers are wrong but ballpark) Nova hits for 100 crits for 200. So you have a 30% crit rate for both schools.

10 mobs (10 is an easy number!)

you AE and CoC : 700 700 700 700 700 700 700 1150 1150 1150
Your AE hits for 8350
900 900 900 900 900 900 900 1800 1800 1800
Your CoC hits for 11700

Your AoE rotation hits for 20050

you Nova CoC : 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 200 200 200
Your AE hits for 1300
900 900 900 1200 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800
Anyone smart knows why I made one of those 1200
Your CoC hits for 14700

Your AoE rotation hits for 16000


I'm sorry did your TLC hit for 4000? Cuz it's not going to after the nerf and I'm glad you're the only one AoEing there! Otherwise those nova's might have broken and made shatter even sadder.

Last edited by ReignConfused : 11/04/07 at 5:54 PM.
#646SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
or one Naj'entus' shield being up too long when the debuff was going to fall off soon, yes sometimes this happens.
By the way, I'm pretty sure you can still refresh the scorch debuff even though he is immune to the scorch damage.
#647SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Amrahil
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
By the way, I'm pretty sure you can still refresh the scorch debuff even though he is immune to the scorch damage.
Aye you can, handy that.

Only time I loose my my Fire Vurnability is when my scorch gets resisted, this happens once in a blue moon, but is pretty damn frustrating. Especially if I play a strict rotation and have only a few seconds left on the debuff, so no chance to recast Scorch.

Pretty irrelevant right now, but can anyone tell me a addon that makes the Fire Vurnability timer be visible for every Mage, not only the one who started the debuff?
#648SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Originally Posted by Amrahil View Post
Aye you can, handy that.

Only time I loose my my Fire Vurnability is when my scorch gets resisted, this happens once in a blue moon, but is pretty damn frustrating. Especially if I play a strict rotation and have only a few seconds left on the debuff, so no chance to recast Scorch.

Pretty irrelevant right now, but can anyone tell me a addon that makes the Fire Vurnability timer be visible for every Mage, not only the one who started the debuff?
I don't know of one, and that makes it hard for 2 mages to try and time 8 fireball/redebuff. I'm sure there is one, but either way I think 2.3 by default lets every mage see the timer.

Edit: trying to find where I read this so I can link it. I don't think I dreamed it.
#649SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
Actually, in 2.3 the game itself will refresh the scorch timers across mages, so that shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Last edited by manly : 11/04/07 at 11:45 PM.
#650SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rudie
Hi guys, just registerd to Elitist jerks, shouldve done it ages ago but it aint bad to just come on and read good info. now im not sure if i shouldve made a new topic as i thought this is class mechanic thread.

Ok. now the guild im in have tonite killed Rage winterchill and Anerthron - im specc'd 10/48/3 capped with +hit and have 1100 +Dam with fire. Normally theres either a shadowpriest or an Ele shaman with the group of 3 mages which is a lovely group set up for mana regen and +hit / +dam tots but the problem im havin is tonite i chugged down rather too many mana pots to keep up with the heavy AoE needed in Hyjal.

As i said, i apoligise if this is the wrong area to post this, i was just wonderin how other mages cope and deal with mana in Hyjal with all this crazy AoE.

Regards Rudie
#651SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Faxmonkey you quoted me in the reply I responded to (though you did not credit the quotes to me.) I would not have responded otherwise. And I assure you that I was not talking about 2.3.

Regardless, why do you say Frost scales better if you are not asserting that Frost will do more damage? Those kind of go hand in hand.


Good to know that Scorch refreshes through Naj'entus' shield. I never tried while I owned the stack so I never knew.
#652SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Malevalon
Originally Posted by Rudie View Post
Hi guys, just registerd to Elitist jerks, shouldve done it ages ago but it aint bad to just come on and read good info. ... Regards Rudie
I'm not a veteran here by any means, but I can tell you that posts with terrible grammar/spelling are not the way to make a good first impression. You might want to [re-]review the stickies in the Public forum and revise your post accordingly before your tenure here ends before it begins.
#653SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Regardless, why do you say Frost scales better if you are not asserting that Frost will do more damage? Those kind of go hand in hand.
I realize this may be somewhat out of context, but scaling better does not imply dealing more damage. A low-damage rotation may have better scaling than a high-damage rotation, but what matters is the gear level interval across which this is considered--that superior scaling may not be enough to overtake.
#654SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Amrahil
Originally Posted by Rudie View Post
Ok. now the guild im in have tonite killed Rage winterchill and Anerthron - im specc'd 10/48/3 capped with +hit and have 1100 +Dam with fire. Normally theres either a shadowpriest or an Ele shaman with the group of 3 mages which is a lovely group set up for mana regen and +hit / +dam tots but the problem im havin is tonite i chugged down rather too many mana pots to keep up with the heavy AoE needed in Hyjal.

As i said, i apoligise if this is the wrong area to post this, i was just wonderin how other mages cope and deal with mana in Hyjal with all this crazy AoE.
I have a few tips for you from my own experience in Hyjal dealing with the waves.
There's a few things you can do to improve your mana consumption AoE'ing:

- Use Mage Armor, for Rage/Anetheron you can arrange for the AoE spot to be near Jaina and get boosted regen from her Brilliance Aura (100% Spirit) while AoE'ing.
- Burn your Evocation early (stand near Jaina for 5000-6000 ticks) it will probably be ready again for one of the later waves, and I never personally need it for bosses as Shadowpriests + Mana Tide can sustain my mana pool there, they are rather short fights.
- Use Combustion to get some MoE mana returns while AoEing, preferably casting Flamestrike & then spamming Blast Wave right after (2x burst crits heaven), this returns quite some mana and does good burst damage.
- Always use Mana Gems early while AE'ing (I never tend to forget, as I have the Serpent-coil Braid) so the cd is avalible as soon as possible again.
- I spam Arcane Explosions after I've consumed the Combustion buff. But sometimes when my mana gets low I fall back to Flamestrike for MoE returns (I'm not actually sure if it's better DPM, but it feels like it.) Guess AE is also preferred due to the lower threat.
- You can use Invisibility after the AoE is done, or a little bit before, conjure Mana Gems and rest up fully while the Necromancers & kited mobs are handled with single target DPS. You don't loose too much damage spending that time resting up.

We have a Protection Paladin, who makes these waves pretty much trivial, can go all out AoE'ing without waiting long.

I find my mana is a bit harder to manage at the horde camp, and always try to be ready no matter what for the waves with a heavy amount of Necromancers for sheeping. It's very important not to be dry of mana & not be located far away from the fresh wave, drinking up, while these approach the raid. They can insta-gib our Paladin/other tanks easily if they all get a SB off at the same time.

My Master of Elements talent gives me about 30-40% mana, of what my Shadow Priest provides me through VT in a typical Hyjal raid on the first 4 bosses incl trash, of course the VT return is much higher on the bosses than MoE, as the SP is free to remain stationary and nuke without chasing any mobs.

You might also just consider whispering a Druid for an Innervate, it has a 6 minute cooldown and should be avalible for the druid again @ the boss if you time it well. I don't think anyone is burning through more mana than a typical Mage on those AoE waves anyway.

Oh and this probably belongs in some help thread.
#655SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
I just said it in my other post but it's making me pull my hair out that it's still getting brought up. I'm pretty much just agreeing with Ebbv here, but if something scales better it doesn't always mean more damage. Otherwise we would all be Pyroblast spamming.
#656SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
I just said it in my other post but it's making me pull my hair out that it's still getting brought up. I'm pretty much just agreeing with Ebbv here, but if something scales better it doesn't always mean more damage. Otherwise we would all be Pyroblast spamming.
I don't see why you're even bringing this up. A 10 second cast spell with 200% coefficient doesn't scale better. You have to look at the scaling per second (or 3 seconds, or whatever spell you're comparing it to). If pyroblast scaled better, I would be spamming pyro.
#657SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Redbeard
Originally Posted by Amrahil View Post
Pretty irrelevant right now, but can anyone tell me a addon that makes the Fire Vurnability timer be visible for every Mage, not only the one who started the debuff?
At the risk of off-topicness, you could try out this mod: Scorchio! Official Thread
#658SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
I just said it in my other post but it's making me pull my hair out that it's still getting brought up. I'm pretty much just agreeing with Ebbv here, but if something scales better it doesn't always mean more damage. Otherwise we would all be Pyroblast spamming.
By what metric? +damage/cast? Because that's pretty much invalidated when you look at +damage/sec or +damage/base.

Your point is correct, but it really bothers me when people imply that scaling is related to +damage/cast (that is, the +damage coefficient) alone, without regard for at least casting time, if not base damage (or current damage).
#659SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
Muphrid, we're talking about 2 different things

1)We're talking about scaling in reference to damage per second (dps) upgrades. As you get a normal x gear upgrade your damage increases by y dps. If 2 specs gain 2 different y dpses for the same x gear upgrade, then the higher one "scales" better.

2)You're talking about scaling relative to the basic spell's specifics, in other words that your defintion of a better scaling spell, a fireball that does 800 base and gets 100% co-efficient or a fireball (same everything but only differences are base and co-efficient) 1 damage base 90% co-efficient, that the second one "scales" better at most normal gear (1-2000 +damage gear) because it scales much better relative to it's base.

Which is fine and dandy, and probably more accurate than the commonly used meaning of scaling, but talking about your scaling doesn't help us increase our dps

Edit: If something scales better at a linear rate, it will eventually (or already has) out pace the slower linear growth
#660SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Faxmonkey
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Regardless, why do you say Frost scales better if you are not asserting that Frost will do more damage? Those kind of go hand in hand.
I don't recall the exact post I quoted, but it was a laundry list of reasons why Fire is better than frost (read: "is" not, "will be") and I felt compelled to respond since many of those reasons were flawed if not flat-out wrong.

Also, it's important to understand that simply because one spell scales better than another does not guarantee superior damage output -- spells are not simply the function of their scaling, but also of their *base* damage. Superior scaling would only guarantee superior damage if you had an infinite amount of +damage. At any amount less than infinity, there may well still be a gap -- even a large gap -- between the two.

This was the case with Frost vs Fire in 2.2 -- you could not have gotten enough +damage in 2.2 to possibly do more damage with Frost than with Fire -- there simply wouldn't have been close to enough +damage on even the best of gear to close the gap. And again, as my own math a few posts back demonstrated, the balance of power is now back in fire's court anyways -- something like 70% vs 68% damage per second IIRC. Still fairly close, though . . .

Also, for the record, you can apply any debuff you like to Naj'entus during shield -- scorch, winters chill, DoTS, Curses, whatever -- he's not "immune" he simply "absorbs".
#661SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
In WoW, you can typically ignore the affects of base spell damage on scaling, they're usually to trivial to really affect scaling
#662SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Saffron
Originally Posted by Rudie View Post
Hi guys, just registerd to Elitist jerks, shouldve done it ages ago but it aint bad to just come on and read good info. now im not sure if i shouldve made a new topic as i thought this is class mechanic thread.

Ok. now the guild im in have tonite killed Rage winterchill and Anerthron - im specc'd 10/48/3 capped with +hit and have 1100 +Dam with fire. Normally theres either a shadowpriest or an Ele shaman with the group of 3 mages which is a lovely group set up for mana regen and +hit / +dam tots but the problem im havin is tonite i chugged down rather too many mana pots to keep up with the heavy AoE needed in Hyjal.

As i said, i apoligise if this is the wrong area to post this, i was just wonderin how other mages cope and deal with mana in Hyjal with all this crazy AoE.

Regards Rudie
Mana potions is your best friend. If they help you do more damage, drink them. I pretty much maximized the use of them in Hyjal when we weren't too familiar with the waves, 25-30 pr night was nothing extraordinary.
#663SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dustwhisper
Mage armor, mana pots, mana gems and evoc. The trick I found was to remake the managem I used on the trash at the end so I had it for the next and drink between waves. Using manapots is nothing new though. I spend about 30-40 manapots in an evening at 15g per 5 and they used to be 25g per stack of 5 :| Luckily I get stacks sometimes at 10g from guildies but AH is just hell. Only place I don't use a lot of manapots is at KT due to how you can use wand to regen a lot.
#664SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
In WoW, you can typically ignore the affects of base spell damage on scaling, they're usually to trivial to really affect scaling
That is wrong. Base spell accounts for a signifficant chunk, even if after BC it's much less than half.

At this level of Theorycrafting we're doing, where we're arguing for pages amongst pages about 2% discriminations I assure you base spell is very important.


Rudie:
Firstly, welcome to EJ.
Secondly, Do Not Sign Your Post.
Thirdly: Read the forum rules, this is not WOW EU forums.
Lastly: If you managed to delve so far into the forum as to press the "next page" button, you'd discover exactly the post you'd want to ask about, namely [Mage] Help me please? . This is Theorycrafting After 2.3.
#665SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rudie
Originally Posted by Malevalon View Post
I'm not a veteran here by any means, but I can tell you that posts with terrible grammar/spelling are not the way to make a good first impression. You might want to [re-]review the stickies in the Public forum and revise your post accordingly before your tenure here ends before it begins.
I posted my 1st post on ElitistJerks about 1am, was a little tired but you have insisted on pointing out terrible grammar/spelling like its a really bad problem, thankyou for replying to me in this manner, how do you not know that I could be dyslexic and struggle with words.

But anyway.. Thank you Amrahil for a good bit of info


Originally Posted by Amrahil View Post
I have a few tips for you from my own experience in Hyjal dealing with the waves.
There's a few things you can do to improve your mana consumption AoE'ing:

- Use Mage Armor, for Rage/Anetheron you can arrange for the AoE spot to be near Jaina and get boosted regen from her Brilliance Aura (100% Spirit) while AoE'ing.
- Burn your Evocation early (stand near Jaina for 5000-6000 ticks) it will probably be ready again for one of the later waves, and I never personally need it for bosses as Shadowpriests + Mana Tide can sustain my mana pool there, they are rather short fights.
- Use Combustion to get some MoE mana returns while AoEing, preferably casting Flamestrike & then spamming Blast Wave right after (2x burst crits heaven), this returns quite some mana and does good burst damage.
- Always use Mana Gems early while AE'ing (I never tend to forget, as I have the Serpent-coil Braid) so the cd is avalible as soon as possible again.
- I spam Arcane Explosions after I've consumed the Combustion buff. But sometimes when my mana gets low I fall back to Flamestrike for MoE returns (I'm not actually sure if it's better DPM, but it feels like it.) Guess AE is also preferred due to the lower threat.
- You can use Invisibility after the AoE is done, or a little bit before, conjure Mana Gems and rest up fully while the Necromancers & kited mobs are handled with single target DPS. You don't loose too much damage spending that time resting up.

We have a Protection Paladin, who makes these waves pretty much trivial, can go all out AoE'ing without waiting long.

I find my mana is a bit harder to manage at the horde camp, and always try to be ready no matter what for the waves with a heavy amount of Necromancers for sheeping. It's very important not to be dry of mana & not be located far away from the fresh wave, drinking up, while these approach the raid. They can insta-gib our Paladin/other tanks easily if they all get a SB off at the same time.

My Master of Elements talent gives me about 30-40% mana, of what my Shadow Priest provides me through VT in a typical Hyjal raid on the first 4 bosses incl trash, of course the VT return is much higher on the bosses than MoE, as the SP is free to remain stationary and nuke without chasing any mobs.

You might also just consider whispering a Druid for an Innervate, it has a 6 minute cooldown and should be avalible for the druid again @ the boss if you time it well. I don't think anyone is burning through more mana than a typical Mage on those AoE waves anyway.

Oh and this probably belongs in some help thread.


Much appreciated mate


Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post

Rudie:
Firstly, welcome to EJ.
Secondly, Do Not Sign Your Post.
Thirdly: Read the forum rules, this is not WOW EU forums.
Lastly: If you managed to delve so far into the forum as to press the "next page" button, you'd discover exactly the post you'd want to ask about, namely [Mage] Help me please? . This is Theorycrafting After 2.3.

I understand, I'll check the whole site out more, thanks Pintofbrew.


Edit: Have just read the forum rules and now understand that signing posts and letting people know that I've just registered is a bad thing. Just earned my 1st infraction on the banhammer. I'll make sure I do a spell check and not sign my posts.

Last edited by Rudie : 11/05/07 at 6:10 AM. Reason: Edit: For Spellcheck and forum rules
#666SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Muphrid, we're talking about 2 different things

1)We're talking about scaling in reference to damage per second (dps) upgrades. As you get a normal x gear upgrade your damage increases by y dps. If 2 specs gain 2 different y dpses for the same x gear upgrade, then the higher one "scales" better.

2)You're talking about scaling relative to the basic spell's specifics, in other words that your defintion of a better scaling spell, a fireball that does 800 base and gets 100% co-efficient or a fireball (same everything but only differences are base and co-efficient) 1 damage base 90% co-efficient, that the second one "scales" better at most normal gear (1-2000 +damage gear) because it scales much better relative to it's base.

Which is fine and dandy, and probably more accurate than the commonly used meaning of scaling, but talking about your scaling doesn't help us increase our dps

Edit: If something scales better at a linear rate, it will eventually (or already has) out pace the slower linear growth
I realize the distinction. I was only saying that Pyroblast spam is not justified at the infinite gear level, as it does not scale well by either definition.
#667SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Looney
Has anyone of you realised a change in the casting system on 2.3 PTR?
On the first few days when it went up, I was raiding ZA and I was able to spamm my fireball like I did far in the past :>
There was no such thing like a "penalty cooldown", you know the thing that happens when you are hitting the buttons too fast. this global cd of like .25-.5 seconds which doesn't allow you to start a new cast although you havent startet any cast in the past 1.5 seconds.

But yesterday, when I logged on the PTR, I realised a change in all this.
Now, there ist this "penalty cooldown" and I get problems with proper casting when I just spamm my fireball.

So I just tested it under 3 conditions, THE FOLLOWING TESTS WERE MADE ON PTR WITH ~400-500ms DELAY!
I also did this with 59 Spellhaste Rating, so the Fireball casting time SHOULD be 2.89 seconds


Using a G15 Makro which hits the button every .005 seconds:
15:55:50.437  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3824 Fire damage.
15:55:53.656  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3881 Fire damage.
15:55:57.156  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2497 Fire damage.
15:56:01.984  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2513 Fire damage.
15:56:05.484  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2567 Fire damage.
15:56:08.328  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3692 Fire damage.
15:56:11.437  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3675 Fire damage.
15:56:15.343  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2499 Fire damage.
15:56:18.406  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2502 Fire damage.

Hitting the Button by myself as soon as the castbar reaches the red part of quartz:
15:56:29.187  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3839 Fire damage.
15:56:31.859  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3623 Fire damage.
15:56:35.187  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3657 Fire damage.
15:56:38.390  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3776 Fire damage.
15:56:41.234  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3658 Fire damage.
15:56:44.406  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2449 Fire damage.
Trying to use the old /stopcasting /cast Fireball macro(a few casts were cancelled to see what happens with the following one):
15:57:01.750  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3601 Fire damage.
15:57:03.781  You fail to cast Fireball: Interrupted.
15:57:06.656  You fail to cast Fireball: Interrupted.
15:57:11.015  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3794 Fire damage.
15:57:14.312  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3815 Fire damage.
15:57:17.687  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2420 Fire damage.
15:57:21.062  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2516 Fire damage.
15:57:24.000  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3587 Fire damage.
15:57:26.296  You fail to cast Fireball: Interrupted.
15:57:30.218  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2416 Fire damage.
15:57:33.328  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2560 Fire damage.

Last edited by Looney : 11/05/07 at 10:30 AM.
#668SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Yay, I finally got a [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] on the PTR!

TLDR
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond works like the early RED/resilience crit modifiers.
It's not a straight 1.03 multiplier.
Critical damage talents get amplified with this meta gem.
/TLDR


...

150% => 154.5%
175% => 181.75%
200% => 209%
225% => 236.25%

210% => 216.3% for 150% + Ignite (Fire)
245% => 254.45% for 175% + Ignite (Arcane/Fire)
Just playing around with Vontre's spreadsheet with these assumed bonuses.

With 0 push back, 0 bloodlust uptime, Coe @ 10%, Full raid buffs, molten armor, and WoA totem...i'm seeing these kinds of numbers...

Frost (Frostbolt spam w/ water elemental) - 2268dps - 90 second fight
Frost (Frostbolt spam w/ water elemental) - 1978dps - 300 second fight
Frost (Frostbolt spam w/ water elemental) - 1927dps - 600 second fight

Fire (8xFireball: 1xScorch) - 2022dps
Fire (Fireball Spam) - 2061dps

I'm not entirely sure the spreadsheet is modeling the Water elemental correctly. If you take the duration down to 90 seconds (which would give 100% uptime), the spreadsheet is trying to give it 125% uptime...which would skew the calculation. I edited the Water Elemental Uptime to simply 1% on the numbers I gave for 90 seconds.
#669SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Looney View Post
Has anyone of you realised a change in the casting system on 2.3 PTR?
On the first few days when it went up, I was raiding ZA and I was able to spamm my fireball like I did far in the past :>
There was no such thing like a "penalty cooldown", you know the thing that happens when you are hitting the buttons too fast. this global cd of like .25-.5 seconds which doesn't allow you to start a new cast although you havent startet any cast in the past 1.5 seconds.

But yesterday, when I logged on the PTR, I realised a change in all this.
Now, there ist this "penalty cooldown" and I get problems with proper casting when I just spamm my fireball.

So I just tested it under 3 conditions, THE FOLLOWING TESTS WERE MADE ON PTR WITH ~400-500ms DELAY!
I also did this with 59 Spellhaste Rating, so the Fireball casting time SHOULD be 2.89 seconds


Using a G15 Makro which hits the button every .005 seconds:
15:55:50.437  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3824 Fire damage.
15:55:53.656  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3881 Fire damage.
15:55:57.156  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2497 Fire damage.
15:56:01.984  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2513 Fire damage.
15:56:05.484  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2567 Fire damage.
15:56:08.328  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3692 Fire damage.
15:56:11.437  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3675 Fire damage.
15:56:15.343  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2499 Fire damage.
15:56:18.406  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2502 Fire damage.

Hitting the Button by myself as soon as the castbar reaches the red part of quartz:
15:56:29.187  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3839 Fire damage.
15:56:31.859  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3623 Fire damage.
15:56:35.187  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3657 Fire damage.
15:56:38.390  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3776 Fire damage.
15:56:41.234  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3658 Fire damage.
15:56:44.406  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2449 Fire damage.
Trying to use the old /stopcasting /cast Fireball macro(a few casts were cancelled to see what happens with the following one):
15:57:01.750  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3601 Fire damage.
15:57:03.781  You fail to cast Fireball: Interrupted.
15:57:06.656  You fail to cast Fireball: Interrupted.
15:57:11.015  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3794 Fire damage.
15:57:14.312  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3815 Fire damage.
15:57:17.687  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2420 Fire damage.
15:57:21.062  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2516 Fire damage.
15:57:24.000  Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3587 Fire damage.
15:57:26.296  You fail to cast Fireball: Interrupted.
15:57:30.218  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2416 Fire damage.
15:57:33.328  Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2560 Fire damage.


From my understanding of the new system Quartz may need to be rewritten a bit to really work well with the new casting system.

I was playing with Dr Boom a bit last night and I was actually able to hit the button before the red without any issues whatsoever. Not sure if that was due to the spell casting on "button lift" or if it was associated with them incorporating the "leeway" they said they were thinking about adding to the casting system.

If you try to cast way too early or you clip into the GCD then what happens is you are "screwed" and you have to wait for the spell completed command to be returned from the server.

If they have incorporated "leeway" into the system then there is no need to try and get as close as possible to the red anymore and that spamming would be about the worst thing you could do, since it will restart the GCD and you will have to wait on latency to return the spell completed message from the server before you could initiate your next cast.

Try your spam routine again but try for "button up" (hold the key down and lift before the red without using any of the G15s spamming features) just before the red and see what the results look like then.
#670SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Looney
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Try your spam routine again but try for "button up" (hold the key down and lift before the red without using any of the G15s spamming features) just before the red and see what the results look like then.
This is what i did ^^
#671SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Looney View Post
This is what i did ^^
before the red or trying to hit the red?
#672SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I was looking around for possible solutions to the Arcane item nerfs and I came up with the following.

Change Empowered AM to the following.

Empowered Arcane
Your Arcane Missiles spell gains an additional 25% of your spell damage
Your Arcane Blast spell gains an additional 8% of your spell damage.

(The increased mana usage removed)

After running the modifcation through Vontre's spreadsheet...the numbers are coming pretty close to deep fire and frost using both a 3xab, 1xam, 1xscorch and a 3xab, 2xfireball rotations. It would also greatly help with that mana issues.

(This is assuming the 2t5 bonus is removed)
#673SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vianine
I was reading about the mystery hit for frostbolt so I went back to the WWS for my last three Al'ar attmpts and the numbers were indeed off. I did these attempts with 132 hit rating and no shaman. Basically I had the gear in my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

Vianine - WWS
Attempt 1: 149 frostbolts, 1 resist, 99.3% hit rate.

Vianine - WWS
Attempt 2: 221 frostbolts, 2 resists. 99.1% hit rate.

Vianine - WWS
Attempt 3: 93 frostbolts, 1 resist, 98.9% hit rate.


all together 463 frostbolts, 4 resists, 99.1% hit rate (the cap essentially.)

This says I'm at or above the hit cap even with only 132 hit rating, even though I should be getting a 96.46% hit rate instead of the 99.1% I am getting.
#674SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Antoine
If this is true with frostbolts getting mystery hit, and it's also true that hit beyond the cap mitigates partial resists that get turned into full resists because frostbolt is binary, would that make any hit rating between 130ish and 162ish completely useless for frost?
#675SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Grai
Originally Posted by Antoine View Post
If this is true with frostbolts getting mystery hit, and it's also true that hit beyond the cap mitigates partial resists that get turned into full resists because frostbolt is binary, would that make any hit rating between 130ish and 162ish completely useless for frost?
Yes, if this was the case frost mages could potentially re-gem their PvE boss sets to gear toward more Spell Dam and would be able to avoid spell hit in some slots and on some items (trinket slots come to mind) as they wouldn't need as much hit to be at the cap.

It's important to note that although we've seen a lot of evidence in this thread, this theory has not been proven to an extent that people are generally accepting it yet. It is still seemingly being conceived of as a bug at best. Similarly I doubt that even if this was intended, and if frost mages began gearing with it in mind, that frost would be able to outdo fire with the small gem and item changes it would inevitably benefit from.

However, this could potentially give Frost an advantage over Fire in early PvE due to spell hit on early Blue quality items potentially being hard to come by.
#676SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
refuse
Regarding elemental precision

I did some empirical testing over the weekend and think the data is pretty conclusive
Elemental precision is bugged and it gives Frostbolt 3% extra hit (but not Fireball).

Data~
All tests were done with a level 65 character shooting rank 1 spells at Dr Boom with zero hit rating from gear.
(recount screen shots can be provided in case anyone cares to check for clerical errors, although i awesomely forgot to get one of test 3)

1. frostbolt - no talents
hits 3948
crits 195
resists 869
miss 17.3%

1b. frostbolt - 35 assorted filler frost talents
hits 2040
crits 65
resists 442
miss 17.4%

2. frostbolt - +5 empowered
hits 2096
crits 202
reists 496
miss 17.8%

3. frostbolt - +5 empowered +3 precision
hits 15915
crits 1495
resists 2192
miss 11.2%

3b. frostbolt - +5 empowered +3 precision +5 winters chill
hits 3725
crits 940
resists 544
miss 10.4%

4. fireball - no talent points
hits 4249
crits 136
resists 890
miss 16.9%

5. fireball - +3 precision
hits 4924
crits 184
resists 833
miss 14%

I think this pretty much speaks for itself.


While looking at my data i found two other things worth mentioning.
During tests 2, 3 and 3b i recorded the immune to frostbite messages and found that the proc rate was above 15% in each of the tests by ~1.5% each time.
Combining the 3 tests for frostbite relevant data gives...

total casts 27605
total connects (hit + crit) 24373
frostbite procs 4015
procs/connects 16.5%

I dont know anything about what is a reasonable amount of variation in this size of sample, but it seemed pretty odd.


Also perhaps even more interesting than the elemental precision results were the crit results.
Unfortunately i didnt control for crit, so the data is not very good.

In every test my observed crit rating was 0.5-2% smaller than expected.
In the tests where i had talent points providing +crit the observed was ~90% of the expected number, and in the tests where i had no +crit talents ~75% the expected.

This suggests to me that either my sample was far too small, dr boom was reducing my crits by a set value, or the character tooltip is faulty.

For anyone who may want to look at the data themselves...

1.
hits 3948
crits 195
6.57% character screen crit
0% from talents
4.71% observed

1b.
hits 2040
crits 65
4.25% character screen crit
0% from talents
3.09% observed

2.
hits 2096
crits 202
4.25% character screen crit
5% from talents
8.79% observed

3.
hits 15915
crits 1495
4.25% character screen crit
5% from talents
8.59% observed

4.
hits 4924
crits 136
4.25% character screen crit
0% from talents
3.6% observed

5.
hits 4248
crits 184
4.25% character screen crit
0% from talents
3.1% observed

*3b.
hits 3725
crits 940
6.57% character screen crit
15% from talents
20.15% observed

*This set involved some winters chill ramp ups and the character screen crit possibly dropped as low as 5.37% due to gear breakage. I believe that there were only 2 winters chill ramp ups and that the crit loss due to gear breakage affected 0-5% of the casts, however that is only my educated guess and this set is undeniably tainted~

Last edited by refuse : 11/06/07 at 2:19 PM. Reason: typo
#677SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Refuse: great work. A couple things though...

1) Without a test for Ice Lance, we may never know if this is a Frost-wide bug, or merely a Frostbolt bug. Since Fire has no binary nukes, we will definitely never know if this is a Frostbolt bug or a binary nuke bug, should Ice Lance get no benefit, unless someone's masochistic enough to cast some Frost-based AoE.

2) The crit data does suggest crit decay against higher level mobs, as has been suspected. I don't think your samples were too small--the differences are large compared to the standard deviation.
#678SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ReignConfused
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
I realize the distinction. I was only saying that Pyroblast spam is not justified at the infinite gear level, as it does not scale well by either definition.
I'm not sure who figured the exact amount of haste rating to make it scale better. But as long as we are arguing "infinite gear level" Pyroblast is the single best scaling spell in the game.


Edit: I found it in Vontre's Sig (I knew I saw it before!)

<manly>: pyroblast spam is viable with 3140 passive haste rating

So as long as we are arguing infinite gear level, yes Pyroblast scales better than every other mage spell in the game.

Last edited by ReignConfused : 11/06/07 at 12:55 AM.
#679SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
that was more of a joke than anything else. 3140 spell haste will make your pyroblast 1.5s cast time.
#680SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
I'm not sure who figured the exact amount of haste rating to make it scale better. But as long as we are arguing "infinite gear level" Pyroblast is the single best scaling spell in the game.


Edit: I found it in Vontre's Sig (I knew I saw it before!)

<manly>: pyroblast spam is viable with 3140 passive haste rating

So as long as we are arguing infinite gear level, yes Pyroblast scales better than every other mage spell in the game.
Joke or not, that's more indicative of the flaw in spell haste's design than any intrinsic advantage of Pyroblast.
#681SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zalbo
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
1) Since Fire has no binary nukes, we will definitely never know if this is a Frostbolt bug or a binary nuke bug, should Ice Lance get no benefit, unless someone's masochistic enough to cast some Frost-based AoE.
Blastwave is binary i believe, not that it's at all practical to test that.
Blizzard isn't binary, and hits every second, so you could test that even quicker than ice lance (assuming AOEs are effected the same)
#682SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Zalbo View Post
Blastwave is binary i believe, not that it's at all practical to test that.
Blizzard isn't binary, and hits every second, so you could test that even quicker than ice lance (assuming AOEs are effected the same)
Good catch! Blast Wave would be a nightmare to test, though, yeah. Flamestrike, perhaps?

Blizzard wouldn't be too bad. Indeed, for Refuse to use the same toon, he'd have little choice: no Ice Lance at level 65.
#683SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Refuse:

Fantastic statistical analysis. At last someone had the patience to do hours upon hours of accurately presented data. Kudos and excellence for proving conclusively that we're getting 3% extra hit, and that it's from Ele Pre and not from any other baloney source we thought it was.
#684SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Leialyn
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
... we're getting 3% extra hit, and that it's from Ele Pre and not from any other baloney source we thought it was.
Humn, so they just "forgot" to "nerf" it for frost when it was reduced from 6% hit to 3% hit or is this something with binary spells...
Yep Muphrid, we could really need Ice Lance tests

Last edited by Leialyn : 11/06/07 at 9:06 AM.
#685SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Fizzl
Refuse, was this tested on PTR?

Im wondering blizzard going to stealth fix this without tell us or if they think this is how it should work.
#686SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Guaicow
Can anyone point me a thread that shows how much haste and crit is worth compared to +dmg?
Iv'e seen ppl say that 1crit rating is worth 0.65dmg, is this right? How is haste compared to +dmg and crit?
Sorry about bringing such a OT matter, i've used the search function with no luck and math was never my strenght.
Thanks in advance
#687SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Fizzle: Blizz hasn't fixed it since before BC when elemental precision became 3% rather than 6% (because: mage dmg = zomg as we all know) what makes you think they'll fix it now? Other than the possibility some blizz CM is reading EJ forums that is.

guaicow: the relative value of hit, crit, haste and damage constantly varies depending on:

1) How much of each one you have (including consumables)
2) What spell/rotation you're using
3) What spec you are
4) What debuffs are on the boss

There is no quick and easy response. It is quite complex. Rule of thumb is that crit is generally worth 0.7 damage, which is reasonably accurate in any spec. Barring the new CSD meta gem, crit has never been close to equal with +dmg.

Haste is a little more complex as it depends more heavily on the spell you're using than the other factors. I have found it is generally safe to assume 1 haste is between 0.8 and 1.1 dmg, depending.

Irrespective of anything of course, it is always optimal to stack +Hit till you're capped.

Remember that haste will not affect DPM at all, but it will affect MPS (mana per second) consumption, giving haste the added negative side effect of costing you in terms of resource, something which no other buff is affected by (appart from crit rating when specced elemental mastery, but even then the MPS and DPM change for 1Crit is negligible).

If you don't want to go whole-hog and start playing with Vontre's spreadsheet, then perhaps Lhivera's TC will be more helpful; given spec, conditions and gear it'll output the item equivalences for a given cycle which should help give you a ball-park figure:
Lhivera's Theorycraft Script
#688SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Guaicow
Very educational, thanks a bunch.
You brought up an intresting aspect of crit tho: the new meta.
I wonder how is crit going to be valued compared to dmg when using this meta, anyone run the numbers yet?
#689SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Fizzl
That's quite interesting. Being able to drop 39 points of hit and get 48 points of damage (assuming 4 +10 hit gems were switched with +12 damage gems) that means i'd be doing slightly more DPS as raid frost than as raid fire based on by Lhivera's Theorycraft-o-Matic (love this site) and my own gear.

Thanks EJ forums :D

Now back to choosing which bit of hardware to get that will spam frostbolt 1000 times a second ;)
#690SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Being able to drop 39 points of hit and get 48 points of damage (assuming 4 +10 hit gems were switched with +12 damage gems)
Of course, it's absurdly impossible to actually make a gear combination that will do this. Nobody is gemming for hit at the T6 gear level.
#691SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Muphrid
Originally Posted by Guaicow View Post
Can anyone point me a thread that shows how much haste and crit is worth compared to +dmg?
Iv'e seen ppl say that 1crit rating is worth 0.65dmg, is this right? How is haste compared to +dmg and crit?
Sorry about bringing such a OT matter, i've used the search function with no luck and math was never my strenght.
Thanks in advance
Lhivera's tool is great, but for pencil-and-paper theorycrafting, the equivalence between +damage, +crit, and +haste can be expressed with a formula.

+1 spell haste rating = 1/1577*(m/r+d)/(1+z) +damage = 2208/1577*(1/b+c)/(1+z) +crit rating

m = average base damage
r = +damage coefficient
d = +damage
z = haste (as a decimal)
b = crit bonus
c = crit (as a decimal)

Last edited by Muphrid : 11/06/07 at 10:22 AM.
#692SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Myrdinn
Frost is looking interesting but a lot depend on WE uptime.
Without pet, Vontre sheet give me "only" 1100 dps with my gear, and 1300 dps with fire.

We are only starting Hyjal/BT, but friends told me there is no way a WE could stay alive in Hyjal/BT fights...

Is that true ? or simply a "lack" of pet skills ?
#693SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Your pet could die on every boss except for Kaz'rogal (unless the pet can blow up from running out of mana) in Hyjal. Rage and archimonde aren't quite as hard on the pet.

I can only say up to RoS for BT. You should be ok for every fight except for Teron.

That's really the number 1 issue with Frost right now. Your water elemental needs to stay alive to do competive damage.
#694SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Fizzl
Is that true ? or simply a "lack" of pet skills ?
Lack of pet skills i think, though i've only done 4 in hyjal, 2 in BT so far.
I pop the pet just after the boss has done his big effect and it will usually survive its entire duration. You also need to be ready to tell him to follow you since hes flimsey and will need to move just like everyone else if there is an effect on the ground.

Ice block was very nice to have on the first BT boss
#695SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Belvedere
As long as we're on the topic of spell hit rating, could someone confirm my math on desirable +spell hit? I think I've got it right, but none of the analyses I've read explicitly address the Draenei racial. Am I right in thinking that my goal for +spell hit would be 113, if I'm a Draenei and deep frost?

(16% - 3% for precision, -1% for Draenei racial, -3% for precision+Frostbolt = 9% required. 9*12.6=~113.)
#696SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Fizzl View Post
That's quite interesting. Being able to drop 39 points of hit and get 48 points of damage (assuming 4 +10 hit gems were switched with +12 damage gems) that means i'd be doing slightly more DPS as raid frost than as raid fire based on by Lhivera's Theorycraft-o-Matic (love this site) and my own gear.

Thanks EJ forums

Now back to choosing which bit of hardware to get that will spam frostbolt 1000 times a second

1) Don't get a G15 just to do the spam cast thing, it has been proven that it will cause a GCD to come up. Blizz has found this out and are introducing this to combat hardware-solutions like G15.

2) Nobody ever equips 10hit

3) If you're frost, untill Blizz comes up with "Elemental Precision: now this is WAI and won't give 6% to frostbolt" you don't need 164hit, you only need circa 126.

4) Don't trust Lhivera to guarantee your pet will look lively. Look once at the "frostbolt+waterbolt averaged" and three times at "frostbolt"value. Then do the same and reduce both numbers by 10% for spell pushback. Then think: Worst case scenario for fire, will be perhaps 1200dps. worst case scenario for forst will be 850dps. and decide if you can live with frost.

Note: Numbers were plucked at almost random. But an interrupted, pet-dead frost is indeed a dire sight to behold.
#697SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
Originally Posted by refuse View Post
While looking at my data i found two other things worth mentioning.
During tests 2, 3 and 3b i recorded the immune to frostbite messages and found that the proc rate was above 15% in each of the tests by ~1.5% each time.
Combining the 3 tests for frostbite relevant data gives...

total casts 27605
total connects (hit + crit) 24373
frostbite procs 4015
procs/connects 16.5%

Also perhaps even more interesting than the elemental precision results were the crit results.
Unfortunately i didnt control for crit, so the data is not very good.

In every test my observed crit rating was 0.5-2% smaller than expected.
In the tests where i had talent points providing +crit the observed was ~90% of the expected number, and in the tests where i had no +crit talents ~75% the expected.

This suggests to me that either my sample was far too small, dr boom was reducing my crits by a set value, or the character tooltip is faulty.
I copied the numbers to a excel sheet to check the difference between 2 and 1 roll system for the crits but some numbers seem a bit strange:
-Number of fireball crits in tests 4 and 5 seem to be switched between top and bottom of post.
-I don't get your number of 27605 casts for frostbite test, wich values are you adding here?
-If you say 3948 hits, 195 crits and 869 resits you mean a total number of 5012 (hits+crits+resists) casts and 4143 (hits+crits) spells landed right?
#698SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Fizzl
OK back to pressing in the red zone

I have 1!(+10 hit gem) but it would still work 8 hit vs 9 damage gems.

Im frost because i like being frost :P

Frost bolt + WE average '1,174.13'
Frost bolt spam '1,047.22'

I can live with that, its not as if my WE dies alot, i've been playing with it since it was release so would consider myself to be an advanced WE user

.. what is spell push back?
#699SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3koetjeka
.. what is spell push back?
Spell pushback occurs when you cast a spell and get hit by some enemy. Every hit you receive will increase your casting time by 0,2 seconds or so, when looking at your castbar you will notice a "pushback".
#700SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Great work, Refuse!

Now the question for me that pops up is; Would it be plausible that frost and binary spells in general are getting double the benefit of hit% from all sources from a coding glitch with binary spells rather than just pointing the finger at elemental precision?

It may be unlikely but it is worth the effort to know for sure that it is undoubtedly the talent giving the bonus hit% and not a binary-spell bug.
#701SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by koetjeka View Post
Spell pushback occurs when you cast a spell and get hit by some enemy. Every hit you receive will increase your casting time by 0,2 seconds or so, when looking at your castbar you will notice a "pushback".
It's actually a full second on the first hit.
#702SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
Great work, Refuse!

Now the question for me that pops up is; Would it be plausible that frost and binary spells in general are getting double the benefit of hit% from all sources from a coding glitch with binary spells rather than just pointing the finger at elemental precision?

It may be unlikely but it is worth the effort to know for sure that it is undoubtedly the talent giving the bonus hit% and not a binary-spell bug.
No, it would seem that EP is at work here, as the baseline Frostbolt with no talents saw no hit chance increase.

Whether this EP bug would apply to all binary spells (and not just Frostbolt) is a valid question, but it's definitely EP.
#703SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Evalara
Originally Posted by Zalbo View Post
Blastwave is binary i believe, not that it's at all practical to test that.
Blizzard isn't binary, and hits every second, so you could test that even quicker than ice lance (assuming AOEs are effected the same)
As far as I know Blizzard cannot be resisted at all.

Naturally if anyone has a disproving screenshot I'd love to see it!
#704SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vand1
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
No, it would seem that EP is at work here, as the baseline Frostbolt with no talents saw no hit chance increase.

Whether this EP bug would apply to all binary spells (and not just Frostbolt) is a valid question, but it's definitely EP.
I think the point that Qbert was making, and it seems a valid one, is whether frostbolt receives double benefit from anything that increases hit. EP is the only thing that refuse tested for that increases chance to hit, and he proved that it provided a double benefit. What you cannot determine from his data alone is whether other sources of +hit would behave similarly with frostbost. Would being grouped with a Draenei give frostbolts +2% to hit, for example? Or would a +hit gem give double benefit?

As I said, you cannot determine those answers from refuse's data alone. However, I believe we have seen other information that shows that frostbolts have a total extra +3% hit, regardless of the total value of a player's +hit. If other things were also giving a double benefit, frostbolts would be hit capped at ~100 +hit, and I am pretty sure we have enough information to conclude that that is not the case.
#705SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
refuse
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
I copied the numbers to a excel sheet to check the difference between 2 and 1 roll system for the crits but some numbers seem a bit strange:
-Number of fireball crits in tests 4 and 5 seem to be switched between top and bottom of post.
-I don't get your number of 27605 casts for frostbite test, wich values are you adding here?
-If you say 3948 hits, 195 crits and 869 resits you mean a total number of 5012 (hits+crits+resists) casts and 4143 (hits+crits) spells landed right?
Thanks for the catch, they were indeed transposed (although the listed percentage was still the correct one)

3948 hits, 195 crits and 869 resists = 5012 spells were cast and 4143 of them landed, yes.

For the frostbite blurb i added up values from tests 2, 3 and 3b which were the ones i recorded frostbite procs on (1b also had them but i forgot to record)
The combined casts in those three sets (hit crit or miss) was 27605,
The combined connects (hit or crit) were 24373.
The combined number of frostbite procs were 4015.
specifically...
2. frostbite immune messages 374
3. frostbite immune messages 2866
3b. frostbite immune messages 775

Fizzl: These tests were done on a live server

As to testing fire binary spells or frost non binary ones, it might be fun to know, but i dont think it would have any practical use (for me). Regardless of the outcome of the tests i would play/gear/spec my character in the exact same way. If blizzard were to introduce a non binary frost spell i actually wanted to shoot at a +3 mob, or an additional +hit talent that affected frostbolt i would definitely want to test that.

edit: Vand makes a good point. Ive copied my character to the ptr so if anyone with a horde shaman wants to coordinate a test with me via pm id be willing to put in another 5k casts with totem of wrath.

Last edited by refuse : 11/06/07 at 7:56 PM.
#706SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Frenzi
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
It's actually a full second on the first hit.
That isn't strictly true, it varies dependent on how far through the cast you are, so it won't always be a full second the first time you get hit.
#707SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Frenzi makes a good point: Does anyone have data on how spell pushback works? I've seen it push 1.0sec, 0.6 and 0.2sec judging by the readout on OCB but I've never seen a conclusive patter as to what pushback is assigned and whether it's related to where the cast bar is relative to the total cast.
#708SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Myrdinn
I think too its a full 1sec pushback.
But, you can not go below 0s

If you are pushbacked @ 0.5sec cast, you will only loose 0.5s total.
#709SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Stirius
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
how spell pushback works?
wowwiki says this (no idea if this is correct):
The first attack will set your casting time back by 1 sec. Any consequent attack will set it back by a lower amount. The amount decreases by 0.2 sec with every attack, down to a minimum of 0.2 sec per attack. However, no attack will actually increase the casting time. For example if you cast only 0.2 sec. of a spell, it would only be set back by that amount.
#710SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Aluscia
As a quick addition to this conversation (ignore the title): WoW Forums -> Season 3 Start Date
We now have a date (albeit tentative) for 2.3, which gives me a little bit of concern because I'm not even close to regearing to go back to fire or frost.

So, for Arcane Missile spammers like me, what spec is really dealing more damage? Also, have we looked at the TPS side of things in any of these calculations? If you are threat-capped using fire, would it not be possible to out damage (not DPS) fire using arcane, thus making it more optimal? I heard mutterings of this from mages in Drow, and was curious as to what others thought about it.
#711SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Ask yourself how often you'd be threat-capped. Then ask yourself, during these rare occasions, would you really care that you can output a little more via DPS time while you'd be idling in fire. Personally I doubt it; speccing 200 less dps so you can once in a while not have to wait for a few seconds is an excercise in feutility: If the threat margin is such a huge problem for you, press Invisibility and wait for 5 seconds.

There is still the potential to do 2xT5 ABx3,AM,Sc rotations of yesteryear if you're so low on hitrate you can't even think about frost/fire, but I'd urge you to consider frost as at least a stop-gap if it's not your thing: We have proven recently in this thread frostbolt is getting 3% extra hit from Ele. Pre. making a much more achievable hit cap of 126 (or so) rather than 164.

If I were you, I'd beg borrow and steal my way to enough hit for fire and never look back on the clearly broken arcane spec, even though we enjoyed a brief respite from it's uselessness in the form of the gimmick 2.2 AM spam.
#712SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Sorry for the slight stray from the discussion, but I just had a quick question that I couldn't find the answer for anywhere else;

With the changes to Evocation making it a power gain in 2.3, will this also make the mana gained generate threat per mana?

This could factor into encounters like Vash'j where a mob could spawn near you mid-Evoc. I've had mana gems and potions get me killed in the same circumstances.
#713SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Qbert : I don't understand what "making it a power gain" means.

Mana gain generates threat as of day 1 of wow. The amount of threat is (mana gained)/4.

I have pulled aggro on Leotheras during transitions with manastones, in Onyxia with mana pots and I've seen a hunter pull aggro on Hydros transition by drinking water OOC due to a revive-pet/FD.

I don't get what you mean "power gain" but it sure as hell will make mobs hate you, though an insignifficantly small amount. It only becomes an issue when generating mana on 0 aggro mobs, and even then a tank should sort it out faster than you can get hit.
#714SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Maledict
What he's referring to is the fact that currently Evocation generates 0 threat - it is counted as our normal spirit based mana regen, only boosted.

In 2.3, it now counts as a mana gain in the same nature as mana potions, so will raise your threat level accordingly on bosses, and will generate threat on newly spawned mobs such as striders on Vashj etc. I would also expect a few nasty deaths on Leo or Hydross when the aggro wipe happens and a mage is evocating...
#715SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
Evocation is currently just a buff to spirit regeneration. It generates a minor amount of threat, but only for the buff- not for any mana gained. Spirit regen, mana/5 regen from gear, and Blessing of Wisdom regeneration don't generate any threat. The question is if it's still that minor amount of insignificant threat from the buff, or if it's direct mana gained like with drinking a potion or using a mana gem.
#716SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Aluscia View Post
As a quick addition to this conversation (ignore the title): WoW Forums -> Season 3 Start Date
We now have a date (albeit tentative) for 2.3, which gives me a little bit of concern because I'm not even close to regearing to go back to fire or frost.

So, for Arcane Missile spammers like me, what spec is really dealing more damage? Also, have we looked at the TPS side of things in any of these calculations? If you are threat-capped using fire, would it not be possible to out damage (not DPS) fire using arcane, thus making it more optimal? I heard mutterings of this from mages in Drow, and was curious as to what others thought about it.
A mage can't be threat capped unless his invis is down. We haven't had to use it much as arcane...but we're going to need to get used to it again. Also, a tranq air totem can be used at the start of a fight for the tank to get a nice head start on threat.
#717SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
I wasn't aware that spirit-based regen didn't cause threat. Perhaps test this by grouping on PTR, having someone else body-pull a mob and 1xmelee hitting it for something around 300-400 dmg. This should be sufficient aggro to be more than "buff gain" aggro but less than the aggro generated from one tic of evocate. Activate Evo and see if the critter switches to you.

As a control, you can also do the same but down a superior manapot (or whichever is equivalent in mana-generation terms) instead, to make sure it's a valid idea.
#718SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3chase
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Qbert : I don't understand what "making it a power gain" means.

Mana gain generates threat as of day 1 of wow. The amount of threat is (mana gained)/4.
Mana gained via BoW, innervate, and evoc generate 0 threat.* However, outside sources such as mana/health pots will be seen.

Now something like VT generates threat as .5 mana is 1 threat or mana gained/2, same as healing.

From Omen:
self.ThreatConstants = {
		healing = 0.5,
		meleeAggroGain = 1.1,
		rangeAggroGain = 1.3,
		rageGain = 5.0,
		energyGain = 5.0,
		manaGain = 0.5,
In those rare cases where you have mob spawns in random locations on random timers, then yes you may have to be carefull on when you evoc.

*BoW giving threat to the paladin was funny stuff when it worked that way.

edit: Apparently I'm very slow.
#719SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Power gains are like heals and are 0.5 threat right?

Given a 10k mana pool, @ 0.5 threat evoc would be equivalent to 3k arcane damage, @ 1.0 threat it would be 6k arcane damage.

Over 8 seconds the former is equivalent to 375 arcane DPS while the latter is 750 arcane DPS.

Without arcane subtlety an evocation could be a substantial amount of threat if the threat gain is 1.0 threat per mana gained. Granted the threat is dispersed amongst active targets in combat with you.
#720SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I'm really not sure why people are concerned with the threat from evocation. Healers are going to be generating much more global threat than evocating mages...and it's going to be less TPS than actually dpsing the primary target with fire or frost. If you're worried about picking up a freshly spawned mob on the vashj fight from evocation...your healers are screwed already.
#721SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Well it definitely does have an effect on game play. I normally plan on evocating during transitions or when aggro gets touchy and now that won't really work.


I really feel sorry for mages leveling up with the new version of evocate since the aggro from it will actually be stronger then what they will be generating with their AE spells.

Just posted a thread about it on the Mage forums.

"Level 50 mage with a 5k mana pool will generate 187.5 threat per second to all aggroed mobs. That level 50 mage if they had 150 spell damage would only generate 169.67 threat per second with Arcane Explosion spam. If they had no additional spell damage then they only would generate 129.33 threat per second with AE spam."
#722SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
If I recall correctly, non-targeted threat (healing etc.) is divided by the number of mobs that are on that person's aggro list.

My main question is if Evocation's threat is changed by Arcane Subtlety.
#723SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I'm really not sure why people are concerned with the threat from evocation. Healers are going to be generating much more global threat than evocating mages...and it's going to be less TPS than actually dpsing the primary target with fire or frost. If you're worried about picking up a freshly spawned mob on the vashj fight from evocation...your healers are screwed already.
It most definately has an effect on gameplay involving mid-encounter spawns. I usually try to evocate during the downtime like when new spawns are having threat established by tanks..... but if this means that 2 ticks of evocate is on par with popping a super mana potion, it certainly can be a bad thing if the spawn is nearby and your evoc ticks as it spawns.

Note that there is such thing as proximity aggro not to mention that a healer needs to outheal your mana gain by 20% if the spawn is in melee range at the time. Simply put; popping mana gems has gotten me killed, no reason evoc wouldn't if it generates mana-gain threat in 2.3.
#724SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
I suppose it could get a little tricky in transition phases where little to no healing is done...such as hydross. Personally i only use evocation as a last ditch effort to regain mana and never plan to use it ahead of time.

If they were to ever fix the basic problem with evocation, then it would be a much larger issue. My problem with evocation is that it's channeled. You can't be hit and you can't dps...there for it's crap in arenas and not always viable in raiding. If they were to make it a tempory buff (much like innervate) then it would be much more useful. Mages would be able to use it in arenas (helping with the large issue of mana) and be able to increase their dps in raiding.

If it were to ever go to this type of spell...an extra few hundred TPS while using arcane explosion in hyjal could cause issues.



I beileve healing threat is just .5xheal to all targets around...not dependant on how many.
#725SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post

I beileve healing threat is just .5xheal to all targets around...not dependant on how many.
4) AOE Threat: Healing, Buffing, Power Gain
Each point of healing causes 0.5 threat, forgetting threat modifiers. Overhealing doesn't cause threat. Most buff spells cast on friendly players generate a small amount of threat. Gaining Power (Mana / Energy / Rage) also causes threat in most cases, for example taking a healing potion, or gaining rage from Bloodrage, or Energy from Thistle Tea. Certain spells are exempt, for example mana from Blessing of Wisdom or a Mana Spring totem doesnt cause threat, and there is no threat from the healing gained from Siphon Life. For normal abilities, each point of Mana is 0.5 threat, Rage is 5 threat, and Energy is unknown, probably 5. In the scheme of things, threat from power gain is usually irrelevant, unless you have consistent or burst values, such as taking a mana potion or having Fel Energy running.

These forms of buffs all have infinite range; they will cause threat to all mobs on whose threat list you are on. Furthermore, the threat caused is split equally among all the affected mobs. If you are on one mobs threat list, a 1000 point heal will cause 500 threat to that mob. If 5 mobs are aware of you, the same heal will cause 100 threat on each mob.

Note that threat caused from Power Gain is not affected by threat modifiers. Gaining 1 point of Rage will give 5 threat whether you are in Battle Stance or Defensive Stance.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9258-kenco_guide_threat/

---

And it turns out that thread contains the answer to my question in regards to Arcane Subtlety.
#726SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
It most definately has an effect on gameplay involving mid-encounter spawns. I usually try to evocate during the downtime like when new spawns are having threat established by tanks..... but if this means that 2 ticks of evocate is on par with popping a super mana potion, it certainly can be a bad thing if the spawn is nearby and your evoc ticks as it spawns.
My point is that healers are already going to be pulling it over you. I'm thinking of the vashj fight when I say this. I've seen the elites/striders go after healers multiple times until we formed a strategy to combat this. I've never had one come to me by popping a mana pot and i do it every time in that phase.

The same thing goes for morogrim. We already have a healer pulling agro over other healers...i dont' see evocation threat pulling over him.

But as i said above...this could cause issues with agro sensitive transitions where low amounts of healing is done.
#727SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3chase
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
...
I beileve healing threat is just .5xheal to all targets around...not dependant on how many.
Originally Posted by Kenco Threat Guide
These forms of buffs all have infinite range; they will cause threat to all mobs on whose threat list you are on. Furthermore, the threat caused is split equally among all the affected mobs. If you are on one mobs threat list, a 1000 point heal will cause 500 threat to that mob. If 5 mobs are aware of you, the same heal will cause 100 threat on each mob.
http://elitistjerks.com/252471-post1.html
#728SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
kadgar
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
A mage can't be threat capped unless his invis is down. We haven't had to use it much as arcane...but we're going to need to get used to it again. Also, a tranq air totem can be used at the start of a fight for the tank to get a nice head start on threat.
Well, being forced to use a tranq air totem instead of a spell dmg totem is actually the definition of being threat capped.
At Lurker and Al'ar P1 aggro is really a non issue.

For the other fights all mages are effectivly threat capped (as well as all other dd's) at least at the beginning of the fight until you use your invis.
To maximize your dmg you should use your cooldowns (trinkets, destro pot, combustion, AP, etc.) as early as possible so that the cd is ready again as early as possible.

Now every Mage who thinks he isn't threat capped at all, when was the last time you could activate all your cooldowns right after the pull? How long do you have to wait normally until you can use your cd's without pulling aggro?

You can use a few arcane spells at the beginning because you will have sublety specced also as fire mage but that doesn't really solve the problem because you can't do your maximum dps with that wich again means that you are thread capped.

Even being able to start casting 1 sec earlier with a lower thread spell is a dmg advantage. In a short fight this 1 sec could easily be 1% more dmg.


Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
If I recall correctly, non-targeted threat (healing etc.) is divided by the number of mobs that are on that person's aggro list.

My main question is if Evocation's threat is changed by Arcane Subtlety.
Originally Posted by Kenco: A Guide To Threat.
Note that threat caused from Power Gain is not affected by threat modifiers. Gaining 1 point of Rage will give 5 threat whether you are in Battle Stance or Defensive Stance.

Last edited by kadgar : 11/07/07 at 7:48 PM.
#729SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Plankel
I don't know about you, but I can usually start building scorch right after 2-3 seconds and at 6-7 seconds into the fight I pop combustion, the icon and a flame cap. Starting earlier then that has nothing to do with maximizing dps, it's just being dumb. If you tank misses the first few hits even that low threat AM will still pull aggro if the first two pulses crit.

I would argue that arcane is more likely to pull aggro then fire in the first 5 seconds of a fight, given how fire works with ramping up scorch, ignite damage and molten fury, while that first AM can already do it's maximum dps.
#730SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dryssa
Thank fucking god.

Originally Posted by Kalgan
Two things we'll be making improvements to in the near future (although these aren't likely to make it in on time for 2.3) are having iceblock be trainable (to make sure all mages have it as a tool for pve encounters and to open up other trees as being more viable options for pvp), and to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights.
Originally Posted by Kalgan
We do plan to buff mana gems, although I don't see that as a "fix", just an improvement that needs to be made regardless.
#731SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Sadly, 2 things that have no impact on pve as we know it now.

The only impact I could see is frost potentially gaining a new talent to replace ice block.
#732SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Arawethion
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Sadly, 2 things that have no impact on pve as we know it now.

The only impact I could see is frost potentially gaining a new talent to replace ice block.
Sort of sad. I always tried to justify the position of my favorite spec, Deep Frost, in the raid game, and this makes it a lot harder. I know they want Mages to no longer be one-spec wonders in PvP, but it has exactly the opposite effect in PvE.
#733SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
That monster 'Why mages are complaining' thread on the mage forum has certainly played a role in this. I just wish he went into a little more details about other things discussed in the thread (besides mana gems.. lol)
#734SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
Well, having ice block trainable really does make Mages a bit less of a raid-resource hog. It's not something noticeable when you have an encounter already learned but clearing all debuffs/granting self-invulnerability is pretty nice when you are learning something new. The second change might be interesting but it's pretty nebulous for the moment and only time will tell.

I'm away from the game for now but I imagine I'll still follow the magely changes they make. I'm still a little skeptical though to say the least.
#735SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, let's be honest here. I personally give a near zero value to ice block as far as pve is concerned, but I'm pretty die-hard for those matters. One the of things I can definately imagine is that people would spec 11 point into frost for cold snap. (Please, don''t ridicule me if I am totally off-base, I have 1500 rating and literally never entered an arena ) Hell, I could imagine going 2/48/11 for PVE purpose, I am pretty confident I can live without clearcasting.

Again, what will be interesting to see is what new talent will replace the lost ice block. They have to give a redeeming 21pt talent into every tree. It needs a successor.
#736SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Lgs
I think there is little chance of getting that ice block before WotLK. So since the mage trees could be completely different by then, there is really no way to speculate how it will narrow down our pve choices even more. But there is no question it's a good thing for raiding mages...not for the aggro, but for the AE's that always seem to decimate mages. No more PvP gear on Rage, Gurtogg, etc. But you have to admit, Manly, IB is a big deal when learning fights like Archimonde.

For PvP it's the same thing, but less important imo. Frost will still be dominant with it's snares and pet. Plus Cold Snap. The real question is arcane and wth is up with that tree, especially if they make major changes in WotLK.
#737SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3daywalker12
for iceblock to be truely significant in all aspects of the game it would have to have a much shorter CD...not cloak of shadows short..but maybe 2 or 3 min..while moving cold snap deeper in the frost tree. Overall a very positive change , just not quite what i was hoping for( no cast time invis, non channeled evocation, combining mage and molten armor, and few other crazy ideas).
#738SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Redbeard
IB being a defining frost talent I'm a bit saddened by the fact they are making it trainable. There are really two alternatives to the new talent I'm expecting. Either it has something to do with IB - reduce hypothermia, lengthen the effect with 5 secs or shortening it's CD. Perhaps some combination of those.

The other viable talent would be something that adds dps to frost to make it more competitive with fire. Frost would require some additional buffing after the trainable IB anyway.
#739SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3WiPe|Domin
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
Well, being forced to use a tranq air totem instead of a spell dmg totem is actually the definition of being threat capped.
At Lurker and Al'ar P1 aggro is really a non issue.

For the other fights all mages are effectivly threat capped (as well as all other dd's) at least at the beginning of the fight until you use your invis.
To maximize your dmg you should use your cooldowns (trinkets, destro pot, combustion, AP, etc.) as early as possible so that the cd is ready again as early as possible.

Now every Mage who thinks he isn't threat capped at all, when was the last time you could activate all your cooldowns right after the pull? How long do you have to wait normally until you can use your cd's without pulling aggro?

You can use a few arcane spells at the beginning because you will have sublety specced also as fire mage but that doesn't really solve the problem because you can't do your maximum dps with that wich again means that you are thread capped.

Even being able to start casting 1 sec earlier with a lower thread spell is a dmg advantage. In a short fight this 1 sec could easily be 1% more dmg.
This reset i speced fire to check things out before 2.3 and with our best tank tanking i only had to use invis on Bloodboil to stay below offtanks (we use 3 tanks), and i still pulled ~1.4k dps. Rest of the fights threat wasnt an issue and there was no need to use invis. On Teron i was pushing almost 1.8k dps and having a 50k buffer to aggro gain without tranquil totem was a suprise. In the end exept for the fights like Bloodboil your capped only if your tank sucks.
#740SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tempestra
As long as frost receives an equivilent talent to what resto druids received for "giving up" Innervate (see: the awesome-ness that is Swiftmend), I can't see how this is not a great move. Very much looking forward to it.

Frost has enough pvp-related talents (Ice Barrier is arguably just as "un-necessary" for PvE, going with Manly's definition of PvE usefulness) -- frostbite/imp FN/shatter/arctic winds -- that 17/0/44 is still the PvP king. Should the new 21-point talent be something cool (ie, not a passive hypothermia cooldown reduction), frost is only going to become stronger for it.
#741SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
I just spent about 30 minutes playing around with specs that would be viable in PvP and PvE, but the one thing that always stopped me from going deeper into the Frost tree was that 21 point talent spot.

For frost, as 2.3, to be really effective in PvE you need access to Molten Fury in the Fire tree. But the down side to that is you are already deep into the Fire tree and benefit more by going deeper. Then again, that damn 21 point talent could be awesome.

I also did a little playing around with some straight PvP specs, and one thing that kept bugging me was the viability of Dragons Breath, to go for it or not? It is another interrupt, but at the same time, its mana cost is way high compared to other spells.
But this is the one spec which seems interesting now: Mage (23/27/11)
Since mages biggest problem in arena is mana longevity, providing a reduction on Blink, and the passive mana regen is a huge boost, Impact, Blazing speed, all pure awesomeness.

Even with us knowing that Ice Block is now a trainable skill, the one thing that will prevent all theory crafting for the viability of frost in PvE full time is the damper of that 21 point talent hole. But now the options for other PvP builds are really endless.
#742SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
33/28 could potentially make a comeback for the pvp crowd.

Trainable ice block is going to make us flat overpowered for raids. An immunity shield complete with debuff clearing is a big fucking deal even if it doesn't help us make huge numbers. It's likely this won't push through til WotLK though, and things will be completely different.
#743SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Well, considering I doubt I'll be getting COE in 2.3, and as such, not compete on meters, I fail to see how IB would help me a usefull addition to the raid. Swap mage in for decurse/aoe, swap out for other fights.

I never had a need for IB in learning shahraz pre-nerf, or archimonde (even pre nerf). The times it would have made a difference are so few that they simply are hardly worth mentioning.

But then again we have 5+ shaman on archimonde to deal with fear, in addition to WOTF and pvp trinket if all else fails.

Basically I pretty much expect to be back to pre-2.2 dps. I fully expect to see rogue>hunter/lock>mages>* like pre 2.2. We'll see how that goes.
#744SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Trainable ice block is going to make us flat overpowered for raids.
Flat overpowered? That sounds more than a little strong to me, as gaining some survivability when we are the least survivable raiding class doesn't seem like a big deal to me. And I mean that strongly so - Rogues and other melee used to have that crown, but since Blizzard decided to design most encounters with random targeted abilities that either hit everyone, or hit everyone but melee, and remove melee-range dangers almost entirely(at least as long as your tank is facing the mob the right way) plus give Rogues Cloak of Shadows, I really haven't much seen what's so great about Mages in raids.

Since stamina has become a key raiding stat, Mages have needed a survivability boost, because Blizzard is clearly unwilling to let us be cannons(warlocks and hunters compete with us with CoE, outdamage without, and Rogues outdps us entirely), it is entirely unreasonable to expect us to be glass as well.
#745SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Well your raids are run a lot better than most. You are able to deal with CoR on a lot of bosses that some guilds barely do with no CoR. Two warlocks, CoE/CoR to normal curses. But since a lot of guilds run with no use of CoR, it allows for a lot of mages to make full use of Fire. Should bring a third lock for the use of CoE, health/soul stones, and good damage, if it is possible.

But with Ice Block, you will be able to take more chances you couldn't in the past.
#746SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
It does solve the problem of mages realistically not being able to healthstone in PvE (and god there's times i wish i didn't). But atm the choice is go oom on semi-long fights and wand (because you don't pop your mana gems and have to go to a worse trinket than braid), or pop gems on cooldown and pray you don't need to pop your healthstone.

Long overdue change, i was expecting this or taking mana gems off conjured timer.

On a side note, do mages still want spirit on their gear in sunwell? (Personally i've always wanted it off, but i know there's some die-hard fans out there)
#747SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
spiderella
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Well your raids are run a lot better than most. You are able to deal with CoR on a lot of bosses that some guilds barely do with no CoR. Two warlocks, CoE/CoR to normal curses. But since a lot of guilds run with no use of CoR, it allows for a lot of mages to make full use of Fire. Should bring a third lock for the use of CoE, health/soul stones, and good damage, if it is possible.

But with Ice Block, you will be able to take more chances you couldn't in the past.
Not using CoR doesn't imply that CoE should be used. For a lot of reasons, one should bring a third lock, and a forth or fifth one to replace a couple mages.

As a mage and a raid leader I can absolutely confirm what Manly and others have mentioned or alluded to several times in EJ threads. To min/max the raid it's hard to justify more than one or two mages.

Last edited by spiderella : 11/08/07 at 7:05 AM. Reason: punctuation
#748SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Searix, with spirit not affecting evo, and with JoW/spriest/newly-buffed-manaspring, the case of both Arc. Meditation talent and Mage Armor making spirit viable is starting to wane... Given that we're not talking arcane (and I think it's safe to say that in 2.3 we aren't) I don't see any possibility that mages can't keep up with any length of fight's mana intensity.

Long story short, while I am a spirit fan, and I deffinitely loved telling my raid setup that I can be grouped with anything because I'm mana sufficient of my own accord, spirit is rapidly becoming pointless until we see what's in store for it in the future. We do know Spi will get a massive work-over, but we don't know what or when.

Let's just hope it's worth the wait
#749SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Amarilia
I liked spirit when I was at the T5 level of gear. The difference between a 6k or a 10-11k evocation made it really worthwhile, imo.
With the recent changes to evocation, I would like to see them change spirit into mp5 since almost no one will run around with mage armor now(unless you don't have a spriest of course).

Although I understand them not doing that, since that would make any choices about what armor to wear for what fight completely irrelevant. Unless they change mage armor mechanics of c...
#750SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
It's really astonishing how underrated IB is from most mages, even in this forum.

So here a small guide to increase your dps with IB.

Most mages say that they can survive the encounters without IB, so IB is not really needed and doesn't helps your dps. While this sounds true at first, it just means, that most mages never really even thought of using IB "offensively" instead of just seeing it as a tool for the "oh shit" moments.

Here is a list of different uses for IB, I don't take T6 bosses as example because I'm not that expirienced with them.
Note: You always loose 1,5 sec gcd when iceblocking, but sometimes you can use this time for positioning. If the effect you want to IB is not instant, but casted you can IB 1,5 sec. before the effect occurs. Then you can cancel IB immediatly after the cast and start dps again instantly because cancelling IB doesn't triggers gcd.
  • Break effects wich make you unable to do anything. You get additional dps time because you break ouf of such effects instantly after you get in. Some of these effects are dispellable by other classes, some are not. Even if dispellable most times you won't get dispelled because dispellers are effected also or have more important things to do / to dispell.
    Some of these effects you can also break with the pvp trinket, but why not euipping a trinket wich actually increases your dmg instead and use IB instead of trinket.
    -Fear,Sheep: Nightbane, Maulgar
    -Stuns: Maiden
    -"Cages": Illhoof, Hydross, Morowgrimm
  • Prevent movements. How much your dmg actually increases depends on if you could also use blink to move and could afford the mana, or if you could do some dmg while moving (icelance, fireblast). And if you would have to move back to your old position if not iceblocked.
    -Aran: arcane explosion
    -VR: if an orb is sent to you, finish your cast, cast another (short) one, IB, wait for immune message ...
    -Solarian: bomb (see 2.3 patchnotes)
    -Al'ar: meteor
    -Vashj: Static Charge
  • Removing debuffs wich lower your dmg / dps.
    -Hydross: Vile Sludge
    -FLK: whirlwind debuff
  • Now something rarely useful, but extremely effective: Change your (personal) tactics for the boss, i. e. choosing positions / doing things wich are to risky for people without IB and help you dps'ing. My example is
    -Leotheras: when he is in human form, go to a smart* position ~ 20m distance and when he WWs don't move, just stand still and continue dps. *A smart position is close enough that you can dps as long as possible when he moves away but standing not in his route to the other people.
    For people without IB it's too risky to stand in such a position and not moving at WW, but you won't have to use your IB cd in most cases too.
    This is the extremly useful component. Not using IB cd, but just beeing able to IB increases your dps.
    ---
  • Removing dots / preventing incoming dmg. Now this doesn't increase your dmg in most cases, but your healer will have some extra time and mana wich he may use with putting a dot on the enemy. Sometimes you'll have to use health stones/pots/bandages wich you could prevent with IB (e. g. Magtheridon 30%)
  • More secure playing. Still the biggest advantage of IB. Even if a lot of mages say that they can easily survive without IB, have you really never ever died on a boss encounter? I mean deaths wich could be prevented with IB.
    I don't believe any mage who kills illidan and says that he never ever had a death wich could possibly have been prevented with IB.
    We assume optimal circumstands in this forum often because we need a compareable basis for calculations, but we play in the real world where execution, attention, gear and so on is not perfect every day. Especially when you are learning new bosses, things go wrong pretty often, this are the situations where IB can prevent your death and a whole wipe.

So you might ask the question how much dmg IB creates. There is no general answer. Some of the effects where you wan't to use IB are on timers and predictable, some are just random. Some hit the whole raid, some only single players or small areas. Sometimes you get not one orb from VR the whole fight, the other day a sequence of 3.

IB isn't worth 10% dmg but 0% is also definately wrong. In short fights even 1 extra fireball/frostbolt is easily 2% more dmg and there is a quite good chance that you can do something like that in most fights at least once.
#751SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, let's be honest here. I personally give a near zero value to ice block as far as pve is concerned, but I'm pretty die-hard for those matters. One the of things I can definately imagine is that people would spec 11 point into frost for cold snap. (Please, don''t ridicule me if I am totally off-base, I have 1500 rating and literally never entered an arena ) Hell, I could imagine going 2/48/11 for PVE purpose, I am pretty confident I can live without clearcasting.

Again, what will be interesting to see is what new talent will replace the lost ice block. They have to give a redeeming 21pt talent into every tree. It needs a successor.

While I agree that some mages will go 11 deep into frost just for cold snap (assuming it stays as an 11 poiinter) ... I just want to clarify that in arenas, the real value of Ice Block isn't the ability to use spell and its characteristics, rather the value lies in preventing the other team from wasting their time attacking you in the first place. The same can be said about Ice Barrier now; the real value isn't so much the damage absorbtion as it is the signal you're telling the other team that you are Frost so 'don't bother targetting me'.

The underlying beauty of Ice Block in arena is the freedom to cast without being hounded and hassled due to the futility of other teams to kill you when you can use it, Due to this nature of the spell, I don't think arena mages will place as much value in cold snap.
#752SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Evalara
Some raids are different. We NEVER run less than 3 mages, and occasionally as many as 5. Our warlocks are terrible and only break the top 5 on AoE fights, whereas our mages are frequently right behind our best rogue. We don't use CoR because our healers are pansies, so we always get CoS/CoE. We never swap classes in and out in the middle of a raid. For us, the changes are going to be Totally Awesome.
#753SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3zurmagus
Originally Posted by Evalara View Post
As far as I know Blizzard cannot be resisted at all.

Naturally if anyone has a disproving screenshot I'd love to see it!
It can definitely be resisted. I've got a screenshot somewhere of my mage at level 40 or dropping a Blizzard on a group of level 48-50 mobs in Maurudon... lots of resist messages.
#754SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
It's really astonishing how underrated IB is from most mages, even in this forum.

Removing dots / preventing incoming dmg. Now this doesn't increase your dmg in most cases, but your healer will have some extra time and mana wich he may use with putting a dot on the enemy.
While I don't advocate the "IB is useless" mentality, I don't think over-enthusiastic pointing to amazing powers of IB is smart; Yes, it's more than an "oh shit" button, and can help you get back on track faster eg, when murlocks are running in and you get a badly-timed watery grave, or even just before mag 30%.

But be serious... You didn't just suggest the priests SW:P since you saved them so much mana, did you?
#755SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Axira
I expect that they're gonna make Ice Block a required skill for some fights from reading that comment. Perhaps they want us to tank some add again in Sunwell or TFT with Ice Block being our only rescue against a certain "once in a pull"-ability of the mob we need to tank... at least that is just my spidersense tingling when I read that blue comment.
#756SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3aznxk3vi17
Originally Posted by zurmagus View Post
It can definitely be resisted. I've got a screenshot somewhere of my mage at level 40 or dropping a Blizzard on a group of level 48-50 mobs in Maurudon... lots of resist messages.
This is not a resist, but a Miss. Blizzard has no resistable part, you either hit it, or you miss, dictated by your hit rating (or in your case, the level difference).
#757SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Iod
Originally Posted by zurmagus View Post
It can definitely be resisted. I've got a screenshot somewhere of my mage at level 40 or dropping a Blizzard on a group of level 48-50 mobs in Maurudon... lots of resist messages.
I couldn't help but laugh at this one.

Even on my 70 mage farming the Sunfury Researchers in Netherstorm I get 'resist' messages popping up in my Blizzards. Must have something to do with hit rating.

Last edited by Iod : 11/08/07 at 11:10 AM. Reason: Didn't think about it hard enough.
#758SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
While I don't advocate the "IB is useless" mentality, I don't think over-enthusiastic pointing to amazing powers of IB is smart; Yes, it's more than an "oh shit" button, and can help you get back on track faster eg, when murlocks are running in and you get a badly-timed watery grave, or even just before mag 30%.

But be serious... You didn't just suggest the priests SW:P since you saved them so much mana, did you?
Compared to the very common meaning that IB is completely useless, even very small amounts of IB power are amazing.
However I still think that IB is the most underrated mage spell actually.
I'd say it's about 2% increased dps averaged over T4 instances.

It's up to you if you want to use IB defensively for the "oh shit" moments (likely for learning / new bosses) or if you want to use is offensively (likely for boring farm content).

About SW:P, I don't know healers that good and if healers really have a lot of spare time you better replace one healer with 1 dps class. Anyway with 2.3 healers will have quite a lot of spell dmg and with IB you can prevent 5k dmg often, sometimes more than 10k, if a healer has the time and mana why not put a SW:P or a MF on the boss?

Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Trainable ice block is going to make us flat overpowered for raids. An immunity shield complete with debuff clearing is a big fucking deal even if it doesn't help us make huge numbers. It's likely this won't push through til WotLK though, and things will be completely different.
I agree that it's a big deal, but not that it makes us overpowered.
Originally Posted by Kalgan
Two things we'll be making improvements to in the near future (although these aren't likely to make it in on time for 2.3) are having iceblock be trainable, ...
WoW Forums -> Hypothermia reduced to 30 seconds again!


It seems that we'll get these changes with 2.4.

Last edited by kadgar : 11/08/07 at 12:06 PM.
#759SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3arch
Yeah the phrasing certainly implies that this will be launched with either 2.3 , 2.4 or possibly a minor patch inbetween 2.3 and 2.4, but I think the reason why most people doubt that it'll go live before WotLK is the fact that they will be under huge pressure to develop a very good replacement for IB in the frost tree.
That, and the possibility for swapping around certain talents in the frost tree, will probably take quite some testing - testing which could be done together with the rest of the WotLK talents.

This is a very nice and needed change. I anticipate cold snap getting slightly buffed and moved to IB's current position.
#760SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
My biggest concern with this change to Ice Block is unless they give a substantial buff to frostbolt with the 21 point talent in frost, frost is really going to be inferior to fire in PVE. I'm really not seeing anything to justify lower dps over a 5 minute fight with the possibility of your pet dying and interrupts...which crushes your dps in comparison to fire. Lets just hope that they dont' add another utility spell to frost in it's place.

However, I still see frost as being the top arena spec. You still have your frost armor. And with the 10% increase to Frostbolt, you're going to see 21% higher crits on a target without resil...although i know you won't see someone with 0 resil in an arena. Shatter mages are going to be pretty powerful. The water elemental is also a much more useful 41 point talent than dragon's breath.
#761SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
kimu
Hi,

Regarding the topic (Mage in 2.3) I would like to hear your oppinion on a Spec/Equip I thought of....with respect to the IB-discussion this might be considered OT but whatever

We are currently working on Illidan and I am thinking a lot about the items I will take (as I am DKP leader this is quite important to me).

Imagine following:

*) frost spec (done in a sec)
*) hitcap (have it already)
*) about 500critrating meaning 40%cirt (including WC) (have it already)
*) spellhaste (wrists, staff, ring, skull) (could take)
*) Ashtongue trinket (have it already )

With this setup you should have the 145haste from the trinket up all the time statistically resulting in ~2,1sec frostbolt spam(without skull being up !!). It is important that you are frost specced in order to have the max number of casts during the trinket-proc-time to make it proc again and that you don't have to recast scortch as you lose dps in waiting for the GCD (and hastetime obviously). If I use it in raids right now it is up a lot but I would need more haste in order to keep it up constantly.

I hope that with this setup I will (at least) reach the dmg of fire and having all the benefits from frost (e.g. less agro)

Do you guys think I can compete with fire ?
This question is more or less influencing what items I take (especially which out of the 5 t-pieces I don't take)

thx - cya

ps: this idea more or less came up when I saw that the ashtongue trinket has no GCD and that it might not be so crappy after all (at least for frost because for fire it is really a waste of the trinket slot)

Last edited by kimu : 11/08/07 at 11:48 AM.
#762SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Guinuvere
I've read through most of the mage posts and haven't been able to find a solid answer on this. With the new Chaotic meta gem, am I better off wearing my T4 helm or Cowl of the Grand Engineer? I am 10/48/3 and plan to stay that way. Lets say that T5 helm is not an option for at least a month. What will maximize my damage?
#763SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by kimu View Post
Hi,

Regarding the topic (Mage in 2.3) I would like to hear your oppinion on a Spec/Equip I thought of....with respect to the IB-discussion this might be considered OT but whatever

We are currently working on Illidan and I am thinking a lot about the items I will take (as I am DKP leader this is quite important to me).

Imagine following:

*) frost spec (done in a sec)
*) hitcap (have it already)
*) about 500critrating meaning 40%cirt (including WC) (have it already)
*) spellhaste (wrists, staff, ring, skull) (could take)
*) Ashtongue trinket (will take anyway )

With this setup you should have the 145haste from the trinket up all the time statistically resulting in ~2,1sec frostbolt spam(without skull being up !!). It is important that you are frost specced in order to have the max number of casts during the trinket-proc-time to make it proc again and that you don't have to recast scortch as you lose dps in waiting for the GCD (and hastetime obviously). If I use it in raids right now it is up a lot but I would need more haste in order to keep it up constantly.

I hope that with this setup I will (at least) reach the dmg of fire and having all the benefits from frost (e.g. less agro)

Do you guys think I can compete with fire ?
This question is more or less influencing what items I take (especially which out of the 5 t-pieces I don't take)

thx - cya

ps: this idea more or less came up when I saw that the ashtongue trinket has no GCD and that it might not be so crappy after all (at least for frost because for fire it is really a waste of the trinket slot)
Your best bet is to pick up vontre's dps spreadsheet and play around with gear there. You'll see what's best for your spec.

In fact everyone who has a gear question should do this. This board is for mage theories and discussion...not "how do i gear a mage"
#764SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Axira
Originally Posted by kimu View Post
Hi,
--
I hope that with this setup I will (at least) reach the dmg of fire and having all the benefits from frost (e.g. less agro)

Do you guys think I can compete with fire ?--
With that gear I'd say: "Yes" at first glance... But your remark about having less aggro but the same damage as fire is rather weird. The real benefit of frost is having more survivability, being able to kite stuff while DPSing it and having none of your extra high critdamage go to waste and rather fast spellcasts, which results in also less DPS-loss in fights that require alot of movement.
#765SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kir
Need to bring dragon's breath's mana cost and cooldown down, nerf it's damage to compensate a bit. But, it's not useful as a control ability really due to it's cooldown, and it's pretty expensive for the damage. It'll never happen though, since they'd have to put CoC on a separate cooldown or bring it's cooldown to match, both of which are unnecessary since CoC is already good.

Alternatively, buff dragon's breath's damage another 10-20% to make the burst fire mage style viable in pvp again. Fire used to be quite decent due to it's burst pre-TBC. Bring that back a bit, would make fire mages tricky to play, but viable in arenas. At least with IB trainable, anyway. IB and blazing speed would let a fire mage stay alive long enough to help burst down the first target to get low. They would likely be one of the first to die afterwards, but as long as they take out an opposing player, it's at least worth it. Anything else is a bonus.

But, this is a PVE thread, so let's talk PVE. I love this change, because it helps in a lot of non-raid situations as well as having some situationally powerful effects in raids. Can't tell you how many times I've died on an encounter, such as Bloodboil, where I had a healing coming but just dropped before they got it off on me. It's definitely not a required talent by any means, but I really like the change. It just gives one of the more fun reasons for speccing frost, to all mages. I won't be quite as bored and frustrated playing a fire spec now. Which, it looks like I'll be stuck doing for a few more bosses (still use some spellfire pieces so I can't switch to frost without wearing even more subpar gear) until Illidan (on RoS now).
#766SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kimu
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Your best bet is to pick up vontre's dps spreadsheet and play around with gear there. You'll see what's best for your spec.
I tried that but I could not get to the point to distinguish between different equip (and that is what my question is about)....I did a lot of theorycrafting myself (with excel sheets ) but at this point I simply don't know if this is really the way to go....from pure numbers this would be totally imba but I doubt that I am the first to think about this use of the trinket....that is why I ask here if anyone has experience with it (and high hasterating with fire/frost) in general

Originally Posted by Axira View Post
With that gear I'd say: "Yes" at first glance... But your remark about having less aggro but the same damage as fire is rather weird. The real benefit of frost is having more survivability, being able to kite stuff while DPSing it and having none of your extra high critdamage go to waste and rather fast spellcasts, which results in also less DPS-loss in fights that require alot of movement.
jes - you are right....I mean everyone is raiding fire with 2.3 I guess but everyone would like to have the goodies from frost....it would be totally awesome if this could work out for me....I think I will give it a shot and spend my points on the staff from illi instead of the sword from archi
#767SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Docjowles
Originally Posted by Guinuvere View Post
I've read through most of the mage posts and haven't been able to find a solid answer on this. With the new Chaotic meta gem, am I better off wearing my T4 helm or Cowl of the Grand Engineer? I am 10/48/3 and plan to stay that way. Lets say that T5 helm is not an option for at least a month. What will maximize my damage?
I'm actually in this same spot, so I ran the numbers through Vontre's spreadsheet (it's a fabulous tool for answering exactly this sort of question, do yourself a favor and download it).

For my personal situation (deep fire, full T4/crafted gear):

Putting an MSD into an empty T4 helm adds about 30 DPS
Putting a CSD into an empty T4 helm adds about 23 DPS
Going from an empty T4 helm to a Cowl gemmed with 3x [Runed Living Ruby] adds about 40 DPS

When I say "empty", I mean no meta gam. I have an [Infused Amethyst] in the blue socket.

From this, I conclude that the Cowl is about a 10 DPS upgrade over T4 with an MSD. It also has the added benefit of letting me replace a couple [Great Dawnstone] with [Runed Living Ruby], which adds another 10 DPS or so.

So unless I screwed something up, it's definitely an upgrade from T4, but not a huge upgrade.

Last edited by Docjowles : 11/08/07 at 11:59 AM. Reason: Formatting
#768SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
Originally Posted by arch View Post
Yeah the phrasing certainly implies that this will be launched with either 2.3 , 2.4 or possibly a minor patch inbetween 2.3 and 2.4, but I think the reason why most people doubt that it'll go live before WotLK is the fact that they will be under huge pressure to develop a very good replacement for IB in the frost tree.
That, and the possibility for swapping around certain talents in the frost tree, will probably take quite some testing - testing which could be done together with the rest of the WotLK talents.
That is you assuming that they descided to make IB trainable just yesterday.
Take into account that they announced the increase of hypothermia duration (and especially the sily reason they stated in the forum: WoW Forums -> Hypothermia pah!) much earlier.
Seeing the whole picture I think they wanted to give us IB trainable in 2.3 but just didn't finish the repalcement talent yet.
Maybe Cold Snap moved to 21 and added a remove hypothermia function to cold snap. So they only have to create a 11 talent.


Originally Posted by Guinuvere View Post
I've read through most of the mage posts and haven't been able to find a solid answer on this. With the new Chaotic meta gem, am I better off wearing my T4 helm or Cowl of the Grand Engineer? I am 10/48/3 and plan to stay that way. Lets say that T5 helm is not an option for at least a month. What will maximize my damage?
Short answer: depends on your crit chance, spell dmg, haste and a couple of other stats.
Long answer: There is a thread for you and such questions: [Mage] Help me please?
#769SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
While I don't advocate the "IB is useless" mentality, I don't think over-enthusiastic pointing to amazing powers of IB is smart; Yes, it's more than an "oh shit" button, and can help you get back on track faster eg, when murlocks are running in and you get a badly-timed watery grave, or even just before mag 30%.

But be serious... You didn't just suggest the priests SW:P since you saved them so much mana, did you?
The usefulness of Ice Block certainly depends on what you are doing imo. When there is only Hyjal/BT farming going on, it's pretty much reduced to a minor dps-boost like kadgar pointed out.

But it's actually more a talent that shines on learning raids, and even then it seems to be rather subtle - of course some people state that "i never needed Ice Block" ... Right, you don't, it's actually the raid healers that benefit from it, when the amount of dmg they have to heal up is prevented/reduced preemtively; stuff like Agonizing Flames on Illidan or simply evading Gurtoggs Fel Rage with Ice Blocking right before. I also can't count the times i saved my life with IB on the good old Mother Sharazh just b/c people were running like headless chickens in our early tries, or at Archimonde, where some guys didn't really understand the "stay around a decurser"-concept at once, and i knew i can run up to wherever they ended up, as IB saves me from anything that could happen. That is not really an issue anymore these days as most people finally know what to do, but i am sure it helped in our learning days.

On a sidenote: i doubt the replacement talent will buff frosts raid-dmg. Getting it on par with fire would make frosts dmg in pvp and solo-pve, and probably even in 5s, a bit too hefty due to Frostbite and esp. Shatter.
#770SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
I'm betting that Blizzard will take the easy way out.

Give Ice Block a 10 minute cooldown as trained and then make the 21 point Frost Talent reduce the cooldown to 5 minutes.

I bet thats all they'll do since, honestly, the whole giving all Mages Ice Block as trainable really seems like an off the cuff change to quiet all the bitching and moaning on the WoW forums.

If they really have been working on it for awhile then I could see them taking a page from the Rogue survival TBC book (cloak of shadows with that amazingly short cooldown) and keep the 5 minute cooldown as trained but then have the 21 point talent reduce the cooldown to 1 or 2 minutes. That way a Frost Mage would have Ice Block available for every fight and would be able to save cold snap for preferential use with the Elemental.

They could even, if they wanted to get fancy, make the 21 point talent allow Frost mages to cast and bandage and evocate while Ice Blocked. Although that one would quickly have people up in arms since a class that could do serious dps while invulnerable would have to be overpowered.....although with Ret Pallies getting dps buffs they already have a class that can do just that so maybe its not that far fetched.


I love the concept and think that it will help a lot. I'm just hoping that the mana regen changes are going to be changing Arcane Med and Mage Armor to give mana/5 based on our Intellect so that they can redo our Tiered gear and change all that useless (in 2.3) Spirit into additional Intellect.
#771SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
If you think about it, it would be quite the ultimate irony if they replace IB with another vital PVP talent. The point of the change is helping non-frost in pvp (which, in my view, will probably not succeed, but hey that's just my opinion). With this said, I don't think they can buff frost damage either. This leaves as possibilities pretty much only a utility talent, which needs to be somewhat novel because all 21pt talents are that way.
#772SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
More I think about it the more I would be willing to bet that the new 21 point talent in the frost tree will be

Improved Ice Block - allows the Mage to cast spells while Ice Blocked.



PvE - doesn't increase Frost Trees specific damage so it would be balanced. Only issue I can see would be that the mage could Ice Block after aggroing a bunch of mobs, Ice Block and then just AoE them all down before it fades. Although Faxmonkey has shown that a really good frost mage can already AoE down just about any size group that can be snared.

PvP - more balanced then you would think since all our heavy damage spells have casting times and Ice Block removes mobility. Would be nice to get people to move themselves out of range when Ice Blocked for fear of damage and then you would have a chance to hit them with a spell when they move back in after it fades.

Even in the Arena it wouldn't be overpowered due to all the line of sight. Think about it, how hard would it really be to move out of LoS or out of Range of an Ice Blocked mage within 4 seconds, which is the minimum amount of time before the mage would be able to do any real targeted damage from within the Ice Block, GCD + Frostbolt casting time.

Last edited by Rounced : 11/08/07 at 1:22 PM.
#773SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3arch
Originally Posted by manly View Post
If you think about it, it would be quite the ultimate irony if they replace IB with another vital PVP talent. The point of the change is helping non-frost in pvp (which, in my view, will probably not succeed, but hey that's just my opinion). With this said, I don't think they can buff frost damage either. This leaves as possibilities pretty much only a utility talent, which needs to be somewhat novel because all 21pt talents are that way.
My point exactly.

They are in a hassle, as they have to come up with something that won't be essential (which you might argue IB is now), yet meaningful and good replacement for ice block - and it can't be extensive additional surviability or (judging by recent testing) any vast dps increases.

The best addition would in my eyes be a anti-casting interruption talent with some other meaningful effect, but this alone will surely not be percieved as a good enough replacement for IB.

Thus this calls for moving around talents in the tree, and/or change the current version of ice block, which in turn makes this seemingly easy change a not so small job. The sort of job you'd rather do alongside developing the rest of the tree for WotLK, and well, we have been living with this for quite some time now.

Oh well, enough with the speculations, Kalgan practically made a promise to get this out "in the near future", but I just dont see that happening.
#774SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
About SW:P, I don't know healers that good and if healers really have a lot of spare time you better replace one healer with 1 dps class. Anyway with 2.3 healers will have quite a lot of spell dmg and with IB you can prevent 5k dmg often, sometimes more than 10k, if a healer has the time and mana why not put a SW:P or a MF on the boss?
Allow me to explain:

A healer's job is to man a gate: His job isn't to do "as much as possible" as is our job, it's to make sure nobody dies. A good healer will always have his fingers itching to click, always being able to assess damage incoming to who and how much, how he's going to deal with it who he can spare to lose and who not. Healers don't have luxuries like parking DOTs (whats MF by the way? Unless you're referring to Mind Flay, which is 11th in shadow tree.) or bothering with DPS because simply put, if while they're jerking around providing 0.001% boss dmg if shit hits the fan they're one GCD and 350 mana down on what they should be, not to mention possibly out-of-5sec-rule.

Of course this has no bearing at all on IB, but I do think we need to be accurate in our statements. IB will not provide a DPS increase by allowing healers to partake of the damage meter. And I should think that 2% is a little optimistic: For a 10m fight 2% is 12sec worth of dps time. That means that whatever the IB is preventing from reaching you, you'd have lost 6sec to deal with without it (given you'd IB twice). Doubtable but not beyond reason. It's highly fight-dependent.

Roll on good times. Now if only they made it a little damn sooner...


Kimu, Guinuvere:

You are asking questions in the wrong forum. This post is on theorycrafting, not on "what do I do?". You should be asking these questions in [Mage] Help me please? . Please don't pollute this discussion with pointless, out-of-place posts.

Rounced:
All classes, all trees, all 11th, 21st, 31st and 41st talents are cornerstones and unique. They all add a unique mechanic/spell/ability/function to the game and this is one of the fundamentals of the W.o.W. system. I doubt the 21st (or 11th if they move cold snap to 21, though I don't see why they should; it's hardly that powerful) will be as mundane as "less CD on IB".

Personally I'm hoping for an ability that provides a minor PvE group/raid buff. It has to be quite minor, because we're only talking 21 talents here, so how about "your frostbolt critical hits cause the target's miss-rate to increase by 2% for 5sec" or perhaps "your frostbolt critical hits cause the target to receive 2% increased damage from spell critical hits for 5sec" sounds delicious and not overpoweringly capable in either PvE or PvP. It will also provide us with some lovely utility for raids that we're so lacking in Frost.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/08/07 at 2:11 PM.
#775SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
Whatever the replacement talent ends up being this is a much needed change. It won't make Fire as good as Frost in PvP, but it will help a lot. Obviously anyone who's serious about arena will still go Frost but it will be good for people who don't care enough to respec and just want to get the weapon.
#776SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
I'm sorry to say, but pushback prevention in frost wouldn't make much sense from a balance perspective. The entire tree is there for kiting mobs when levelling up (ie: not getting hit) and theres ice barrier to do your pushback prevention.
#777SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3thesmoosh
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
My biggest concern with this change to Ice Block is unless they give a substantial buff to frostbolt with the 21 point talent in frost, frost is really going to be inferior to fire in PVE. I'm really not seeing anything to justify lower dps over a 5 minute fight with the possibility of your pet dying and interrupts...which crushes your dps in comparison to fire. Lets just hope that they dont' add another utility spell to frost in it's place.
Maybe it's just me, but I utterly fail at comprehending posts like these. If I'm reading it right, you are complaining that other specs besides frost are getting a survivability buff and that this is somehow a nerf to frost. As in, you want fire to have survivability problems, just so you can spec an inferior way and use Ice Block as an excuse.

In other words, you'd rather all our specs be useless, than have one spec that has damage and a decent amount of survivability at the same time.

Why is it that mages are always asking for nerfs to specs within their own class. Do you honestly think that if tomorrow they nerfed fire and arcane specs that raids will take more frost mages? No, they'll just take less mages period.

Now I may have misunderstood your post, but I've seen this kind of thing all over the blizzard forums and was somewhat surprised to see it here too.
#778SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Pintofbrew
I agree totally with Manly. There is no sense in making frost pushback-resistant. Particularly so high in the tree, and particularly with only 1 talent point. We have the chance to get something new and unique, why are we asking for boring mundane done-before abilities?

Theshmoosh: It's true man, this only happens in mage forums. I remember "make IB class-skill" posts on both WOW EU and US ever since Stratholm was the highest instance anyone dared to venture... We're gaining a poweful weapon in our arsenal that we've been asking for as a core ability since forever, and the only thing anyone can offer is (a) this makes no difference whatsoever or (b) this makes frost less viable.

Please can we withhold our tongues with the Frost Eulogy 'till we've seen what's replacing it? Who knows, perhaps it won't be a slobbering pile of drivel some people are expecting. Perhaps (perish the thought) frost will even gain something useful enough to put it back on the map PvE wise better than ever before.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/08/07 at 2:50 PM.
#779SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Maligne
Originally Posted by manly View Post
The entire tree is there for kiting mobs when levelling up (ie: not getting hit) and theres ice barrier to do your pushback prevention.
I'm not really sure that's why the tree is there, but that's an aspect, yeah. Considering all of the other classes that have this sort of protection (and the fact that we are mages) I think it makes sense. I'd prefer something to help against other casters (hi warlocks) but I'd be happy with the pushback protection.
#780SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
All classes, all trees, all 11th, 21st, 31st and 41st talents are cornerstones and unique.
Not to conjure up a history lesson, but the last time this type of change happened, we got Arcane Fortitude in exchange for Evocation for all mages. You've probably all used Evo sometime recently, when's the last time you said "gee, I wish I had a tiny amount more armor".

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Personally I'm hoping for an ability that provides a minor PvE group/raid buff.
The replacement really has to be big. 11 point arcane was a pretty minor sacrifice, 21 points in frost is not. Giving all mages IB makes answering the "why be frost?" question quite a bit harder to answer outside of leveling/PvP/5mans. It also makes it harder for mages to ask for DPS increases if all of us can go invulnerable _and_ wipe agro (only class capable of doing this). So while fire mages may rejoice (yay, IB for all!), overall I'm a tad concerned for our raid DPS/desirability.
#781SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Maligne
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
outside of leveling/PvP/5mans.
Grats you just listed half the game. Having a spec be good at half the game isn't really that bad, is it? Having frost be the best at everything is not what they are going for, and simply making iceblock trainable won't make any other spec the best at everything.
#782SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
ReignConfused
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
Giving all mages IB makes answering the "why be frost?" question quite a bit harder to answer outside of leveling/PvP/5mans.
It seems to me that you are ignoring Shatter, Ice barrier, a now scaling protection spell that avoids pushback, and massive sustained burst damage with a pet. Not to mention fairly decent raid damage when played right, comparable to fire if you bother to read this entire thread.

I'm tired of you making assumptions that frost is now going to suck when you DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE NEW TALENT WILL BE! Don't cite something stupid that happened in the past to a tree that every mage loves right now, or I'll be forced to think your dumber than you already are.


And like 2 mages above me already said. You're crying for a nerf? Are you twisted in the head?

Last edited by ReignConfused : 11/08/07 at 4:10 PM.
#783SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sackobones
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
It also makes it harder for mages to ask for DPS increases if all of us can go invulnerable _and_ wipe agro (only class capable of doing this). So while fire mages may rejoice (yay, IB for all!), overall I'm a tad concerned for our raid DPS/desirability.

Iceblock doesn't wipe aggro. If you block and your tank doesn't regain aggro you still get killed once Iceblock wears off.

Most fights really will suck your dps away if you iceblock and then go invis. Its better to put it back in your pants if your that close to pulling aggro.
#784SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
There was a nifty trick with invisible and Iceblock awhile ago where you could drop aggro. Stupid blizz fixed it
#785SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
There was a nifty trick with invisible and Iceblock awhile ago where you could drop aggro. Stupid blizz fixed it
I'm thinking (hoping) that that is what they will be bringing back for PvE if they allow you to cast spells while Ice Blocked. Same thing will also work for Evocation, which would be a nice boost to Frost since they wouldn't have to worry about mana as much since they would know that they would be able to get a full evocation without having to worry about a chance interruption.


Since kalgan specifically mentioned PvE and making sure that all mages have it available, how about this for an encounter in Sunwell.

Mob that needs to be tanked that places an undispellable debuff on his target that stacks over time to become completely unhealable. Only way to remove the debuff would be Ice Block or Divine Shield and since you would have to get him off the previous tank (since the cooldowns would be such that they would die before they could reapply Ice Block/Divine Shield) and that would require the tank(s) to do dps to the guy along the way.

Basically you would need Ret Pallys and Mages to tank the encounter.
#786SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Kimu, Guinuvere:[/b]
You are asking questions in the wrong forum. This post is on theorycrafting, not on "what do I do?". You should be asking these questions in [Mage] Help me please? . Please don't pollute this discussion with pointless, out-of-place posts.
I disagree, Guin's was in line with theorycrafting for 2.3.

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Personally I'm hoping for an ability that provides a minor PvE group/raid buff. It has to be quite minor, because we're only talking 21 talents here, so how about "your frostbolt critical hits cause the target's miss-rate to increase by 2% for 5sec" or perhaps "your frostbolt critical hits cause the target to receive 2% increased damage from spell critical hits for 5sec" sounds delicious and not overpoweringly capable in either PvE or PvP. It will also provide us with some lovely utility for raids that we're so lacking in Frost.
I like the second idea, but I don't really think 2% would differentiate Frost Mages in any way, but I think you're on the right track. Unless it stacks of course, but I think 5% would be the "right" spot. Also I'd like to see such a spell go for 8 seconds, so that its basically guaranteed up with 1 Frost mage nuking away.


Another in the vein of Frost spells would be "Chance on Spell Critical to increase Mana Regeneration to 100% for 5 seconds." (Effectively leaving mages in the FSR on a critical, and giving Frost mages a pretty effective AE method). I can see them adding something like that, even though it would effectively be useless in 25 man raids, where a Mage has a good likelihood to be grouped with a Shaman or a Shadow Priest or both.


Frost is kind of locked in an identity crisis. On the one hand, its supposed to be more efficient spell damage, but at the same time its "the Survival" tree. Neither one is superior enough to be noticeable. I wish they would pick one or the other, but honestly, if they pick Survival, it means Frost will still be 'the' PvP spec, which seems to be counter to their intention.

As a hypothetical, could you imagine if Frost Mages had a x400% armor buff, or a talent that increased their Stamina by 20%? Suddenly it would be like fighting a Boomkin or a Warlock with awesome CC (well, not an SL/SL lock).
#787SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by Maligne View Post
Grats you just listed half the game.
I could list half the game for the other 2 specs as well, but since this forum generally leans towards raiding, it's really a PvP vs Raiding comparison. The exact spec breakdown really doesn't matter in leveling and even in 5 mans, but the pivotal point is PvP vs. Raiding. Fire is perfectly fine for leveling and 5 mans as well (leveled as fire once, leveled as frost once).

Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
And I'm tired if you making assumptions that frost is now going to suck when you DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE NEW TALENT WILL BE!
The "replacing" talent has, historically, been worse than the one made a trainable ability. That's just how it has been. I'm simply expecting the same thing to happen here, given the past pattern. The xx/xx/21+ mages gain something unknown (the new talent), all other specs gain Ice Block. Historically that "unknown" has been weaker, that won't necessarily happen here, but I'm just setting my own expectations according to similar past events. I look forward to being pleasantly surprised if the new talent turns out to be great, but it's not what I'm expecting.

Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
Iceblock doesn't wipe aggro. If you block and your tank doesn't regain aggro you still get killed once Iceblock wears off.
Invisibility is an agro wipe, all mages get it. Ice Block is an invulnerability effect, soon all mages will have it. As a result, we're the only class that has both an agro wipe and an invulnerability. I'm sorry, I didn't expect the connection to be unclear to anyone who played a mage.
#788SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Mob that needs to be tanked that places an undispellable debuff on his target that stacks over time to become completely unhealable. Only way to remove the debuff would be Ice Block or Divine Shield and since you would have to get him off the previous tank (since the cooldowns would be such that they would die before they could reapply Ice Block/Divine Shield) and that would require the tank(s) to do dps to the guy along the way.

Basically you would need Ret Pallys and Mages to tank the encounter.
I hate gimmick fights that require a specific talent build or a single specific class. Either require a token representative of the class, or require a role.
#789SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
The Value of Ice Block

Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
Ignoring Shatter, and Ice barrier, a now scaling protection spell that avoids pushback. Massive sustained burst damage with a pet. And fairly decent raid damage when played right, comparable to fire if you bother to read this entire thread.


And I'm tired if you making assumptions that frost is now going to suck when you DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE NEW TALENT WILL BE! Don't cite something stupid that happened in the past to a tree that every mage loves right now, or I'll be forced to think your dumber than you already are.


And like 2 mages above me already said. You're crying for a nerf? Are you twisted in the head?
There are many things wrong with this post. The most obvious are infringements on the rules for posting in this forum, such as terrible grammar, typing in incomplete sentenses, and general whining. Beyond that, you make the assumption that "every mage loves" the frost tree (they don't) and that people are somehow unjustified in forming their opinions about the tree in general as they don't know what the talent that replaces Ice Block looks like. I would just like to point out here that your argument here in support of the frost tree is just as flimsy for the same reason (you don't know what the talent looks like either.) In the spirit of helping you avoid earning an infraction in the banhammer forum, I suggest you reread your post, and in the future try to avoid repeating just about every aspect of it.

With that out of the way, I'd like to clarify something about Ice Block. I've read several posts, including one from the person that I regard as likely the most credible source of intelligent information on this thread, that Ice Block has little to no value in a raid setting. Ice Block, as it is about to be implemented (as a "free", trainable spell), is a strict increase in DPS. This assertation is easily provable and the conclusion is not arguable:

Because we will no longer have to spend a talent point on it, there are no economic costs associated with it (no opportunity costs). Further, there is nothing that forces you to use it when it would negatively impact your DPS. However, provided you have a forwarning that you are about to die, this spell will prevent the death, and give healers a window of time to heal you back up. I won't try to elaborate this point much further, as it should now already be clear, but the "free" nature of the new ice block, combined with the fact that it turns situations of 0 dps (death) into situations of positive dps (prevention of death) means that it is absolutely a boost to every mage's dps.
#790SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Kir
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
There are many things wrong with this post. The most obvious are infringements on the rules for posting in this forum, such as terrible grammar, typing in incomplete sentenses, and general whining. Beyond that, you make the assumption that "every mage loves" the frost tree (they don't) and that people are somehow unjustified in forming their opinions about the tree in general as they don't know what the talent that replaces Ice Block looks like. I would just like to point out here that your argument here in support of the frost tree is just as flimsy for the same reason (you don't know what the talent looks like either.) In the spirit of helping you avoid earning an infraction in the banhammer forum, I suggest you reread your post, and in the future try to avoid repeating just about every aspect of it.

With that out of the way, I'd like to clarify something about Ice Block. I've read several posts, including one from the person that I regard as likely the most credible source of intelligent information on this thread, that Ice Block has little to no value in a raid setting. Ice Block, as it is about to be implemented (as a "free", trainable spell), is a strict increase in DPS. This assertation is easily provable and the conclusion is not arguable:

Because we will no longer have to spend a talent point on it, there are no economic costs associated with it (no opportunity costs). Further, there is nothing that forces you to use it when it would negatively impact your DPS. However, provided you have a forwarning that you are about to die, this spell will prevent the death, and give healers a window of time to heal you back up. I won't try to elaborate this point much further, as it should now already be clear, but the "free" nature of the new ice block, combined with the fact that it turns situations of 0 dps (death) into situations of positive dps (prevention of death) means that it is absolutely a boost to every mage's dps.

Uhh.. I think your anger is pretty misplaced, you've misunderstood half of what he said, and your effectively agreeing with the other half.

He was replying to someone who stated Evocation was replaced by Arcane Fortitude, that person used this as an example of why the new 21pt Frost talent will suck. The 'tree that most mages love right now' is referring to arcane, not frost.

Anyone saying this is a bad change for frost, is using very faulty reasoning. No tools, utilities or abilities have been taken from frost. You can still spec the exact same way and do all of the exact same things you did before. You get a potential new mystery talent to boot. Even assuming that it's the worst talent ever, you are still in the same position you were beforehand.

Fire and arcane get a utility/survivability skill. It's a moot point for Arcane, as that tree is worthless again. For fire, it will help. However, a fire buff is NOT a frost nerf. Even in PvE, Frost still has superior survivability and similar dps.

The only thing this drastically changes, and is exactly Blizzard's intention, is PVP. This opens up the viability of some other specs that were not possible before due to Ice Block's requirement. With the ability to drop all dots on themselves, fire mages have a better chance in pvp now. You burst them down, iceblock off any dots/debuffs and wait for some of your cooldown abilities to be ready, then repeat. I mean, that's over simplifying it for sure, but it gives us some more tricks to play around with.
#791SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
I apologize, I edited my post to fix the grammar (I suggest you reread yours as well )

I didn't mean to support the frost tree, It's never been viable in a raiding environment, it doesn't seem to me that it ever will be. Rather, I was merely pointing out it's positives. Removing Iceblock from the tree doesn't make it a "worthless spec that no one will ever use." Not only that but a lot of this thread has been dedicated to the discussion of whether Frost or Fire will actually do more DPS in a raiding environment post 2.3. Arcane has been completely written off as anything useful and Frost seems to be showing very minimal drops from fire in all Theorycrafting. Generally the consensus on this one has been to wait, I believe that given the new Iceblock trainable, Fire is the clear winner especially given the added utility from Iceblock.

You cited me for general whining, I saw it more as telling someone who was whining to shut it. It seriously bothers me that I come into EJ forums to theorycraft and ponder different possibilities with mages who have generally, been extremely intelligent and introspective, and someone pounces into the forum saying OMG WTF IB TRAINABLE?! FROST NO GUD NEMORE! And cites bogus talent changes like Evocation -> Arcane Fortitude as being irrefutable proof that Blizzard is about to destroy the frost tree. Instead of doing something intelligent and give a great spell, which you outlined the reasons for this, to every class, and give the class it originated from something new and different. Such as when Druids all received innervate (an amazing spell) and gave restoration Swiftmend (which Resto Druids love and found to be a suitable replacement given that they never really -lost- innervate)

Seems silly to me. So in any case, I will apologize for my post and try to watch my grammar in the future and grief/troll less.


*Seriously though I laughed when you were citing me for grammar and immediately said "type in incomplete sentenses" It was amusing.
#792SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
In the case of balance, adding weight to one end of the scale and not adding equal weight to the other end will tip the scale. Adding ice block to fire and arcane builds, without adding something equal to frost builds, will alter balance in favor of fire and arcane. Perhaps this is good (streamlined specs for pvp and raiding), perhaps this is bad, but I certainly don't think frost will be a viable raid choice without ice block as a 'unique' advantage. It will still, however, be a bitching pvp tree, as the balance was already heavily slanted toward frost for pvp builds.
#793SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kycan
I can't really complain about Blizz giving us Ice Block, but I do have to question what their reasoning behind it is.

The simple nature of min/maxing that we as EJ members are all so used to remains. Fire is still superior dps in PvE and Frost is still superior survivability/control in PvP. While having IB available as an Arcane or Fire mage in PvP is a cute trick, I don't see it being the nail in the coffin for frost mages, especially in arenas. Then again, perhaps this is why Blizz decided now is the time. If adding IB to Fire/Arcane doesn't change anything, then why not? Just conjecture really.
#794SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Shocktar
I think in this situation, it's important to point out some logic in the development of trees. At Blizzcon, Kalgan specifically cited warrior trees as being good for three different things, that is PVE, PVP, and Tanking, and stated that they liked that kind of idea. All three trees are supposed to bring something different, and in almost all cases, its clear what each tree is used for.
Good examples include:
Holy/Shadow Priests (DPS VS healing, and Disc is *suposed to be* sustainability)
Subtelty/Combat Rogues (PVE vs PVP)
and Elemental/Enhance/Resto Shamans (Caster/Caster buffer, melee/melee buffer, healer/healer buffer).

While we're all scratching our heads as to exactly what the arcane tree is for (see Discipline, Retribution, and Balance), it seems as though the frost tree is clearly defined as PVP, while the fire tree is PVE DPS. Granted, you *could* PVP with fire, but you won't be as successful, just as you *could* high end raid with frost, but you wouldn't (shouldn't?) be as successful.
Yes, frost is about 3% behind fire (got this from Vontre, who as far as I'm concerned knows what he's talking about, suffice it to say it's behind, by how much is irrelavent for my post), and it always has been, so it's logical to assume it still will be in 2.3, but you do get great survivability tradeoffs and PVP skills becauseofit. I, for one, would be unhappy as a minmaxer if I didn't have a clearly designed way to go for whatever I was doing. I'm frost in PVP, and Fire in PVE, and that's what the developers wanted.
It's all speculation now, but in line with the design of the trees, shouldn't the new 21 point talent buff survivability, not DPS? If frost was higher DPS, why would anyone go fire? If that happened, we'd have ONE tree, rather than two at least.
#795SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
It might be, to you. To me, it simply isn't. If I am not wrong, we've killed illidan for the 15th time this week. I die on average about 1-2 times per full hyjal/bt clear (not counting sacrifices). Usually its because of a wipe. It mostly applies to trash, allowing you to go more all out, but I specifically ignore trash when talking PVE. The amount of times I can say IB could have made a difference are so few and far between that they aren't even worth recalling in my mind. I would say about 5 times in the past 3 months. If I count only the time we were still learning bosses, the only places where IB would have been good to have is, namely: leotheras pre-nerf, shahraz pre-nerf and archimonde pre-nerf. IB would have been good maybe for 1 or 2 weeks while we were learning the encounters, then you just learn your way around the bosses in such a way that you dont need it anymore. That's about as far as I could possibly give IB a value in PVE encounters, which, to me, is pretty damn close to nil.

I am not unaware that it can remove silences and thus allow for more dps. Or that it can stop a stun or sleep or whatever really. I know that. But again, given that were speaking here of 1 ice block per attempt its impact on dps is very very very small.

Its a net gain for everyone, but it doesn't do anything to fix mages in PVE. Mages were in really dire need of help pre 2.2. Sometimes you could miraculously push 1700 dps with some AB spam, and you would still come far behind rogues (1800-1900) and hunters (1800). Typically behind locks too, given that 1700 was really not the norm by any means, but rather the extreme top end of being lucky. Usually AB rotations gave something around 1400-1500 dps from my own observations if I try and make a dire attempt at a overly simplified estimation from an average of many boss fights (ie: not teron or supremus). Since 2.2 I see myself being about the same DPS as rogues with no warglaive, give or take a few dps depending on the boss fight. If I wasn't aware of the context, I could probably claim that in 2.2 blizzard fixed mage PVE viability based on what I see (ie: have an actual reason to bring a mage to a raid besides avoiding having to shard loot). But now that I know that MSD and TLC was just an acknowledged screwup from blizzard and that in fact we were not meant to have that dps, it gets me thinking back a lot to where we were pre 2.2. Sure, 2.3 fire/frost should give me about the same numbers 2.2 AM spam gave (ie: my definition of balanced), but in practice I doubt I will get COE, which means I'm pretty much back to where I was.

IB does absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things to fix that little detail that without COE mages dont compete on DPS. If mages don't compete on DPS, then really there isn't much incentive to bring mages to raids if you could instead use other classes. I don't know about you guys, but I never considered mages bringing much more than rogues to raids, in the sense that AI is mostly negligible, and that we have absolutely no synergy - at all - under realistic scenarios with other classes. Sure, we 'have synergy' in the sense that we can use shadow priests, coe/cos and misery, but we don't provide back anything much to the raid. Sheeps are always nice, but seldom never apply to bosses. Decursing is nice, but very very rare. Ditto for counterspell. We bring AOE, but other classes can AOE too to a competitive level. You could say that rogues bring 'nothing' to the raid, but in practice i see their poisons and kicks on things like ROS or illidari council to be almost on par with what mages bring to the raid. Given all that said above, if you agree with my views that for the most part mages have no synergy with the raid as far as PVE encounter goes, then you could implicitely agree with me as well that if a class gives more DPS or more raid synergy that that other class will be typically worth more to the raid. Warlocks can very much compete with mage DPS at the top end. If you think 2k dps from destro locks is something that only exists in theorycraft, you haven't seen top end raids. Not only can they very much compete on DPS, but curses are also synergistic to the raid, unlike us. Everyone in the raid will be happy to have their COS / COR or COE. I am pretty sure many people would get angry if enhancement shamans were consistently, somehow, topping DMs. A class giving such a group synergy shouldn't have more dps than the competing classes - it just wouldn't make sense. Now explain me why, given the above logic, why are mages below (or equal to) warlocks in terms of DPS given that unlike warlocks we give nothing back to the raid or group? To me it just flat out doesn't makes sense. I can see that all the gimmicks we 'bring' to the raid, things like AI/AOE/poly/CS can somehow make us 'interesting' in a raid group, but if I could custom build my own raid group I would deliberately avoid mages specifically because we lack synergy and that we have somewhat lower DPS than competing classes. (again, in a context where mages don't get COE and thus have poor dps).

If you can point out where Ice Block comes in the grand scheme of things to help close that gap, then I will agree with you that Ice Block fixes our raid viability post 2.3. To me its clear its impact is borderline insignificant given that we will still have no synergy and still lack dps to the competing classes. Your views might be different on the matter.

As far as I am concerned, I see it mostly as a diversion. A diversion in the sense that it gets us to somehow cheer at the pve buff that really isn't while avoiding alltogether the more important discussion about mage lack of synergy with raid groups. Maybe I just got the whole thing wrong and IB really was just meant as a PVP buff to allow more talent-spec spread in PVP. The blue post does seem to suggest the change is not related with PVE.

Anyway, with all this said I would be a lot more happy if blizzard would wake up one day and realize COE is simply too narrow in essence. For all intent and purpose, its a mage-only buff. If they were to merge COS and COE into one curse, and possibly adding increase nature damage as well, I would be happy because that would make us back to a more balanced position. The way I view things, right now you always want 2 warlocks per raid, for COS and COR. If you want COE, you need a 3rd warlock. To make COE worthwhile, you need at least 2 fire or frost mages. Why does it takes 3 warlocks in a raid to allow mage DPS to even be on par with hunters/warlocks ? To me it doesn't makes sense. COE is too narrow. I need to make a post about this, it really does piss me off, and that is, to me, an actual real issue with PVE and mages that will ring very true in 2.3.

Last edited by manly : 11/08/07 at 6:37 PM.
#796SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Zalbo
Just to throw in an example of why free ice block can be good, the Vashj fight.

In phase 1, getting static charged, even if no-one is within range of you, gives you spell pushback.. Iceblock means you'll only loose ~1 global cooldown, at least for the first one.

In phase 2, tainted elementals. For my guild at least, getting the tainted core means going out of LoS of the healers, and often I will get into fireblast range of them, which is also out of LoS. Now picking up the core with a poison debuff means death if you can't get rid of it, hello ice block. Further, on several occasions I got forked lightning'd while poisoned down there, so if I didnt ice block I would have been very dead.

Phase 3, static charge again.

So it can be useful, especially in reducing death from bad luck, even in current raids. This will depend on your strategy of course, perhaps you have healers staying in LoS during p2.

Furthermore, look at paladins, since they have invunerability already assumed. I know for Gruul, if he gets too many grows (dps is all alts in leveling gear, for instance), the tank can have trouble living through a silence, especially if there isnt any resto druids stacking hots. We have a paladin shield out of the silence to make sure the tank lives. Now you can extend this to a new fight, perhaps in sunwell, where you need a spellsteal/decurse etc at the same time the boss does an aoe silence.

Vashj showing it already has potential in current fights, relating it to paladins as to how it can be a design tool.

Got to say I agree that the new 21 point talent won't be pvp centric, since they want frost to not be the only viable pvp tree, although this massively improves the other trees. A synergy spell would be pretty cool (and more interesting than something passive, frost is already so boring for dps outside of pet), maybe all party members have their spell crit increased by 50% for their next spell capable of critting, with a shortish cooldown (1 minute?)? Nothing too huge in PvE or Arena PvP (unless you stack spell DD classes), but not bad either.

Edit: Manly you have a point, it doesn't solve mage problems, but I will argue at the SSC level there are a lot of situations you can eek out a bit more dps from it (Hydross tomb, Morogrim Watery, FLK leeching throw, Leotheras whirlwind, Vashj static charge).

Last edited by Zalbo : 11/08/07 at 5:13 PM.
#797SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Its a net gain for everyone, but it doesn't do anything to fix mages in PVE. Mages were in really dire need of help pre 2.2.
The scary part about this, in my opinion, is that the current situation will simply continue and the class designers can "justify" the mage position by being the only "pure" dps class that can wipe agro and go invulnerable. Imagine mage DPS buffed up to about hunter level, add in we can wipe threat, add in we can go completely invulnerable. Class balancing concerns appear, and mages would be pretty easy "nerf" targets.

At least with IB being a talent, the DPS trade-off was a choice. Slightly less DPS for more survivability (in PvP, significantly more). However, if Blizzard now takes that trade-off away from mages, they have picked the path of lower DPS and higher survivability for us. It certainly is contradictory to "glass cannon", others have bigger cannons and we're starting to get harder to break than glass.

I'm fairly confident we won't get a good talent as a replacement (I'd love to be wrong, I hope so, but even Swiftmend is not as good as Innervate), and it is very true that all specs "gain" from the change, however all specs are going to "lose" on this one. It will be far too easy to argue against higher mage dps if everyone can wave invis/IB against us as reasons for where we measure up in comparative DPS with other classes ("well you can IB and I can't, so I should do more dps than you" type argument).
#798SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Back when I was fire spec, the only time I ever needed invis, besides wipes, was sometimes on void reaver due to his pushbacks. And even then, shadow priests will have aggro issues before I do, which means we get tranquil air down. In short, I also give invisibility a near nil PVE value. Having a threat dump is one thing, having too low dps to even need it is another.
#799SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
I completely 100% agree with Manly. We rely on 3 warlocks, a shaman, and spriest. In the case of a fight that requires a general role, like aoe or direct damage, you can do equally well if not a tad better while bringing more utility from other classes.

Blizzard gave the community a superfluous buff. End of story. IB has little to no effect on pve mages. And as far as pve is concerned, I still see the elemental and ice barrier being very strong talent builds. A 5 minute IB cooldown isn't going to change much.

Our core problems are our synergy to raids, and itemization. We take synergy, but we do not provide it. My smartbuff mod is set exclusively to AB, and the buff is insignificant due to its scaling. My imp scorch benefits myself alone. In 2.3 mages suffer from wasted stats in spirit. We all know arcane is a dead tree, and yet to utilize the 300-500 spirit we will have raid buffed, we have to put on mage armor or spec into arcane. All the while, many gems are more than enough for your fire and frost mages.

My issue is that my guild only needs me for a few gimmicks. We have plenty of druids for arch. So besides tanking on council, my spot would be better filled by a hunter/lock/rogue.

It seems like our biggest enemy is our own community though. The official forum is celebrating over a really insignificant change.
#800SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Addis
I hadn't really thought about the point being made here: "Increased survivability of a trainable iceblock justifies the lessened DPS of the mage class." Increase survivability comes from healing, not a once every 5 minute immunity (even with IB, locks have better survivability).

But, I really don't think that's the intent. Honestly I think it's an attempt to make fire mages more useful in pvp, and give us a PVE talent whose value diminishes with learned content. None of us have a deep understand into Blizzard's decision making process, however, so we're all just guessing.

Rest assured, no 21 point frost talent is going to fix the PVE things illustrated in manly's last post. My guess is blizzard is going to star adding some gimmick fights into WotLK raiding content that's going require Mages to IB, especially given the frost theme of the expansion.
#801SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
The only thing mages need in PvE is for CoE to merge with CoS, and even that's not really necessary as any raid with 2 or more mages is getting CoE anyway. 15% more stamina doesn't even come close to matching the value of a single immunity shield. I don't even know what you guys are going on about anymore.
#802SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Groglox
It was really nice to do competitive damage for awhile, especially since we were overshadowed by seed of corruption on the AoE front. Now we aren't going to be top(or even competitive) in either, especially with the loss of arcane talents to make AE better.

My guild frequently raids with 3 or 4 mages in the raid, and for us this is going to be a big hit. We lose one of our warlocks damage curses for elements, and 2-300dps from each mage.

I really hope WotLK brings some added value back.
#803SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Prod
No. Any raid with 3 or more Warlocks and 2 or more mages is opening the door for coe. It's a bit more specific that way. I do agree though that the curses need to be merged and I would go farther to say they need to include nature damage.

Still, the IB is meaningless. What fight is the mage in danger of dying on? Gorefiend. Can we iceblock? No. And yet a Warlock can eat 2 bloodboils if need be and heal through it. I really can't think of a scenario where a competent mage is going to go "yay iceblock" very often in pve. I mean one of the examples in this thread was we could avoid the 30% pushback while static charge is on us in Vashj. Really? That's the change the mage forum is so happy about?

Either way, besides the curse, my biggest pain right now is spirit stat allocation.

Edit: Of course, funny enough, both of those concerns were fine when I could spec arcane.

Last edited by Prod : 11/08/07 at 6:14 PM.
#804SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
And the ~10000 or so damage from the dot...
#805SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
Not to conjure up a history lesson, but the last time this type of change happened, we got Arcane Fortitude in exchange for Evocation for all mages. You've probably all used Evo sometime recently, when's the last time you said "gee, I wish I had a tiny amount more armor".


The replacement really has to be big. 11 point arcane was a pretty minor sacrifice, 21 points in frost is not. Giving all mages IB makes answering the "why be frost?" question quite a bit harder to answer outside of leveling/PvP/5mans. It also makes it harder for mages to ask for DPS increases if all of us can go invulnerable _and_ wipe agro (only class capable of doing this). So while fire mages may rejoice (yay, IB for all!), overall I'm a tad concerned for our raid DPS/desirability.
Firstly, I did not say the talents are good, or useful or anything of the sort. I said they are unique, incorporating some game mechanic that isn't otherwise observed. And I don't get what you're hinting at; rather than have to spec for Evo you now get it as a given and have a shoddy 11 pointer which is situational and arguably useless, much like the one in fire.

Edit: Never mind, left forum without refreshing before went off to SSC and didn't read enough answers to realize I'm repeating posts.

Claiming a buff as a hindrance to a further, different buff you're desiring is like asking for your coffee to not be warm, because you'll order a sandwich later and you don't want the bread soggy.
#806SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vulkaire
I couldn't agree more about depending on CoE too much. Even when the numbers support it, it is sometimes hard to get locks to use it with 2 mages in the raid. They really should just add nature damage onto CoE. Would make elemental shamans happy and would offset their recent nerfs. At the same time it would make justifying CoE being up much easier. With the recent nerfs and uproar on the shaman forums, I can't see a better time for them to implement it either.
#807SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
I definitely agree with Manly's posts on the previous page regarding mage viability in 2.3. One of the biggest reasons I have been so in love with the Arcane spec is that I no longer have to beg the warlocks to apply CoE.

With that in mind how about this as a suggestion for the new 21 point Frost Talent (yes I completely understand that Blizzard won't give two farts for anything I suggest here, but before I take the time to actually post something on their "Suggestion" forums I wanted to get flamed here first).

Icy Mark 1/1
requires 20 points in the Frost Tree
Curses the target with an Icy Mark that reduces the targets resistences to Fire and Frost by an amount equal to the Caster's level and causes the Target to take 10% additional damage from all Fire and Frost effects. Effect does not stack with Curse of the Elements.
#808SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
No. Any raid with 3 or more Warlocks and 2 or more mages is opening the door for coe. It's a bit more specific that way. I do agree though that the curses need to be merged and I would go farther to say they need to include nature damage. [...]
Well, my point was that you need at least 3 warlocks to make mages DPS compete. How is that making sense design-wise ? We need spriest, shaman, and 3 warlocks to output DPS in line with the other classes. 3 warlocks is quite a requirement which I know EJ will rarely meet. Plus, if that weren't enough, you also need 2+ mages. Sure, not many class can claim to do well with only 1 player (destro locks come in mind due to low ISB uptime), but unlike other classes if we have just 1 player then even if you get 3 warlocks, if you only have 1 mage its better to COA than to COE.

My point really is that if you know well ahead of time you won't get more than 2 warlocks on average, then its mostly admitting you might as well drop your mages for dps classes since mages won't be able to do anything about it - which is very stupid. I can accept low class DPS because a raid lacks synergy (ie: you have no shaman versus rogues with dps warrior+shaman), but the 3 warlocks per raid is not a matter of group synergy, its a requirement that's even worse, something that should not affect a single mage having low dps.

EDIT: And yes, I do believe if we had a merged COS/COE it would fix most mage PVE problems. I don't think anything else would be needed.
#809SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Several "Re:" Statements

Kir: A) I was never 'angry' at Reign. The way I initially interpretted his post was that of a whine. The essential quality of TC forums, as I understand it, is to assess/compare the values of different combinations of gear, talents, spells, and strategies. My comments about his post were put onto paper because (likely due to the poor english) it did not look like he was providing arguments about any sort of valuation statement. No hard feelings involved.
B) You are absolutely right. I misread his post. After reading your post, his response to my post, and his original post two or three more times, I now clearly understand the point he is trying to make.

Reign: The edit to the original post makes all the difference in the world. Not only that, but your second post seems focused and intelligently worded. If I had to cite a reason, I would have to guess that the difference is in the emotional tone of the first post, and the objective tone of the second. In any event, I'm not sure how my original post has any errors in either grammar or syntax (I'm pretty sure the present participle, "...typing in incomplete sentenses..." is correct here), but I should probably apologize for being hypocritical if errors in my own posts exist.

Manyly: I completely agree with everything you assert in your recent, long post. In case it wasn't obvious, you were the "credible source of intelligent information" that I was originally talking about. However, even if a death that iceblock can prevent only happens once a year, the fact that it is now going to be trainable (read: free) means that it is a strict gain for all mages in all cases. That's all I was trying to say. I didn't mean to try to address whether or not free IB fixes any of the problems of philosophy or raid synergy that mages face (it doesn't).

I would like to point out that I notice a lot of your posts provide statements of value for non-quantifiable things. Your assessment of the value of IB is a timely example. It is dangerous to the collection of mages that read this forum, as they might just accept that view as gospel. The fact is that many things nuances of the game (value of IB, value of stam, etc) have values that are negatively correlated with player skill. Simply put, the 'better' a player is, the less they are going to care about these things. I've never seen you play, but I clearly assume that you are very, very good at the game, and thus Ice Block is obviously not going to be worth a lot to you. But for the less-skilled mages reading these threads, who die on maybe 10% or so of non-wipe boss encounters, IB being newly available to EVERY flavor of mage is a huge deal.

The last thing I want to address here is some chatter I've been seeing recently regarding the value of Ice Block. When people attempt to highlight the value of Ice Block (generally to support their argument that IB is a 'big deal'), I read things like:

"You can IB out of silences, for an extra X seconds of DPS"
"You can IB out of poisons or static charges on Vashj"
"You can IB out of watery tomb against Tidewalker"

I will argue that these uses of Ice Block, except in the case of a level of player skill that is so high that it borders on perfection, are greedy and inefficient. A player will have to die in any given encounter a VERY small percent of the time for this type of Ice Blocking to be considered optimal. Essentially, the fact that it has such a long cooldown means that it can only be used once an encouter. Clearly it is better used to prevent the mages imminent death (effectively becomeing a combat rez) than to garner extra dps time (as a pvp trinket) or to debuff remover (we have shaman, paladins, and priests for that).
#810SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
arch
Manly

I agree for the most part, we are currently, underperforming both utility and dpswise. The dps will be somewhat fixed as fire at least in 2.3, though the TPS is already almost (without CoE) too high for our (my guild) tanks to handle.

What I dont agree about is that you seem to be under the impression that this is our fix, and our only fix, to all our PvE related problems. This was obviously not their intentions with the addition of IB, it is merely a survivability buff for the mages that needs it, and even for the ones that claim they don't need it - for those moments when you actually have bad luck or when learning a new encounter. It is far from necessary out of a PvE perspective, but I still consider it a nice addition.

However, trainable IB is obviously more of a PvP targeted change, and a really really nice one which, I for one, is really happy about. I'd hate to see it not being implemented because people are assuming that it was our PvE fix.

I totally agree that we need more competative dps and possibly have our AoE cap removed (along with other aoe oriented buffs) to at least get SOMETHING that distinguishes us from the rest. I mean, seed of corruption totally negated one of our advantages. Utility is overall lacking, and I really don't see this changing without revamping some of our old roles (water dispenser/ai/amplify/portal boi etc). Maybe allow amplify to be cast offensivly, and have our food/water give some sort of buff that cannot be gained anywhere else? The food from ritual of refreshment that is, and set it to BoP.

Fire (again for guilds who's MT can't keep up) could also use a fix to invisibility, possibly IB+Invisibility which was already suggested.

Arcane was intended to be top dps at the cost of being very mana inefficient. This has not been the case and certainly won't be the case in 2.3, thus there will surely be arcane buffs to come. Good TPS and good DPS at the cost of efficiency would be nice for arcane.

Trainable IB does most certainly not fix our shortcomings in PvE, but it does help tremendously in PvP, and in some PvE scenarios aswell. Don't confuse this with our need for PvE oriented buffs as I'm sure they will come along eventually, at the very least for arcane.

CoE merged with CoS would be a really great start.

Last edited by arch : 11/08/07 at 6:45 PM.
#811SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Well if I worded it wrong, then that's my fault, but I was trying to agree with you that bringing -any- mages requires 5 of your 25 raid slots (if you're min/maxing). I'm sure most guilds don't have that freedom with raid composition though, but I could see myself sitting out because of it.

I'd still like to bring up that top end mage gear has almost 200 spirit on it. Now any way you slice it, thats 150-200 allocation points that I'd gladly trade for agility,int,crit,dmg,stam. I say agility, because I get more use out of the dodge and armor than I do from spirit.
#812SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3constantius
The dps will be somewhat fixed as fire at least in 2.3, though the TPS is already almost (without CoE) too high for our (my guild) tanks to handle.
How, precisely? Assuming a typical 850 sustained TPS tank, and assuming you have 30 yard range (-30%) and BoSalv (-30%), you would have to be doing 1730 dps to out-threat your tank. And I very much doubt a mage is going to be doing 1730 dps on a single-target mob, ignoring the odd AB-spam burst. I don't even think (Akama aside) it's *possible* for frost/fire to break 1700 dps?
#813SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
I say agility, because I get more use out of the dodge and armor than I do from spirit.

Embarrassing but true. Spirit is at the moment abysmal; I wouldn't nail it's coffin yet: We know they're re-working spirit's function for WotLC, but whether (a) it'll be any good (b) it'll be sufficiently useful for mages or (c)it'll happen in our lifetimes is anyones guess.

I'm hoping at the back of my mind that in WotLC, Spirit will be a stat I'm after because frankly, we can use some damn variety.
#814SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Sancus
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
The only thing mages need in PvE is for CoE to merge with CoS, and even that's not really necessary as any raid with 2 or more mages is getting CoE anyway. 15% more stamina doesn't even come close to matching the value of a single immunity shield. I don't even know what you guys are going on about anymore.
I'm baffled why you think this, to be honest. Seriously, as a raid leader, why would you bring any Mages? I don't understand it, personally. Hunters do more/equivalent dps, can misdirect your tanks to make aggro solid from the start of every fight, and more importantly are FAR less subject to dps loss from pushback and having to move to avoid aoes. Not to mention, on the rare fight where resists are an issue for Mages(Supremus/Illidari Council), Hunters get to ignore them.

15% more stamina
Warlocks do not have simply 15% more stamina, they have higher base hitpoints(this allows them to do things like wear items with 0 stam, which increases their dps, btw) and their set itemization is better because stamina is their primary stat, whereas instead of making stamina our primary stat(this would make sense), we instead get the last 5-10 points of int on every item as its highest stat just to... I dunno, waste item points? That extra int provides 0 benefit for raids. Not to mention the additional value wasted on Spirit.

Warlocks on average have 11.5-12.5k hp in raid gear, raid buffed. Mages have 9.5-10k. That's 25% more hp, not 15% more stamina. And that's when they don't even have to try to gear for stamina at all. Soul Link also allows them to do things like tank aoe mobs(in fact, I know a Warlock who specs and gears to tank instances, and can tank heroics), and they don't even sacrifice any significant dps in a demo build. Mages just die when aoe mobs target them. All the avoidance in the world doesn't mean crap when the(keeping in mind that SoC is now superior to AE) class next to you can simply tank stuff straight up.

More importantly, up to 3 Warlocks provide a raid-synergistic curse and they provide soulstones which are additively useful regardless of how many locks you have, as well as up to 3 different types of healthstones.

I mean heck, even hunters provide 3% damage to their entire group, or Expose Weakness which is plenty of dps added to melee. Sorry, Vontre, you're going to have to justify stuff like "I don't even know what you're going on anymore".

As far as I can tell, every other dps class adds(usually multiplicatively) dps to other classes in the raid. Mages don't. Yet Mages don't have more dps than those classes than do. How can a class that does the same dps, yet provides no multiplicative damage boost be desirable? Even assuming we have COE, what's the point? Mages drain from your raid, they don't add anything.

Last edited by Sancus : 11/08/07 at 7:01 PM.
#815SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3arch
Originally Posted by constantius View Post
How, precisely? Assuming a typical 850 sustained TPS tank, and assuming you have 30 yard range (-30%) and BoSalv (-30%), you would have to be doing 1730 dps to out-threat your tank. And I very much doubt a mage is going to be doing 1730 dps on a single-target mob, ignoring the odd AB-spam burst. I don't even think (Akama aside) it's *possible* for frost/fire to break 1700 dps?
Don't ask me seriously :o

I've been focusing on PvP since release of TBC, only just got back to raiding recently. Thus my gear is horrible. I have 990 fire damage and 32 crit unbuffed, and 13 hit or so. I don't get CoE, yet I'm close to threat cap in alot of encounters :P
#816SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Everything I've seen would suggest that we do have more dps than other classes. Actually right now. And we'll do more post-patch. We are the rogues of ranged dps, we don't need synergy because we make the best use of it. And we have the widest and best array of control abilities too.
#817SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Sancus
Everything I've seen would suggest that we do have more dps than other classes. Actually right now.
I've seen Hunters and Warlocks both exceed 1800 sustained dps. As far as I'm aware, even after patch, the best we're getting is 1800-1900 or so, and that's based on a spreadsheet, not real.

The only thing changing for Mage dps in the patch is the coefficient unnerf, yet there was an analysis done of WWS logs for 10 top guilds, Mages always did the least dps by a fairly large margin.

WoW Forums -> Hyjal DPS Analysis

The coefficient nerf will bring us near-par with Warlock dps based on those numbers, but it will not allow us to come near Hunters and of course not rogues.

And we have the widest and best array of control abilities too.
This would be great if more boss encounters required you to control mobs, but only about 10% do.

Last edited by Sancus : 11/08/07 at 7:12 PM.
#818SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Antoine
That post you linked is almost 2 months old by now.
#819SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Sancus
Originally Posted by Antoine View Post
That post you linked is almost 2 months old by now.
I'm aware of that. I'm not aware of anything that has changed in the past 2 months to magically increase Mage dps, however, aside from the 2.2 Arcane Missiles thing, which is being removed, so I'd consider it to still be valid, perhaps not as accurate as it was then, but certainly still valid.

The only argument I can think of is "T6 scaled Mages better than Warlocks and Hunters" which is pretty absurd, there's no way one tier of itemization made up 8% and 16% dps respectively, especially given the waste on our sets.

Last edited by Sancus : 11/08/07 at 7:23 PM.
#820SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tempestra
I'm a raid leader (and mage) of my guild - the main reason we have 4 mages on the raiding roster is simply a function of them being good friends and good players. They sit more than any of our DPS classes simply because they don't bring the same blend of utility/dps/survivability that shadowpriests/locks/hunters bring. Hopefully 2.3 changes that, but I have my reservations.

Also, I'd take 15% stam over a single 5-minute immunity, even though the immunity is pretty useful situationally. We'll see how fights evolve in Sunwell I guess?
#821SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
I'm aware of that. I'm not aware of anything that has changed in the past 2 months to magically increase Mage dps, however, aside from the 2.2 Arcane Missiles thing, which is being removed, so I'd consider it to still be valid, perhaps not as accurate as it was then, but certainly still valid.
WWS reports lower dps for fire mages due to fireball dot uptime. The report was based on dps, not damage done. It was also based on a whole 10 wws reports. It's good for a laugh at best, if you'll notice that report has Manly using his experimental arcane/fire cycles which he said were no good.
#822SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
A few things

1- skills. I don't claim to be a super player. I messed up a lot and also have learned from it. When it comes down to it, I just play a ridiculous amount of time. I suppose 200 days of /played is somewhat an indication of this, given that I never AFK when I play. In fact, I started to learn a lot more when I joined EJ and went from being 'the top mage' (in other guilds) and actually the tables were turned and suddently I was playing with players better than myself. I do my best to play well, and as such I believe AM spec is by far and wide the most enjoyable spec, since it requires more attention to your play if you really want to push the envelope. But putting those details aside, my claims about IB uses shouldn't be related with skills or anything like it. I do agree with you that a higher sklilled player probably doesn't relies much on IB. But I think that from what I have seen, in EJ, we always go for the safest and most reproducible boss strategy possible. I know for a fact that if you give Gurgthock the choice between a risky strategy and just 'pad it up' with heavy stacking of healers -versus- using a balanced raid and safe play, its obvious he's gonna go for the latter. If every raid worked that same way, where we 'avoid player skill' and instead rely on the soundness of the boss killing strategy specifically tailored to avoid player screwups, then the relative value of ice block will naturally die down.

I wish I could say I never cratered on archimonde. Or that I never pressed the windows-key on archimonde as a doomfire was headed my way. Or that on my first port on shahraz I got that wonderfull port directly behind the tree in the small room to the right that you cant see anything unless your camera is directly on top of you. In case you ask, it got me soo confused despise having been warned about it that I still didn't respond to it and consequently died. Hey I made all of those mistakes. Yes, IB could have helped. But I mean, you make those mistakes once or twice, then you learn to avoid them. I think thats how it goes with everyone. But then again, we also wear max stamina gear on archimonde and always have stacks of fire protection pots, and make sure to not use potions or gems to mitigate doomfire damage if it becomes an issue. We also enforce PVP trinket on every player as well as give a shaman to every group. In addition to all this I also have WOTF. Sure, IB could help, but at that point, I have a hard time to say it is truly needed or a matter of skill and screwup mitigation.

2- Wasted itemisation points. I would like to avoid the discussion about 'wasted itemisation points'. I am not saying the issue is real or not. I do have a guenine intention to make a post about coe being too narrow and proposing cos/coe as a possible fix. If I am to bring this up, the first thing I want to avoid is having the thread turned into a whine or trying to ask for too many things. I don't think blizzard is as likely to respond to a big post about all the mage problems rather than just one suggestion that is well detailed. I think what I am trying to say here is that I want to only list my 'strong arguments' and avoid the smaller ones because all the 'small arguments' end up doing is getting lots of nitpickings done / sideline conversations about the things that don't really matter. Yes, itemisation in TBC as a whole is lacking. Yes, sockets are one of the most stupid invention ever made (or to be more exact: their stupidly low ilvl cost and their ability to dodge exponential ilvl costs of stacking one stat). Every class suffers from this. It's not class specific. Even if we did lose 200 spirit points from tiered gear, then what? We gain some dmg some crit some stats. It won't really rebalance the class.

3- AOE. We could discuss at great length comparing SOC versus mage AOE. I believe that if you get less DPS than warlocks doing SOC, you aren't using your strength as advantages. Our strength in AOE is low threat (ie: AOE more aggressively/earlier) and bigger range (and AEing while jumping increases it further fyi). In my experience arcane mages always rape meters on AOE because we play extremely aggressively. I even extensively rely on tranquil air totem and am the first to point out when it isn't down. I would even use [Prism of Inner Calm] if it didn't have an ICD. I could also use the crappy -threat potion since its a -threat given to all mobs that isn't being split across the number of target (yes that's not very known fact :P ). Fire mage AOE is about on par with warlocks SOC. It's all about playing your strengths out.

4- firespec 'threat' problems. Please keep in mind that tanks gain a really substansive threat boost due to the new expertise ratings. Enough in fact to pretty much cover the 'gap' that never really existed. I think a derail on this is too soon to be speculated. We need to see the real impact in a raid setting to conclude anything.

5- arcane spec dps, 2.3 and mana issues. Yes, I fully agree that the proper way to balance arcane is to increase its DPS and lower its DPM. That is the cost to high DPS. And yes, we are very far from having anything close to that. Arcane has serious mana issues because the spells we have suck balls scaling-wise. Mages always had mana issues. In early wow, magery was mostly a matter of stacking as much int as possible. 13k mana pools (in T1 no less!) were not uncommon. That was one of the first signs that mages had mana issues. Then they made evocation free to all mages because it was required to have. To this day clearcasting is still arguably a must-have talent. Now they increased arcane talents to get 15% more mana and its still not enough (as the recent blue post admitted). And thats not to speak about the fact that mages need the absurd mana regen from a shadow priest.

Arcane spec scaling is basically fubar. The spells don't work in 2.3. AM never worked in the first place, it was only working because of MSD+TLC+ashtongue which is pretty telling about just how bad the spell is when really its DPS comes from those 3 items. AB is borderline unusable. Sure you can do AB rotation for the sole sake of dodging the need for COE, but that's not really a choice you are making, or a matter of personal preference; all it's doing is acknowledging the narrowness of COE and why cos/coe should probably be merged.

Last edited by manly : 11/08/07 at 8:13 PM.
#823SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Sancus
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
WWS reports lower dps for fire mages due to fireball dot uptime. The report was based on dps, not damage done. It was also based on a whole 10 wws reports. It's good for a laugh at best, if you'll notice that report has Manly using his experimental arcane/fire cycles which he said were no good.
OK, but I'd still like to see how we can do 2000dps, because I would consider that to be the absolute minimum for Mage dps to be said to be better than other ranged classes. I still haven't seen a single post from you stating how or why you think Mage dps is higher than other ranged classes in more specific terms.

I honestly want to believe that Mages do more dps, but you haven't said even one single thing to prove it. Even your spreadsheet seems to blatantly disprove it, since it does not give numbers any higher than any other ranged dps class I've seen actually play or in WWS, and spreadsheets over-report real dps.

(I wasn't really basing my argument on that report, just trying to come up with something better than "what I've seen" because I think arguments based purely on what you've personally observed in your guild or whatever are useless)

Last edited by Sancus : 11/08/07 at 7:39 PM.
#824SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
I was mostly basing this off the WWS reports Manly links me. I've done very little cross-class theorycrafting as it tends to be messy. As long as that CoE is up mages should be hitting very hard. A mage who's that well geared, around 1500 spell damage after raid buffs, will see ~8% more damage from fireball. The spellcasting fix is also a ~3-6% increase to haste, probably a little more since 100% stopcasting might not be reasonable. This is more ~7-13% for scorch, which is a big deal as scorching is a significant factor in fire mage dps.

I just opened up my spreadsheet and equipped a mage in the best gear available, matched all his socket bonuses with blue quality gems, and gave him a shaman/bloodlust. The result was 1952 fire dps estimated, or 2000 dps from straight fireball spam. So the spreadsheet supports it.. though I've personally never seen 2000 dps from anyone, not nearly geared enough. Except on Shade of LolAkama.

Edit: This kind of thing is extremely hard to prove statistically, no one really has access to a substantial worth of valid data. Except Blizzard.
#825SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 manly
counter-argument
4.2k dps
Wow Web Stats

(yes this is me being nitpicky and sarcastic)
#826SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Yeah, I meant 2000 actual dps, under real encounter conditions, Seeing as how hunters can do 1900 dps I'm totally not seeing how "Mages are the rogues of ranged dps". Even if we do have an advantage, it's something incredibly tiny, like 5%. Rogues are rogues because their advantage is huge and evident to everyone. Mages are certainly competitive, but +80dps in perfect gear in the spreadsheet doesn't say "rogues of ranged dps" to me at all. It says "swap out for someone who provides synergy".
#827SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
Wait a minute. Nobody ever said 2.3 mage dps was not fine. It is fine. It is balanced. However, without COE it isn't. This is the clinging issue.

EDIT: I feel sad saying this but that linked naj'entus report seems bogus. Casters with above 1700 dps on najentus is hard to do with bloodlust, and drums. Its almost impossible without drums. Lots of numbers in that parse don't match every other top parses of najentus. I know I tried my best on najentus and I can assure you 1600+ is already pretty rare from casters, 1700 being mostly unheard of.

RE-EDIT: I am wrong this is yet another side-effect of WWS dps time% calculation poor implementation. I checked a number of parses and basically if you have 100% dps time you have the figures I mentioned, but if you have 90% dps then 1800 is possible. I suppose AM'ing the bubble increases your DPS time but not your DPS, resulting in your dps being diluted. I have found a parse where I got 1800 but then almost every other parses im more around 1600-1650 because I usually keep spamming AM during bubble to generate procs.

Last edited by manly : 11/09/07 at 2:36 AM.
#828SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Wait a minute. Nobody ever said 2.3 mage dps was not fine. It is fine. It is balanced. However, without COE it isn't. This is the clinging issue.
I'm saying that it's competitive and balanced, with COE. Vontre is arguing that we have an advantage, however, and that advantage justifies the fact that we provide no group benefit at all, unlike every other class. I don't see any such advantage, and that's my problem.

I agree that Mage dps is fine, I don't think we should become ranged rogues, but I think Mages need some sort of group benefit capability to be really worth having in your raid. Every single dps class does this except Mages and Rogues.
#829SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 Vontre
I was saying after the 2.3 patch... take that mage right below the hunter in your WWS and multiply his dps by 1.05. Now we have an advantage.

Edit: Well not quite, but you know what I mean. Probably a very small advantage. Instead of dps synergy we get superior mobility and control. As well as a group buff. People still whine when they don't get intellect, so I assume some people like it, even if we don't particularly have a use for it. =p

Last edited by Vontre : 11/08/07 at 8:10 PM.
#830SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
No raid synergy?

I say Bring On WotLC Brilliance Aura.

I also stick by my previous post with making frost crits give some kind of funky debuff.

As for the suggestion someone said that this debuff should stack to x5 or it should last 10sec so it can be perma-up, I riposte that I specifically selected 5sec so it -couldn't- be perma-on, and 2% crit size increase to all incoming spells or 2% mob hit chance decrease were suggested so it -isn't- too big. I envisaged a debuff along the lines of druid's Insect Swarm. Remember we're talking about a 11 or 21 talent here, for One Point. Winter's chill gives a perma-up debuff that stacks to 5, causes 0 raid synergy yet it needs 5 points and is a few tiers lower.

And for the sake of God, make shadow priest spells 15% cheaper and their Vampyric Manawhore spell return 15% less... It's getting to a point where everyone except paladins and warriors want one in their group.
#831SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
I was saying after the 2.3 patch... take that mage right below the hunter in your WWS and multiply his dps by 1.05. Now we have an advantage.
Well, uh, that would put him on par, actually, which is my point. Even if that 5% was pure advantage, it wouldn't really be enough to avoid getting lost in the noise of random occurrences . That's why Rogues have(and need) much more than a 5% advantage, to make it clearly desirable to have them.

Instead of dps synergy we get superior mobility and control. As well as a group buff. People still whine when they don't get intellect, so I assume some people like it, even if we don't particularly have a use for it. =p
Turn int into a group aura and double it, then we're taking, imo :P I wish our superior mobility and control were real advantages, but very few encounters take advantage of them, and the mobility only compensates for our pathetic hitpoints(playing with fire so adds insult to injury...) some of the time. Honestly, I'd drop Blink for 20% more hitpoints. In a flash. Wouldn't even think twice. And given the number of snarable/rootable mobs in boss encounters, I'd say that Blink is pretty much our primary advantage.
#832SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Rogues are also melee with almost no utility.
#833SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3thesmoosh
Originally Posted by manly View Post
It might be, to you. To me, it simply isn't. If I am not wrong, we've killed illidan for the 15th time this week. I die on average about 1-2 times per full hyjal/bt clear (not counting sacrifices). Usually its because of a wipe. It mostly applies to trash, allowing you to go more all out, but I specifically ignore trash when talking PVE. The amount of times I can say IB could have made a difference are so few and far between that they aren't even worth recalling in my mind. I would say about 5 times in the past 3 months. If I count only the time we were still learning bosses, the only places where IB would have been good to have is, namely: leotheras pre-nerf, shahraz pre-nerf and archimonde pre-nerf. IB would have been good maybe for 1 or 2 weeks while we were learning the encounters, then you just learn your way around the bosses in such a way that you dont need it anymore. That's about as far as I could possibly give IB a value in PVE encounters, which, to me, is pretty damn close to nil.
This.

When I started raiding I wore full crafted gear, spellstrike and spellfire. I min/maxed every single stat for damage. I sacrificed stamina as much as I could if it meant more damage. I ended up with 5.8k hp before raid buffs. I had aboslutely no problem what-so-ever doing gruul, void reaver, mag, and everything before that.

Plenty of other classes with double my hp got hit by orbs, shatters etc. I did spec frost, I crafted by full FSW, and I loved having iceblock. I just never needed it. Manly cited lategame examples, and I don't have similar experience, but all the fights I mentioned have lots of aoe damage.

Iceblock is not needed to survive.
#834SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
This nit-picking "+5%dps = excuse for utility" is getting annoying, out of hand and pointless gentlemen.

I will recall you a few months back to the blizzard statement that Mages are destined to be AoE kings while rogues are destined to be DPS kings.

Of course, after Blizzard decide as a company to maintain this perspective, one does not expect them to honour it with respect to current content and thus redesign the whole game world to fit that description.

I expect the future Zulaman, Sunwell, as well as anything in the Litch King to make our role less DPS and more AOE than it is now, ending this constant bickering about how one class should out-dps another.

Sancus you argue too much about raid utility from Hunters and Locks. I agree, Locks have too much power in many, many circumstances. This has come about because locks were envisaged with too much potential synergy from the get-go and the shadowpriest PvE viability in BC has made it scale one stop too far. But Hunters? Come on... You only need one bloody hunter for MD pulls and you can't convince me that MD is critical on any bossfight, at least not more than one. MD is at least as useful as having a Poly and an AOE, as well as a ranged Silence. I have yet to see any guild forgo a mage slot for a hunter for raid enrichment.
#835SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Rogues are also melee with almost no utility.
You know, I really wish that being melee was back to having some sort of disadvantage, but Blizzard seems to have decided that melee should be no more dangerous than ranged. There aren't really any encounters at the T6 level where melee are in more danger than ranged, and I'm guessing they've decided to drop this idea/mechanic entirely.
#836SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
Only disadvantage of being melee is the threatcap.
#837SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
You know, I really wish that being melee was back to having some sort of disadvantage, but Blizzard seems to have decided that melee should be no more dangerous than ranged. There aren't really any encounters at the T6 level where melee are in more danger than ranged, and I'm guessing they've decided to drop this idea/mechanic entirely.
You're forgetting that melee can't switch targets easily and incur a great deal of damage loss when they do.
#838SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
I was mostly basing this off the WWS reports Manly links me. I've done very little cross-class theorycrafting as it tends to be messy. As long as that CoE is up mages should be hitting very hard. A mage who's that well geared, around 1500 spell damage after raid buffs, will see ~8% more damage from fireball. The spellcasting fix is also a ~3-6% increase to haste, probably a little more since 100% stopcasting might not be reasonable. This is more ~7-13% for scorch, which is a big deal as scorching is a significant factor in fire mage dps.

I just opened up my spreadsheet and equipped a mage in the best gear available, matched all his socket bonuses with blue quality gems, and gave him a shaman/bloodlust. The result was 1952 fire dps estimated, or 2000 dps from straight fireball spam. So the spreadsheet supports it.. though I've personally never seen 2000 dps from anyone, not nearly geared enough. Except on Shade of LolAkama.

Edit: This kind of thing is extremely hard to prove statistically, no one really has access to a substantial worth of valid data. Except Blizzard.
I don't see how merging CoS and CoE helps a lot for mages raid viability. Even with 13% CoE up, firemages are around something like 80-85% of a destro-locks dps, and supposedly at 85-90% in 2.3 - if said lock would just take over a mages spot, i.e. being in a spriest group with no other duties and thus being free to sbolt spam and cast a CoD once a minute. And just in case you want to see someone with a 2000 dps parse, i have something for you as well (didn't take me long to find one btw): click.

I also scanned manly post(s) and have to partly agree and partly disagree ... I'm still very certain, that IB is more helpful that you give it credit for - on learning raids, not on farming obviously. But i totally agree, that IB can never be a reason to keep the mages raid-dmg low in comparison to other classes. Not only does it fade over time when people learn the encounters, i also just have to take a look at the 5k or so soulleech healing per minute locks use to have, to know that it would be a complete joke.

One of the main issues is the balance of the casual players "playground" i guess. Mages scale pretty well in the lower regions if i recall correctly, and have pretty much the same dmg-output than for example rogues and locks when everyone is in blues, even with the current dmg-tax (and i'm sure it was one of the main reasons for it's implemention), and then they top it with the by far best CC spell in the game that also takes absolutely no brain to put into perfect use: Polymorph. I can easily imagine how Blizz devs hold back buffing mages dmg even more, when hordes of casual rogues/locks etc. are whining on the forums about how they never get into any 5man PUGs b/c every damn group wants a mage for brainless sheeping.

Thus i would just start it all up with nerfing the shit out of Polymorph ... make it last only 15-20s max and let the sheeps wander off into nomansland again. Controlling the sheeps would also add some new variety to the current single-button-mashing too. Then bring the raid dmg on par with other classes and clearly everyone is happy! Oh yes certainly!
#839SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Prod
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
You're forgetting that melee can't switch targets easily and incur a great deal of damage loss when they do.
Like High Warlord, Supremus, Akama, Gorefiend, Mother, Ros, Illidan, Archimonde, Kazrogal, Azgalor, Anetheron, and Winterchill are target intensive fights that are not friendly to melee.

I think his point was that the endgame is in no way designed to punish melee for being, well, melee. The damage going out is often times aoe. I don't know about your guild, but our hunters, rogues, and dps war top charts. If anything, I switch targets more than they do (infernals, akama guys) and I lose my curse during the process.

Edit:
Don't underestimate hunter utility. I've been saved by a scattershot/trap many, many, many, many times when someone breaks my sheep. I've done heroics and loved the nature buff. I've seem them help tanks build threat when something awful happens during an attempt or the boss has a threat knockback ability. They destroy ROS phase 1. They do very respectable damage (currently above mages, but that may change). They simplify (even trivialize) difficult pulls like council or High King. They increase their parties total damage.

Last edited by Prod : 11/08/07 at 8:48 PM.
#840SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
If anything, I switch targets more than they do (infernals, akama guys) and I lose my curse during the process.
Well of course you switch targets more than they do; you're ranged. You have the reasonable option. Nobody is gonna make a rogue run across the map to dps infernals. And nobody is gonna stack their raid with 6 rogues either, because that would be suicide. Melee no longer dies outright to cleaves, but it is still very much a disadvantage, the pbaoe doesn't hit as brutally hard anymore but it is still there.
#841SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
I completely 100% agree with Manly. We rely on 3 warlocks, a shaman, and spriest.
I disagree. All dps classes rely on such supporters. That's not a mage specific issue.
Take away a shaman from a meele group and take away a shaman from a mage group, the meele group will loose much more dps than the mage grp, even assuming both groups would do the same same dmg with shaman. The same is for warlocks. Although there is a difference, because mages are the only class wich really benefits from COE, the other curses help more than one class.
We don't rely on spriests also (in non aoe fights). After 2.3 nobody will cast arcane spells. Frost is easily sustainable without a spriest, even without clearcast. Fire is also quite sustainable without a spriest, especially in shorter fights (~5 min) with chain chugging mana pots, gems and evocation. Sure you loose some dmg while evocation, not being able to use destro pots, etc.
However mana regeneration for mages is still a broken mechanic.

Originally Posted by manly View Post
I am not unaware that it can remove silences and thus allow for more dps. Or that it can stop a stun or sleep or whatever really. I know that. But again, given that were speaking here of 1 ice block per attempt its impact on dps is very very very small.
Let's say you get time for 1 extra fireball per iceblock out of such effects.
In a 4min fight you'll be able to use it only once, but if you cast 50 fireballs in such a fight, one extra fb is just 2% more dmg isn't it?

I never said that IB trainable fixes mages viability. Our combination of dmg, group/raid support and survivability is still worse than most other classes. Especially because an additional mage brings absolutely nothing to the raid.


Originally Posted by manly View Post
I'm sorry to say, but pushback prevention in frost wouldn't make much sense from a balance perspective. The entire tree is there for kiting mobs when levelling up (ie: not getting hit) and theres ice barrier to do your pushback prevention.
Are you seroius? We are talking about raids here, kiting and ice barrier don't protect you from pushbacks in raids. One of the biggest arguments against fost speccs in the last 30 pages of this thread was that it has no spell pushback prevention.
Let's assume for a sec. that frost would get a burning soul equivalent as iceblock replacement. Remember Vontre's calculation where frost dps was better than fire dps in a patchwork scenario:
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
So how does our "Patchwerk scenario" look? Meaning standing still and doing your spells and scorches for 5 minutes. Pretty much like this:

Fire | fire1: 1821.98
Frost | frost1: 1837.29
Arcane | arcane1: 1651.97

Yeah, that's a big WTF. Apparently if the water elemental actually stays alive, and you never have to move or deal with pushback, frost fucking owns.
Now remove the spell pushback component in the calculation because there would be no difference between frost and fire, change the "WE alive time" to 75% and change the scenario of 2 fire mages against 1 frost mage for ramp ups into a more fair scenario i. e. 1on1 or 2on2 and you will get pretty interesting results I think.

Giving frost a spell pushback like fire would be a pretty interesting thing and would get more interesting as gear gets better because the gap to 2p T4 increases.

Would a pushback prevention being unbalanced for soloing / leveling?
No, IB is available to fire while leveling also and what kiting is for frost, that is range, pyro and fireblast for fire.
Fire sometimes (bad gear when leveling up) needs pushback prevention because mobs will reach you before killed.
Just because frost doesn't needs a pushback prevention for leveling (because of kiting, ice barrier) it isn't unbalanced to add that at all.
Let's be realistic, trees for leveling aren't balanced at all and probably will never get.


Just comes to my mind: When IB is trainable, is there still a reason why frost dps should be lower than fire dps? (From a design standpoint and looking at raids, ignoring pvp and leveling)
#842SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
When I started raiding I wore full crafted gear, spellstrike and spellfire. I min/maxed every single stat for damage. I sacrificed stamina as much as I could if it meant more damage. I ended up with 5.8k hp before raid buffs. I had aboslutely no problem what-so-ever doing gruul, void reaver, mag, and everything before that.

Plenty of other classes with double my hp got hit by orbs, shatters etc. I did spec frost, I crafted by full FSW, and I loved having iceblock. I just never needed it. Manly cited lategame examples, and I don't have similar experience, but all the fights I mentioned have lots of aoe damage.
I'm guessing your healers were taxed fairly heavily? Gruul yeah, if everyone is acting right, but I mean when I'm starting out bosses I like to have a bit of forgiveness room. Not EVERYONE is going to get it right the first time. And one of the first fights in BT everyone raid wide takes constant AoE damage and an periodic 8.5k dmg AoE. STamina is a valuable stat. I'm not sure where you're going with this.... But EJ is from what I can tell a forum for late game raiding and stamina is a VERY valuable stat in end game raiding
#843SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alvira
If I had 5.8k hp for raiding before buffs. My raid leader won't even allow me to raid. Its that straight forward.
#844SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
Let's say you get time for 1 extra fireball per iceblock out of such effects.
In a 4min fight you'll be able to use it only once, but if you cast 50 fireballs in such a fight, one extra fb is just 2% more dmg isn't it?
I'm not sure why people are still thinking in these terms. For 99 percent of the people, Ice Block is not an extra fireball, it is an extra combat rez (which is tantamount to many extra fireballs). If you are using it as an one fireball, you are likely being wasteful and inefficient.
#845SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3spiderella
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
I'm not sure why people are still thinking in these terms. For 99 percent of the people, Ice Block is not an extra fireball, it is an extra combat rez (which is tantamount to many extra fireballs). If you are using it as an one fireball, you are likely being wasteful and inefficient.
If this were qualified "for 99% of non-raiders" I'd agree more. I don't think that in a serious raid situation mage durability is broken. Mana gems usually alleviate some of the need for mana pots freeing up health potions (or vice versa with healthstones). Blink makes most AE dodging and other forms of juking out of incidental damage trivial. Fire / frost ward are still impressively useful. Frost nova is a signature skill in AE situations. Mana shield while costly further helps mage survival in ways a lot of classes can't quite match. For solo, small group, pvp etc. iceblock buff is amazing but in raids not a whole lot of the content requires it or even gives a mage a huge margin of survivability.

I know I've seen myself and other mages learn and re-learn how2play with and without iceblock, it's definitely used as a crutch by many.
#846SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
 manly
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
stuff about pushback prevention
First, 21 points are 1 pt talents. Pushback prevention isn't something novel like every 21 pointers out of pretty much every class. Arcane gets POM, fire gets blastwave, frost gets (ice block). A spell pushback really doesn't makes sense here. What you can expect is some new spell on a cooldown, just like the rest. It can't be too good on pvp because it wouldn't make sense for the aforementioned reasons. It can be good dps for PVE if the cooldown is long enough (ie: 2-3 min). Or it can be some novelty spell.

It would flat out not make any sense that frost gets spell pushback from talents. The talents are also made to assist you levelling up. Frost is the survivability tree, and as such, spell pushback prevention has no place in a tree devoted towards avoiding damage. Fire has nothing in the tree besides blastwave devoted towards kiting, so it is somewhat assumed that pushback prevention is there so you can keep casting while mobs hit on you.

While this is purely tangential, magery in general is devoted towards avoiding damage. Thats the mage playstyle. We are frail, but to counter-balance this, we avoid taking damage with tools such as blink, frostnova, mana shield, ice barrier or kiting. I would say that anything that reduces the damage we take is stupid at best with that design in mind, but hey we get 2 talents that do that so I guess the developers ran out of ideas (no seriously prismatic cloak/arcane fortitude?). If we were not frail and could have a lot of armor it would be flat out OP. It's pretty obvious in that sense that the overall design philosophy for frost was that you don't need pushback prevention because you can avoid taking damage in very multiple ways:

frostbolt kiting
ice barrier
cold snap
frostbite
permafrost for even better kiting
ice floes (yes even reduced COC cooldown comes into play here)
water elemental (both for its freeze and because he can keep nuking while you take damage, in addition to WE->IB)
imp. blizzard
imp. frostnova
<and not to mention ice armor with frostbite>

(ice block)


I understand that in PVE context your ice barrier isn't really helping much in that department, but check in contrast the fire tree, its immediately obvious that the entire tree is devoted towards increasing your damage. Even blastwave isn't there as a kiting tool, its basically an extra instant attack more than anything else (ie: burst dps). The only way firespec can deal its damage, because all the talents are solely damage increasing talents, is arguably burning soul. There is no way around that for soloing if you were playing using only one tree. Mobs are gonna be hitting on your and you need to keep dpsing them. What do you have? pushback prevention.

If you can't see that it doesn't makes sense that frost gets pushback prevention through talents I fear I cannot explain it to you or that we will ever agree on anything.

Last edited by manly : 11/09/07 at 2:49 AM.
#847SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Keyne
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
If this were qualified "for 99% of non-raiders" I'd agree more. I don't think that in a serious raid situation mage durability is broken. Mana gems usually alleviate some of the need for mana pots freeing up health potions (or vice versa with healthstones). Blink makes most AE dodging and other forms of juking out of incidental damage trivial. Fire / frost ward are still impressively useful. Frost nova is a signature skill in AE situations. Mana shield while costly further helps mage survival in ways a lot of classes can't quite match. For solo, small group, pvp etc. iceblock buff is amazing but in raids not a whole lot of the content requires it or even gives a mage a huge margin of survivability.

I know I've seen myself and other mages learn and re-learn how2play with and without iceblock, it's definitely used as a crutch by many.
My point is not that it provides a huge margin of survivability. My point is that when it IS used to survive, the payoffs are huge, and thus it is a valuable spell (whether you are learning a fight or not).
#848SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by manly
but check in contrast the fire tree, its immediately obvious that the entire tree is devoted towards increasing your damage.
I have to admit, this is one of the things that annoys me about Fire. There are too many diluted talents. They should really ditch the 3% increased spell damage on Playing with Fire(our dps doesnt *really* justify it, and it's pretty minor anyway) and merge Pyromaniac and Playing with Fire, at the same tier as Pyromaniac.

One of the nice things with a Frost PvE build is that you have enough spare points that you can get improved CS or a couple points of arcane meditation if you are so inclined, or put some points in Impact for pvp purposes, etc. Fire uses up a few too many points for what you get out of them.
#849SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
That's an interesting point, It IS curious that we have a spell that increases our damage done and taken both by 1% followed immediately by a talent that increases our damage done by 2%... that's a really stupid design, and indicative as a whole of my feelings towards mage talents right now.

It's been mentioned already in this thread that our talent trees make no sense, but ... what was arcane ever really intended to be? It was a GREAT support tree pre TBC but it seems that with 41 point talent builds and people delving deep into them rather than messing around in 2, .... Can someone shed light on what Arcane is supposed to do again?
#850SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
That's an interesting point, It IS curious that we have a spell that increases our damage done and taken both by 1% followed immediately by a talent that increases our damage done by 2%... that's a really stupid design, and indicative as a whole of my feelings towards mage talents right now.
Maybe you misread or never read the talents in the first place, but Playing with Fire is 3% increased damage done/recieved, and Pyromaniac increase our CRIT rate by 3%, and reduces mana cost by 3%, totally not even close to the same talents.

It makes more sense to make Critical Mass 3% per point, 9% over all, no change deep fire, take out Playing with Fire totally, get a new talent there, and make Pyromaniac 3% more damage done/recieved, and 3% mana cost reduction. Another thing to do is, Re-do the placement of Molten Fury and Pyromaniac, and make Pyromaniac require 5 points into Fire Power, and at the same time, buff Pyromaniac up to 5% total, 1/3/5.

But that is not the point.

What we really need is a change to the warlock class, since they are the biggest buffers to dps overall. Merge CoE/S to one skill, add a Nature and Holy aspect too, can lower the overall damage buff from 10% down to 7-8%, change Malediction to affect CoR by lowering the amount of AP is gives the boss.

Example of what I'm trying to say;
Curse of Natural Elements: Increases Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Shadow damage by 7%.
Then Malediction: Increases the damage bonus of Curse of Natural Elements by 3%, and lowers the AP granted by Curse of Recklessness by 50.

Makes it so that Malediction is worth it no matter what now, and Shamans/Boomkins/Holy dpsers aren't left out.

Those two changes are a drastic change that would balance the difference of dps classes by so much.

It's been mentioned already in this thread that our talent trees make no sense, but ... what was arcane ever really intended to be? It was a GREAT support tree pre TBC but it seems that with 41 point talent builds and people delving deep into them rather than messing around in 2, .... Can someone shed light on what Arcane is supposed to do again?
As long as I've been playing the game, Arcane to me has always been the buffer talent tree, which it still is to an extent. All the talents except ONE benefit the dps increase to all skills the same, Empowered Arcane Missiles. This is a huge problem, all the other trees, deep in them benefit mainly that school of spells. The Arcane Tree needs to have Slow removed as it provides no true benefit to the Arcane tree. Prismatic Cloak needs to be reworked too. Also, we could use more Arcane based damage spells, AE, AM, AB... yet none are viable for any real DPS like Frostbolt, Fireball are.
#851SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Soul
Actually, that's one of the problems I have with frost as a raiding tree... most of the survival talents count for nought when all the things you're fighting are immune to roots and snares and mass AoEs make pushback nigh unavoidable. Much of your burst damage is negated by this immunity to roots and, furthermore, frost's damage coefficients are lowered due to these snare components that are non-existent in a raid situation.

So, I have a proposal for a new 21-point talent to replace Ice Block. Call it "Supercooling" or "Cryolysis" or something else cool and frosty.

The talent would be an instant cast single-target debuff with a one-minute duration and a 50-second cooldown (OK, the cooldown should be longish so you can't just spam a whole ton of targets with the debuff). The debuff doesn't stack on single targets; casting the spell on a target already so debuffed will just refresh the duration. However, you can cast the debuff on multiple targets (within the cooldown or by using Cold Snap). A debuffed target which gets snared will be slowed an additional 5% by this debuff. However, a debuffed target upon which a snare or root fails to land, for whatever reason (resists, stronger snares already on target, immunity to movement impairing effects, etc.) will take ~50 frost damage (at level 70) + 5% of the frost damage of the caster trying to land the snare or root. The damage can be partially resisted, can crit and can cause pushback. The spell will cost about 320 mana base (so that in a little less than 45 seconds in a raid situation, it pays for itself by supplying the damage of an additional frostbolt for the caster). The debuff's cooldown and mana cost are affected if the caster of the debuff has Frost Channeling, Elemental Precision or Ice Floes. The damage done by the debuff on a missed snare is attributed to the caster of the snare and is affected only by the stats of the caster of the snare (which means that a crippling poison proc on a target with BoF will do 50 damage).

The point of this talent is to eliminate the coefficient penalties that spells with snares suffer in raid situations, to bring the damage scaling per time per point of spellpower of Frostbolt somewhat in line with other nukes and also to provide additional frost synergy in PvP to make up for the fact that all mages will have Ice Block now. Of course, the numbers are a little rough and can be tweaked, but the point of this proposed skill is to address the inadequacies of the Frost Tree without Ice Block specifically (substandard dps and scaling, lack of special utlity in PvP).
#852SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
thesmoosh
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
I'm guessing your healers were taxed fairly heavily?
Nope. Unfortunately these fights were a long time ago and our wws has expired, but me and our two other mages were constantly on the least damage taken list. As in on VR we took either one orb (5-6k) or no dmg whatsoever. On gruul shatter damage is sometimes unavoidable because it is not in your own hands, but it's still relatively easy to avoid taking it from more than one person. Honestly the only times I ever died on gruul really was maybe the first time I saw the encounter and times when half the raid was already dead and IB would've made very little difference.

I don't recall any healer every spending more than a few seconds throughout the fight healing me. Usually one resto druid handled all raid healing on gruul. If I ever did get hit with an orb on VR it took a big chunk of my hp, sure. And perhaps I could've iceblocked instead of moving (our resident frost mage did this), but really all it took was one HoT or simply walking out and bandaging yourself to fix it (can't use potions or healthstones obviously). And this was all while keeping around 800-900 DPS which is decent for that level of gear. It was also not a matter of extraordinary skill as our other mages were the same way.

Edit: My point is not that stamina isn't a useful stat, far from it. I'd absolutely love if all the spirit on our gear was converted to stam. And frankly I would've gladly taken sidegrades that offered more stam if it was available to me at the time. My main point was that iceblock was not necessary. If mages can survive with a horrible 5.8k hp, then mages can survive just fine without iceblock. I don't want fights based around immunity gimmiks. Like others I'd vastly prefer 15% more stam than an iceblock.

Last edited by thesmoosh : 11/09/07 at 7:05 AM.
#853SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Dryssa
Right now it's pretty pointless discussing possible 21 point frost talents to replace Ice Block. Sure it's fun, but the point of this thread is to theorycraft, not speculate. There'll be plenty of time for discussion when Blizzard announces what's coming.
#854SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
kadgar
Originally Posted by manly View Post
It would flat out not make any sense that frost gets spell pushback from talents. The talents are also made to assist you levelling up. Frost is the survivability tree, and as such, spell pushback prevention has no place in a tree devoted towards avoiding damage. Fire has nothing in the tree besides blastwave devoted towards kiting, so it is somewhat assumed that pushback prevention is there so you can keep casting while mobs hit on you.

While this is purely tangential, magery in general is devoted towards avoiding damage. Thats the mage playstyle. We are frail, but to counter-balance this, we avoid taking damage with tools such as blink, frostnova, mana shield, ice barrier or kiting. I would say that anything that reduces the damage we take is stupid at best with that design in mind, but hey we get 2 talents that do that so I guess the developers ran out of ideas (no seriously prismatic cloak/arcane fortitude?). If we were not frail and could have a lot of armor it would be flat out OP. It's pretty obvious in that sense that the overall design philosophy for frost was that you don't need pushback prevention because you can avoid taking damage in very multiple ways:

I understand that in PVE context your ice barrier isn't really helping much in that department, but check in contrast the fire tree, its immediately obvious that the entire tree is devoted towards increasing your damage. Even blastwave isn't there as a kiting tool, its basically an extra instant attack more than anything else (ie: burst dps). The only way firespec can deal its damage, because all the talents are solely damage increasing talents, is arguably burning soul. There is no way around that for soloing if you were playing using only one tree. Mobs are gonna be hitting on your and you need to keep dpsing them. What do you have? pushback prevention.

If you can't see that it doesn't makes sense that frost gets pushback prevention through talents I fear I cannot explain it to you or that we will ever agree on anything.
I agree that fire needs a pushback prevention (for leveling and raids), and I agree that frost doesn't need one for leveling and I thought I've written that in my post.

My point ist, that frost needs could need such a pushback prevention for raids, because all this slowing/kiting tools are useless in raids and the advantage of IB is gone.

Arguing that frost mustn't get a pushback prevention because it would break leveling balance sounds strange to me. Leveling balance is already broken because of water elemental and frostbite + icelance. A pushback prevention won't change or help leveling for frost that much as you assume. Mobs rarely reach the mage and if they do you frostnova them before they do and finish them off with a frostbolt and a fireblast/icelance. Kiting deamons in winterspring or soloing Barov is fun, but not really an issue, some calsses/speccs can kite, others cant. You can kite with firespecc also (lvl1 frostbolt), it's just not that effective (btw: you forgot impact, dragons breath, blazing speed, pyro and increased range in the list of fire tools). If you are kiting with frost, you also don't have an advantage of a pushback prevention ...
When you have problems mobs meeleing you as fire mage, start casting at bigger range, or with a pyro, specc impact and if the mob reaches you, frostnova, one step back and finish him off with scorch/fireball and fireblast. Or don't use FN, finish him off with dragons breath, balst wave, cone of cold, AE. Pushback prevention is nice if you do some boring farming/dailys while watching tv and only paying 25% attention; where you casting fireballs/frostbolts from 20m range and where you know the mob will be dead fafter the 3rd or 4th fireball.
I'll stop here, because I think discussing balance of leveling isn't useful at all. (frost leveling from lvl 70 to whatever level will be "broken" as long as blizz doesn't change 2p T4 set bonus anyway.)

Raiding and PVP are important factors. A pushback prevention for frost is needed for raids but might be a problem for PVP.
I can't discuss mage pvp as I'm not expirienced with that much.


Originally Posted by manly View Post
Mages always had mana issues. In early wow, magery was mostly a matter of stacking as much int as possible. 13k mana pools (in T1 no less!) were not uncommon. That was one of the first signs that mages had mana issues. Then they made evocation free to all mages because it was required to have. To this day clearcasting is still arguably a must-have talent.
To make it short:
Yes our first mage sets were stuid, hell we even had agi on them. But we definitevly didn't had to stack int. Spell dmg was the stat we had to stack right from the point where it was introduced (and this was before most people started raiding), or better its functionality was explained by blizz.
I had 5500 mana (buffed) in MC and mana was never an issue. (frost specced for these fire imune instances of course) I used single manapots at Garr sometimes, maybe at Ragnaros, 1 at ebonroc and maybe 1 at nefarian P1. Robe of the Archmage - Items - World of Warcraft and Celestial Orb - Items - World of Warcraft did a great job saving mana pots.
Mana stared became an issue when people went to AQ40 and respeccing fire.

Originally Posted by manly View Post
(and AEing while jumping increases it further fyi)
No longer in 2.3

Last edited by kadgar : 11/09/07 at 9:02 AM. Reason: typos
#855SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3frosty
Pushback prevention from AE-effects could be enough already, as this causes ~95% of pushbacks in boss-fights anyway. Would still be somewhat odd as a "21" talent.
#856SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3macbeet
Summary?

So we hitting page 35 and it's getting quite fuzzy here. I will try to give a short summary of what was talked about lately, please fill in the gaps, as a surely I missed a lot...

Frost versus Fire versus Arcane
Somewhat consensus is that Fire will do slightly more DpS than Frost but the difference shouldn't make a Frost Player subject to flame. Pick your playstyle!
Arcane is far off after 2t5 Bonus and is currently not considered viable.
Lhivera's Theorycraft Script and Vontre's spreadsheet (http://www.homegirlsguild.com/mage_dps.zip) try to incorporate the changes

Elemental Precision bugged?
Frost Speccs seem to have a higher +hit percentage than they should. The Issue is not resolved yet but evidence suggests that Elemental Precision adds 6% to Frostbolt (instead of 3%). I believe the discussion somewhat stopped here: http://elitistjerks.com/538273-post676.html

Equipment
The Mystical Skyfire Diamond was nerfed with a 45sek internal CD, and can be expected to procc soon after.
The Chaotic Skyfire Diamond seems to be very good (multiplicative after talents, is that right?) look here: http://elitistjerks.com/535928-post618.html
The Lightning Capacitor has now an internal CD on gaining charges?

Iceblock
Blizzard stated that Iceblock will be a Trainer Spell rather than a Talent, to be implemented someaht after 2.3. No News yet of what the replacement 21-point talent will be. The Utility of Iceblock is highly debated, but hey its free !(well it will be)

Jumping and Ae
does not increase radius any more
#857SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
I think the conclusion on Frost is that if the Water Elemental's uptime is at 50%, it's not completely terrible. That means fights slightly shorter than five minutes, the Water Elemental getting fed mana, and the Water Elemental staying alive. Also, Frost suffers much more from pushback and random AEs than Fire.

CSD > MSD, but it's not an amazing metagem that requires a mage to go for a metagem helm. The equivalent 3-socket helm (Spellstrike, Grand Engineer's, or Hood of Hexing) should work. There are three seperate reasons CSD is better. First, at pre-BT/MH gear levels it allows greater freedom for socketing the Veiled gems into gear to work on capping the hit rating. Second, with the new badge/Z'A haste loot, the CSD scales with that while the MSD does not. Third, MSD plays poorly with frost- so people at the Tier 6 level preparing for Illidan should get the CSD.
#858SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
OK, but I'd still like to see how we can do 2000dps, because I would consider that to be the absolute minimum for Mage dps to be said to be better than other ranged classes. I still haven't seen a single post from you stating how or why you think Mage dps is higher than other ranged classes in more specific terms.

I honestly want to believe that Mages do more dps, but you haven't said even one single thing to prove it. Even your spreadsheet seems to blatantly disprove it, since it does not give numbers any higher than any other ranged dps class I've seen actually play or in WWS, and spreadsheets over-report real dps.

(I wasn't really basing my argument on that report, just trying to come up with something better than "what I've seen" because I think arguments based purely on what you've personally observed in your guild or whatever are useless)
For one...it was never even theory crafted in 2.2 for a mage to be able to break 2000 sustained dps. The best numbers we came up with then were between 1800 and 1900...which is what you see on the top geared mages.

Xe from Void

From what I've seen on paper, the changes will take Deep fire over what deep arcane ever was. When accounting for raid buffs, i've seen it go over 2150dps in theory.

There is one item that I haven't seen discussed yet when comparing DPS classes. Rogues can have legendary weapons and mages can't. For this very reason, mages will not be able to out dps rogues due to the huge dps increase these weapons give for a rogue. So when comparing dps classes, you really need to throw out the rogues with warglaives until Blizzard gives casters another legendary weapon.

And one last thing. Why do people feel that they are still depandant on a Shadow Priest in 2.3? Sure...we will need CoE up...but you can really get by w/o a shadow priest as deep fire. Especially in black temple and hyjal. The majority of these battles are much shorter than SSC/TK...which was the last time I was fire. I even did Naj'entus as arcane last night w/o a shadow priest. Yes I ran out of mana...but he was at 10% when I did. You may have to use mana pots over destruction pots...but even then i'm sure you could throw some in.

I personally plan to give our priests the normal mage shadow priest in 2.3 and try to survive off of Mana tide/stream and JoW.
#859SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Qbert
I'm hoping that the mana regen changes Kalgan hints at will be enough to remove the shadowpriest dependency and open raids to the idea of moonkin to replace them in the matrix. Moonkin have really been left out of the raiding scene for far too long primarily because their main synergy requires them to be alotted a spot in a group that has no vacancy.

However, despite the mana gem improvements to come, the changes will have to be substantial and drastic which is not a common part of blizzard's reptoire. To relieve that dependency we need to be able to supply ourselves with an addtional 10-15k+ mana per encounter. However, that begs the question of whether or not a moonkin can sustain DPS without a shadowpriest.

It seems like blizzard wants elemental shaman and moonkin to be to mages like enhancement shaman and feral druids are to rogues.... but with an inherent flaw; atm mages/moonkin/elemental shaman are all pretty dependent on a shadow priest as a mana battery to compete, whereas rogues obviously don't require any sustainability source and all their synergy is DPS boosting.

I really think the answer is to boost mage/shaman/moonkin mana regen & reduce vampiric touch to restore ~2-3% of damage as mana ... but to the raid rather than group. This frees up group-synergy possibilities without requiring group sustainability as well as keeping the core of what a shadowpriest brings to a raid while removing a lot of the motivation to bring as many as 3 shadowpriests to a raid. Perhaps preventing the VT debuffs from stacking too.

Regardless of how it is done, I think the raid matrix situation is going to see a lot of changes between now and WotLK. I remember blizzard commenting about the issues with ret paladins and how their primary obstacle was finding room for them in a group matrix and justifying them in a DPS group ... the same can be said for moonkin.

I would just really like to see our furry friends get to partake in some of the fun, that and 5% crit is nice
#860SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Iod
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
I really think the answer is to boost mage/shaman/moonkin mana regen & reduce vampiric touch to restore ~2-3% of damage as mana ... but to the raid rather than group.
Even at 2-3% that's going to have your Shadowpriest threat-capped in very short order. Now if they were to change the threat mechanics of that, I'd be all over it.
#861SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
I'm hoping that the mana regen changes Kalgan hints at will be enough to remove the shadowpriest dependency and open raids to the idea of moonkin to replace them in the matrix. Moonkin have really been left out of the raiding scene for far too long primarily because their main synergy requires them to be alotted a spot in a group that has no vacancy.

However, despite the mana gem improvements to come, the changes will have to be substantial and drastic which is not a common part of blizzard's reptoire. To relieve that dependency we need to be able to supply ourselves with an addtional 10-15k+ mana per encounter. However, that begs the question of whether or not a moonkin can sustain DPS without a shadowpriest.

It seems like blizzard wants elemental shaman and moonkin to be to mages like enhancement shaman and feral druids are to rogues.... but with an inherent flaw; atm mages/moonkin/elemental shaman are all pretty dependent on a shadow priest as a mana battery to compete, whereas rogues obviously don't require any sustainability source and all their synergy is DPS boosting.

I really think the answer is to boost mage/shaman/moonkin mana regen & reduce vampiric touch to restore ~2-3% of damage as mana ... but to the raid rather than group. This frees up group-synergy possibilities without requiring group sustainability as well as keeping the core of what a shadowpriest brings to a raid while removing a lot of the motivation to bring as many as 3 shadowpriests to a raid. Perhaps preventing the VT debuffs from stacking too.

Regardless of how it is done, I think the raid matrix situation is going to see a lot of changes between now and WotLK. I remember blizzard commenting about the issues with ret paladins and how their primary obstacle was finding room for them in a group matrix and justifying them in a DPS group ... the same can be said for moonkin.

I would just really like to see our furry friends get to partake in some of the fun, that and 5% crit is nice

Our guild has been running a 3 mage 1 spriest 1 oomkin party since the beginning of SSC actually, we usually sacrifice a hunter spot or make room in some other fashion, but the synergy is amazing. Now that our boomkin is quite geared he manages to pull 1000+ dps consistently and the crit we gain helps us really increase our damage output, the mages in that party consistently top the meters in our raids, while without him we have a more conventional hunter/rogue mix up top. Even on AE heavy fights like Kael, swapping a boomkin for a hunter is a good idea, the decrease to tank dmg in phase 2 as well as a much faster thaladred kill makes the moonkin just as useful imo. I highly reccommend trying one to any guild that can make room for one, the battle rez, ability to off heal and crit aura is simply amazing, i'll never go back.
#862SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Zure
I don't think 2.3 mages will be very shadow priest dependent. If you have a balance druid instead of a shadow priest, and are having mana issues, you can always:

a) use Mage armor for 70 mp5 at the cost of 3% crit, which still yields a net gain of 2% crit,
b) emergency swap to mage armor while moving during the fight if you miss a pot/gem timer or the encounter is going to last longer than anticipated,
c) request a shadow priest for 20% of the fight (the raid certainly needs one for Weaving/Misery),
d) request JoW,
e) re-spec frost ;-)

It's worth noting that mana spring will be worth an extra 20 mp5 untalented, and that ret paladins may actually see some serious raid time and will have an easier time keeping JoW up when they do with a shorter cooldown on CS.

As you mentioned, balance druids may be reliant on Spriests for sufficient mana regen to run a competitive dps cycle. I know this was true in T4 gear, but with more stats from higher tier gear, combined with dreamstate, this might not be an issue.

Originally Posted by Massael View Post
Our guild has been running a 3 mage 1 spriest 1 oomkin party since the beginning of SSC actually, we usually sacrifice a hunter spot or make room in some other fashion, but the synergy is amazing.
An elemental shaman in that spot would give 101 spell damage, 3% crit, 3% hit, and 50 mp5, and bloodlust. That is a lot to exchange for a battle rez. Most people I've spoken to feel that an elemental shaman is also a superior emergency healer overall.

Last edited by Zure : 11/09/07 at 12:57 PM.
#863SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Zure View Post


b) emergency swap to mage armor while moving during the fight if you miss a pot/gem timer or the encounter is going to last longer than anticipated,
Unless I missed some unposted change it still costs 575 mana to swap into Mage Armor which means that at the 70 mana/5 (which is only seen while casting - stop casting and wand and Mage armor does nothing) it takes 41 seconds just to regen the costs to cast it in the first place.

Wear Mage Armor at the start or don't but swapping it in mid-fight really doesn't make much sense currently.

I'm really hoping that one of the mana changes Kalgan mentioned will be swapping Mage Armor to give mana/5 based on Intellect and removing the mana cost to cast it. The mana/5 from Intellect would also mean that you would get even more mana returned when not casting so it would help more if used during a movement phase or while wanding if you went OOM. Removing the mana cost would mean that Mage armor would be more "hot-swappable" depending on need.
#864SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Stirius
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Unless I missed some unposted change it still costs 575 mana to swap into Mage Armor
Rank 1 costs only 270 mana and gives the same 30% regeneration.
#865SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
As stated Rank 1 only costs a fraction of the highest cost and when Combat-rezzed from mid-boss death should always be the first thing you put on: With no BoW and regen enlixirs wasted it's the best thing you can do for your economy.

Zure: The reference was not whether or not Mages could sustain DPS without a shadow priest. That's a given. The question is whether or not the Moonkin can sustain it. Economy is not their strong point and I'd be surprised if the furry monster can maintain 10m worth of wrath-spam required in some encounters.

Rounced: I see no reason to make passive regen into MP5. The fact that you don't like spirit is irrelevant; don't forget we're going to see added functionality to spirit soon. Don't suggest we ditch spirit in favour of MP5 on the brink before spirit is upgraded. As for no manacost? What madness is this? The only things in the whole game that have 0 mana cost are meta-abilities which are usualy derived from talents and only affect other abilities. Things like arcane power, presence of mind, cold snap and inner focus. The idea that you'd swap into mage armor for 0 cost just to increase your regen outside FSR mid-fight is unjustifiable and uncalled for.
#866SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
Originally Posted by Zure View Post
An elemental shaman in that spot would give 101 spell damage, 3% crit, 3% hit, and 50 mp5, and bloodlust. That is a lot to exchange for a battle rez. Most people I've spoken to feel that an elemental shaman is also a superior emergency healer overall.
In our case it's been partly due to a lack of shamans on the server. I certainly see the value in an elemental shaman, the one we had for a short while stopped raiding unfortunately. It's a rather difficult decision when figuring out our raid makeup to choose between the moonkin and a possible elemental. In our case we are probably simply going to use a resto shaman in the mage group for WoA in the future. Our raiding mages are for the most part hit capped so I don't see Totem of Wrath being the buff it would be in some cases.

Again YYMV, I don't really think it will be the difference between a kill or not, but I've been very happy thus far, in large part due to the druids 100% attendance and excellent awareness.
#867SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
As stated Rank 1 only costs a fraction of the highest cost and when Combat-rezzed from mid-boss death should always be the first thing you put on: With no BoW and regen enlixirs wasted it's the best thing you can do for your economy.

Zure: The reference was not whether or not Mages could sustain DPS without a shadow priest. That's a given. The question is whether or not the Moonkin can sustain it. Economy is not their strong point and I'd be surprised if the furry monster can maintain 10m worth of wrath-spam required in some encounters.

From experience I can tell you they can. Our boomkin covers SW/S elementals on Vashj solo and still DPSes hard right up to her death. I think a lot of it is due to excellent management of drums of restoration, innervate, pot timers , runes etc (he is an incredible player) but I'm convinced they can do it, it's just more challenging than for other casters.
#868SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
If the man has to spam everything under the sun to sustain it, perhaps blizzard need to look into their sustainability issues. While I can see you're blessed with what you describe as an exquisite player I'd rather not take my chances with one less accomplished one only to discover he can't sustain himself.
#869SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3tedv
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
I really think the answer is to boost mage/shaman/moonkin mana regen & reduce vampiric touch to restore ~2-3% of damage as mana ... but to the raid rather than group.
First, this would be a huge nerf to shadow priests. We rely on our own touch mana returns more than any other class. For example, Mind flay is 195 mana without touch returns. But after the rebate, it's only 65 mana because touch gives you 130 mana back. With 2.5% returns, you're looking at a net cost of 130 (double the old net cost), which roughly cuts your sustainability in half. The net cost of Shadow Word Pain increases by 50%, and so on. It looks like the raid would get more mana overall, but priests would run out of mana much sooner, negating any benefit.

Second, this is a big nerf to 5 and 10 man groups. And contrary to popular opinion here, Blizzard cares a lot about balance in those situations. Touch needs to give mana to the group only so that priests don't have dramatically different power levels in 5 man groups versus 25 man raids.

Originally Posted by Iod View Post
Even at 2-3% that's going to have your Shadowpriest threat-capped in very short order. Now if they were to change the threat mechanics of that, I'd be all over it.
Mana regeneration threat is assigned to the person who gained the mana, I believe, not the person who caused the gain.
#870SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Tedv: I considered this aspect when I read the post too. It would be utterly out of the question to reduce the priest's self-regen. Zero mana regen is the reason S-priests used to be considered no-raid-viable back before BC.

However, I don't think it'd be hugely overpowering if VT only gave the party you were in half the regen it gives you.

I do think that raid-wide regen is a bad idea though. Having your agro generation depend on how many rogues/feradroods/warriors are in the raid is a bad idea.
#871SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
If the man has to spam everything under the sun to sustain it, perhaps blizzard need to look into their sustainability issues. While I can see you're blessed with what you describe as an exquisite player I'd rather not take my chances with one less accomplished one only to discover he can't sustain himself.
I would agree, this probably applies to balance druids more than any class, but to the same extent mana management hasn't been fixed *yet* for mages or spriests either. I hope the upcoming changes Kalgan has mentioned rectify that for us, however Blizzard still has a long way to go on this entire front, warlocks may be the only class that has a completely reliable and fair mana management system, as they still sacrifice DPS to regain that mana.

Honestly I see the biggest obstacle to this as the brainstorming. How long did it take for them to come up with VT, applying spell damage to lifetap etc? If they can somehow buff moonkin regen without making dreamstate the cookie cutter resto spec, then I think they may have finally realized what their philosophy needs to be.

I certainly would love it if mana gems had their own cooldown timer, that change alone would make a big difference for mages in dangerous situations, I can't even count the times i've wanted to HS and had it on CD from popping a mana gem just under 2 minutes earlier.
#872SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3tedv
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Tedv: I considered this aspect when I read the post too. It would be utterly out of the question to reduce the priest's self-regen. Zero mana regen is the reason S-priests used to be considered no-raid-viable back before BC.

However, I don't think it'd be hugely overpowering if VT only gave the party you were in half the regen it gives you.

I do think that raid-wide regen is a bad idea though. Having your agro generation depend on how many rogues/feradroods/warriors are in the raid is a bad idea.
Well keep in mind that at typical fresh 70 and kara gear levels, the mana returns from a shadow priest are reasonably appropriate. It's only at the high levels of gearing that obscene things happen-- like giving a mage mana faster than he can spend it during bloodlust. So cutting the group returns would hurt 5 man groups in a different way.

What they really need is a way of scaling the vampiric touch returns with the damage spells you cast but NOT the spell damage you have. Something like "While touch is active, shadow spells you cast on the target restore X% of their mana cost to all members of your party". At any rate, this is probably better discussed in a shadow priest thread.
#873SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Completely true that they're missplaced in this thread. However, do note the following:

All the group-regen in the game is static. From divine spirit to blessing of wisdom to mana spring, except mana tide which scales with recipient's mana pool and SP regen which scales like a monkey on crack cocaine with SP's gear. Perhaps it's time it was given some kind of restriction before it surpasses chain-pot spam with alchemists stone... Oh wait, it already has...
#874SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Mana regen and spell damage are separate scales that should never, ever be combined (I'm looking at you warlocks). Spell damage increases much faster for dps classes than intellect, spirit, etc but our mana expenditure never increases. Frostbolt costs the same at 500 spell damage as it does at 1500. So as long as mana regen is based on a scalar stat, whereas costs don't scale, it's going to cause problems.
#875SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3MeCh
Blizz isn't going to merge COS/COE because of 4dps in 5s. Yes pvp/pve crossover is dumb, but Blizz insists on doing it.

Yes damage and mana regen being combined causes balance problems, but Blizz makes 3 out of 5 casters scale like that...and moonkins have other problems looked at first.

Blizzard should just bite the bullet and give mages shaman clearcast.
#876SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post

Rounced: I see no reason to make passive regen into MP5. The fact that you don't like spirit is irrelevant; don't forget we're going to see added functionality to spirit soon. Don't suggest we ditch spirit in favour of MP5 on the brink before spirit is upgraded. As for no manacost? What madness is this? The only things in the whole game that have 0 mana cost are meta-abilities which are usualy derived from talents and only affect other abilities. Things like arcane power, presence of mind, cold snap and inner focus. The idea that you'd swap into mage armor for 0 cost just to increase your regen outside FSR mid-fight is unjustifiable and uncalled for.
Next patch Watershield has no mana costs.
#877SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
I don't think it is uncalled for, the purpose of mage armor is to regenerate mana, so giving it a cost heavily impacts the usefulness of the spell. There are other spells in the game with a negligible mana cost like ice block, counterspell, the new water shield. A mana regen mechanic is the prime target for a reduced mana cost.
#878SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Ztorm
I think it's reasonable to request that mage armor cost 0 mana, but does anyone think it will have a significant impact? I suppose it will allow for switching to mage armor during movement/transition periods, but that gain is going to be incredibly minor compared to SPs/chain chugging/MoE. Also, if you do plan on swapping armor midfight, remember that switching back to molten armor costs 630 mana, and unless you're using +8 spirit gems in your yellow sockets, I doubt the amount of mana recovered is going to compensate for the switch back.

Last edited by Ztorm : 11/09/07 at 4:10 PM.
#879SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Ztorm View Post
I think it's unreasonable to request that mage armor cost 0 mana, but does anyone think it will have a significant impact? I suppose it will allow for switching to mage armor during movement/transition periods, but that gain is going to be incredibly minor compared to SPs/chain chugging/MoE. Also, if you do plan on swapping armor midfight, remember that switching back to molten armor costs 630 mana, and unless you're using +8 spirit gems in your yellow sockets, I doubt the amount of mana recovered is going to compensate for the switch back.
exactly my point - it still keeps armor switching unfeasable but it makes it so that you aren't kicking the mage while he's OOM.

nobody prepares for things like the shadowpriest dying or the fight taking twice as long as normal but they do happen and this way the mage would be able to swap into Mage Armor and regen enough to be able to continue fighting and wouldn't have to wait 20 seconds for the regen to just catch up with the costs for swapping to Mage Armor.
#880SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
exactly my point - it still keeps armor switching unfeasable but it makes it so that you aren't kicking the mage while he's OOM.

nobody prepares for things like the shadowpriest dying or the fight taking twice as long as normal but they do happen and this way the mage would be able to swap into Mage Armor and regen enough to be able to continue fighting and wouldn't have to wait 20 seconds for the regen to just catch up with the costs for swapping to Mage Armor.
I would think in that situation mage armor is worth the switch even with its existing mana cost. Assuming 3-5 minutes of fight time left there should be no reason for you to remain with molten armor just to save a few hundred mana, over the remainder of the fight you'd regen many times that.
#881SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Massael View Post
I would think in that situation mage armor is worth the switch even with its existing mana cost. Assuming 3-5 minutes of fight time left there should be no reason for you to remain with molten armor just to save a few hundred mana, over the remainder of the fight you'd regen many times that.
What if there was just 1 minute left? What about if you run OOM at 30 seconds remaining and everything is on cooldown? You thought you had the timing down right but the last 10% is taking longer then expected.

I guess next time I end up in that situation I should break out the abaccus and calculate whether its worth it or not to switch???

Your first instinct when mana is becoming dear and cooldowns are on cooldown should be to switch into Mage Armor and keep on dpsing not to break out a spreadsheet.
#882SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Claiming a buff as a hindrance to a further, different buff you're desiring is like asking for your coffee to not be warm, because you'll order a sandwich later and you don't want the bread soggy.
That's a pretty faulty analogy. One class can only be so powerful relative to another in class design, and what we may measure as "powerful" may differ from what the Blizzard class designers measure as powerful. You have to look at everything the class can do, not just "oh, we get IB for free now!", which now gets factored as part of our base abilities, and I'd bet being able to go invulnerable is rated fairly high (despite whatever opinion there is on its raid usefulness).

Consider the threat wipe philosophy going into BC. Every pure DPS class has one (Soul Shatter is close enough, yes, I know it is 50%), every hybrid does not. Fury Warriors, Enhance/elemental shamans, Shadow priests, feral druids, lack a threat wipe yet are in every raid. "Oh, but threat is not an issue" you say. To this you have to consider that the class designers are not the raid designers. The raid designers probably saw that "gee, alot of dps hybrids don't have agro wipes as their disadvantage, maybe only one or two Broodlord-esque fights for BC" (thus, VR).

Threat wipe is a tool. Whether or not that tool is useful is determined by the raid designers. How "valuable" that tool is is determined by the class designers. Replace "threat wipe" with "invulnerability" and the same holds true. Both have value for class balancing, but both can be completely ignored by raid design (and they pretty much had to be in BC).

Many of the posts in the last couple pages have been along the lines of "why bring mages to raids?" type questions and issues. If we're supposed to be the "rogues" of casters, the damage doesn't seem to be there. The "Kings of AoE" remark dropped at Blizzcon is laughable, and the immediate follow up question everyone has ("uh, what about SoC vs Mage AoE?") was pretty much passed over when asked. Adding IB as a core mage ability still "counts" even if your counter argument is "well, it's not that useful". Neither are the agro wipes, but we got those anyway instead of something else.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my mage, I'm sure everyone here does. Looking at our tools though, we have alot we just don't use for raiding (Ice Lance, Invis, Spellsteal, and now IB). Sure, you may pull one out for a gimmick from time to time, but the more "tools" like these we have, the harder it would be to ask for buffs that make mages more desirable to have for raids (group/raid synergy, or "real" rogue-like dps).

And this brings us to 2.3. Our damage tax is gone (dps++), we'll have IB as a trainable skill, and frost mages get a new, unknown talent. That's a fair amount of attention from devs. To be buffed and ask for more buffs (raid synergy or more competitive damage) just won't go over well, not without a preponderance of data in 2.3. Even so, a class designer can justify a lower DPS with utilities/synergies, even if we can collectively agree that those are of little value, we do not make the class changes, the class designers do.

Anyway, I'm just wary of too many of those types of "tools", they do count, but they aren't offering us much and the class designers (IMO) are overvaluing them in comparison with the hunter/lock/rogue DPS+Utility vs Mage DPS+Utility.
#883SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
So we hitting page 35 and it's getting quite fuzzy here. I will try to give a short summary of what was talked about lately, please fill in the gaps, as a surely I missed a lot...

Frost versus Fire versus Arcane
Somewhat consensus is that Fire will do slightly more DpS than Frost but the difference shouldn't make a Frost Player subject to flame. Pick your playstyle!
Arcane is far off after 2t5 Bonus and is currently not considered viable.
Lhivera's Theorycraft Script and Vontre's spreadsheet (http://www.homegirlsguild.com/mage_dps.zip) try to incorporate the changes

Elemental Precision bugged?
Frost Speccs seem to have a higher +hit percentage than they should. The Issue is not resolved yet but evidence suggests that Elemental Precision adds 6% to Frostbolt (instead of 3%). I believe the discussion somewhat stopped here: http://elitistjerks.com/538273-post676.html

Equipment
The Mystical Skyfire Diamond was nerfed with a 45sek internal CD, and can be expected to procc soon after.
The Chaotic Skyfire Diamond seems to be very good (multiplicative after talents, is that right?) look here: http://elitistjerks.com/535928-post618.html
The Lightning Capacitor has now an internal CD on gaining charges?

Iceblock
Blizzard stated that Iceblock will be a Trainer Spell rather than a Talent, to be implemented someaht after 2.3. No News yet of what the replacement 21-point talent will be. The Utility of Iceblock is highly debated, but hey its free !(well it will be)

Jumping and Ae
does not increase radius any more
On the topic of Chaotic Skyfire, Roywyn's numbers suggest that CSD can be seen as increasing the crit bonus such that, for an initial crit bonus b, the new crit bonus b' = 1.09*b. For specs with Ignite involved, b' = 1.09*b-.036.
#884SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Massael
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
What if there was just 1 minute left? What about if you run OOM at 30 seconds remaining and everything is on cooldown? You thought you had the timing down right but the last 10% is taking longer then expected.

I guess next time I end up in that situation I should break out the abaccus and calculate whether its worth it or not to switch???

Your first instinct when mana is becoming dear and cooldowns are on cooldown should be to switch into Mage Armor and keep on dpsing not to break out a spreadsheet.

I don't think it's ever that clear cut. That crit bonus from molten armor could be what allows you to kill the boss absolutely OOM rather than wipe at 1% with 400 mana left. I guess this is all conjecture in the end, but I really don't see the switch to mage armor being clear cut even if it's free to do so. There are *some* situations definitely where I see what you mean, but for the most part your spriest will be battle rezzed, or your pot cooldown will come up / evocation will be ready soon enough that mage armor is nothing more than minor dps loss for a minor mana increase.

Even in your 1 minute left OOM scenario, I would probably be more inclined to Wand/JoW for 20 seconds than scrape a scorch off with mage armor once every 8 seconds. I certainly see where you are coming from, I just think that mana regen is so varied and the number of scenarios are so numerous it's not a clear cut answer. Blizzard absolutely should make MA mana free, but you'll still have mages agonizing over whether it's worth it and that's where I remain bemused.
#885SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
There is one item that I haven't seen discussed yet when comparing DPS classes. Rogues can have legendary weapons and mages can't. For this very reason, mages will not be able to out dps rogues due to the huge dps increase these weapons give for a rogue. So when comparing dps classes, you really need to throw out the rogues with warglaives until Blizzard gives casters another legendary weapon.
I'm not sure how recieving a legendary weapon would put us into the realm that a legendary weapon puts rogues.

Atiesh never shot mages into the stratosphere DPS wise... A really good MH + OH in Naxx put you at about the same spell damage really...

[Wraith Blade] [Sapphiron's Left Eye]

[Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian]

150 1% 2% for atiesh 120 2% 2%

So our LEGENDARY item that was SO awesome gave us 30 spell dmg and lost us a crit but gave us some stats. And a pretty wicked cool 1% crit group buff.

Nothing to jump our DPS like 10%, which is what you see in rogues.
#886SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Rounced: You're giving mage armor too much credit. Firstly, ideas like turning it on while in transition and moving? What's the point of that? if you're moving, you're not casting, so surely, not casting and entering FSR will make it pointless? You profess turning it on to get two regen tics worth 30% regen? Forgive the attitude but I doubt you'd ever even consider this use. How often do you transition that long?

Secondly, everyone seems to be disregarding that mage armor is not a mana-regen mechanic like Water Shield. WS was changed in the way it works to provide a much much more efficient way of operation: It is entirely feasible for a shaman to be in a state where due to OOM issues they don't cast anything at-all, and having to break FSR to cast water shield made at least one and a bit charges of it pointless: That's why its 0 mana. Mage armor might be massively important for it's 30% regen to us but it also holds 18 all resist. You may not consider this useful, even combined with the similar arcane talent, but the fact remains: Mage armor is more than a mana-conservation tool. I insist that changing it's cost to 0 is uncalled for. SP dead? Use rank 1. If theres 1m left to the fight and boss is on 10% and your regen is dead and and and.... Use rank 1 if you're that desperate, otherwise keep Molten and enjoy 3%crit in execute range.

I'm failing to see why people all of a sudden think that the ability to insta-change armor for free should be given to the class as an emergency mana-conservation tool... You should predict what's optimal given circumstance, experience and conditions, decide which armor is most suitable, and have it on before the encounter starts. I like the fact that I have to decide the risk/reward return for picking armor during an encounter: I've swapped to rank 1 mage armor from SP death, I've switched to Molten when the palas saw it in their politeness and chucked a JoW, and I've swapped to Frost armor when we were down to 1 AOE healer on solarian.

Cloudgatherer: IB was predominantly given to us on the basis that it's a must for arena. Nothing can change that fact because it's simply true. With it as trainer skill we gain massively in potential to dabble without having to go whole-hog. Even PvE players are entitled to have some fun in PvP once in a while and this will go a long way towards helping that. Given that, while your argument that theres only so many tools we can have has merit, there is no chance it will be revoked. I still believe this change was not intended as a "PvE Fix" and it does not herald the end of the mage class tweaking.

Reignconfused: Atiesh at the time was for lvl 60, meaning you did not require 24crit rating for 1% crit. In fact if memory serves, 14 CR was 1%. Where that 33CR aoe buff came from I don't know, but I seem to recall the staff granting 3% crit to all in range. very very far from what you'd call insignificant.
#887SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3thesmoosh
Originally Posted by Massael View Post
Honestly I see the biggest obstacle to this as the brainstorming. How long did it take for them to come up with VT, applying spell damage to lifetap etc? If they can somehow buff moonkin regen without making dreamstate the cookie cutter resto spec, then I think they may have finally realized what their philosophy needs to be.
This isn't difficult at all.

Improved LOTP gives 5% hp back every time melee crits. Moonkin aura should give a fixed or % mana back every time party member crits. Moonkin group synergy, fixed. Reliance on spriest, fixed. Ability to stack ele shaman / 3x mage / moonkin, fixed.

This would fit well with shaman clearcasting and mage master of elements.
#888SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Peekaboo
Just a quick question on 10/48/3 ish spec and fireblast. My real world test is currently giving me 9% more dps on trash if I throw in fireblasts. I've heard people quote 5%.

With the improved coefficient to fireball will fireblast be worth even bothering with except to slip in a quick last shot to screw those executing warriors ?
#889SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
You were right pintof, it was 3% crit. So it was a flat 30 dmg increase to the mage in question and about 12% crit extra to the party.

Far from what I call "legendary" when you look at a rogues weapon.... *frowns* But that's me, and god knows we do need more utility.
#890SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cloudgatherer
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Cloudgatherer: IB was predominantly given to us on the basis that it's a must for arena. Nothing can change that fact because it's simply true. With it as trainer skill we gain massively in potential to dabble without having to go whole-hog. Even PvE players are entitled to have some fun in PvP once in a while and this will go a long way towards helping that. Given that, while your argument that theres only so many tools we can have has merit, there is no chance it will be revoked. I still believe this change was not intended as a "PvE Fix" and it does not herald the end of the mage class tweaking.
We're saying the same thing at this point, and I did agree on it being an obvious PvP/Arena buff (less so for PvE). Nothing here is disagreeable to what I've stated, I'm just concerned that the "why should we bring mages to raids?" issues are less likely to be addressed as a result of the 2.3 "buffs" (damage tax gone, trainable IB). There really is a limit to "free stuff" from the class designers, and I hope they get back some of that "concentrated coolness" with mages that they strive for with every class. I'm in the same boat as a few posters in this thread, I'm my guild's raid leader, and have no desire to recruit beyond the 3 mages we currently have.

Slightly OT though, as a general "PvP vs PvE" spec type argument, making IB trainable for mages makes as much sense to me as making MS trainable for warriors. While fire/arc mages certainly benefit from the invulnerability, that poor prot warrior is still respecing every week for Arena play. Certainly seems like they should make those "PvP" talents all trainable if they make IB trainable, but this is a discussion for another thread.
#891SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer View Post
Nothing here is disagreeable to what I've stated, I'm just concerned that the "why should we bring mages to raids?" issues are less likely to be addressed as a result of the 2.3 "buffs" (damage tax gone, trainable IB). There really is a limit to "free stuff" from the class designers, and I hope they get back some of that "concentrated coolness" with mages that they strive for with every class. I'm in the same boat as a few posters in this thread, I'm my guild's raid leader, and have no desire to recruit beyond the 3 mages we currently have.
2.3 doesn't increase mages dps, it is a nerf for our dps. Mages dps in 2.3 will be lower than in 2.2 because of TLC and MSD. Frost and fire will do more dmg in 2.3 but their dmg will still be below 2.2 arcane, even if you include IB. Although we'll have to wait for the new 21 frost talent for a final comparison.
#892SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Trouble
Originally Posted by Maligne View Post
Considering all of the other classes that have this sort of protection (and the fact that we are mages) I think it makes sense.
Shadow priests.......
#893SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Rounced: You're giving mage armor too much credit. Firstly, ideas like turning it on while in transition and moving? What's the point of that? if you're moving, you're not casting, so surely, not casting and entering FSR will make it pointless? You profess turning it on to get two regen tics worth 30% regen? Forgive the attitude but I doubt you'd ever even consider this use. How often do you transition that long?
I never suggested turning it on for transition and movement sections - that was your complete misunderstanding of what I was suggesting which for some reason you keep perscribing as what I was thinking of.

I think that Mage armor should be the first thing any OOM mage should think about casting on themselves in any situation that they find themselves OOM and without usable cooldowns. I don't think it should be swappable the way that Paladins can swap auras but I think that if the mage is having mana issues they should be able to swap into Mage armor without taking an initial hit for the cast, at least they should reduce the cost significantly compared to the other armors.

Aspect of the Viper costs 40 mana. All the other Aspects are at least 3 to 4 times as much mana (140-150 mana for all the other aspects) . Aspect of the Viper also gives back up to 50% of the Hunters Intellect as mana/5. Since Aspect of the Viper, in a raid setting, functions exactly the same as Mage Armor on basically every single encounter, excluding the 1 resistence fight in all of TBC, shouldn't it cost at least 2/3rds less mana to cast then our other armors?

Sure the analogy is flawed since a hunter doesn't have as much Intellect as a mage and they also don't have evocate and mana gems but they at least get to do somewhat decent dps while OOM in the form of pet dps combined with autoshot. Also I, along with all the other mages who have suggested changing Mage armor, are suggesting 15% as the value not the sliding scale that hunter's get which can give them 50% (although I definitely wouldn't complain if that was the mechanism Blizzard used to correct our current mana issues).

Last edited by Rounced : 11/10/07 at 2:00 AM.
#894SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Rounced :perhaps I am looking at this armor mechanic from a skewed point of view; somehow to me it still looks WAI as it is, but perhaps that's my faulty understanding . Everyone else makes it arguable that it should be reduced so what the hell... I'll jump on the bandwagon too.

Kadgar: The changes in 2.3 are not a nerf, they are a fix. We were not doing damage in 2.3, the clearly faulty game mechanics were. TLC outputting 8+% of our DPS was completely out of order and I believe somewhere in the arcane damage thread someone calculated that with no MSD you'd need +520 more spellpower to get to the same DPS. Does this seem logical to you? Do you not agree with the alterations to the game mechanics? I played Diablo 2 LOD for a long time before WoW and I can assure you, when the game starts revolving around item-based gimmicks it becomes a sad, sad game indeed.

Arcane will be looked at, it is unthinkable that it won't, but until that happens it is more fitting that it is in an unusable state rather than a broken, overpowering gimmick spec. Don't think I'm an arcane-basher, I specced AM too for these months of blissful meter-topping but one of the reasons I prefer WoW to any other game out there is relative balance: There's no gimmicks, no "must have" and no game-mechanics abuse.

Reignconfused:
12%crit to party? 3% you mean I suspect. And as for comparing with Azinoth, I think that's out of place: You should compare it with Thunderfury and Hand Of Ragnaross. Back then, legendaries were legendaries, but they weren't madly OP. More like, very very good with a gimmick: TF had the proc that went off like mad, HoR had a similar bonus and Our staff made us wanabe-moonkins.
#895SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkmantle
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
You were right pintof, it was 3% crit. So it was a flat 30 dmg increase to the mage in question and about 12% crit extra to the party.

Far from what I call "legendary" when you look at a rogues weapon.... *frowns* But that's me, and god knows we do need more utility.
28 critical strike rating was 2% spell crit at lvl 60.

Atiesh has 4 versions http://thottbot.com/?s=atiesh
Priest one was 62 +heal to the group.
Druid one was 11 +mp5 to the group.
Mage one was 2%(at 60) crit to the group
Warlock one was 33 +dmg to the group.

Thunderfury before the nerfs was SICK. The proc chance was changed from 30% to 18% or something like that. The proc was made so it wouldn't proc on secondary targets and chain procs from sword spec/hand of justice/instant poison/windfury/lifestealing were nerfed. I think is was george who released a video of him doing phase 1 nefarian with every buff imaginable and basically destroying one side.
#896SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3hypetech
I've seen a lot of people ask, but I haven't really seen an answer yet in this thread. There is a lot of reference to haste as it affects the new arcane spec and in dealing with meta gems, but I'm interested in how haste directly stacks up to damage, and more importantly crit rating, for a 10/48/3 mage. For example, would Fetish of the Primal Gods provide more overall dps than Flametongue Seal ? What is a good point system for spell damage vs crit vs haste for 2.3 in deep fire?
#897SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Kadgar: The changes in 2.3 are not a nerf, they are a fix. We were not doing damage in 2.3, the clearly faulty game mechanics were. TLC outputting 8+% of our DPS was completely out of order and I believe somewhere in the arcane damage thread someone calculated that with no MSD you'd need +520 more spellpower to get to the same DPS. Does this seem logical to you? Do you not agree with the alterations to the game mechanics? I played Diablo 2 LOD for a long time before WoW and I can assure you, when the game starts revolving around item-based gimmicks it becomes a sad, sad game indeed.
Arcane will be looked at, it is unthinkable that it won't, but until that happens it is more fitting that it is in an unusable state rather than a broken, overpowering gimmick spec. Don't think I'm an arcane-basher, I specced AM too for these months of blissful meter-topping but one of the reasons I prefer WoW to any other game out there is relative balance: There's no gimmicks, no "must have" and no game-mechanics abuse.
I agree that it's a fix from an item point of view. No item should have such a massive impact on certain spells or speccs, sure.

But at the dmg front it is still a nerf because we are doing less now.

AM 2.2 overpowered? Do you really think that? We need an incredible amount of mana and support for 2.2 AM and our dmg is only on par with other classes. Other classes witch need much less support for doing the same dmg then we, witch all have a higher survivability and witch bring more support to the raid themselves.

Arcane tree being looked at? Sure they will do, but probably not before the overnext addon.
I've seen a lot of issues in this game not solved ever or only after several years, look at engeneering, discipine tree, pala "dmg", blink, mana regeneration, def warrior + holy priest farming, ...

Arcane was never a good tree. At the beginning it was a absolutely must have for evo and AE. After the mage patch (1.11?) arcane was the tree nobody specced. Hell they gave us this insane "175 armor in full netherwind" talent an wand spec. survived the "big mage review".
Arcane was an option in 2.1 when fire and frost had the tax, MSD didn't proc on each missle and the people had the 2p T5 bonus, but this bonus is broken the same way as TLC and MSD are.
There is only 1 area where an arcane specc is useful actually (well after 2.3). That is when you have solo leveled a mage twink to lvl 70 witch wears terrible green 300 spell dmg gear. there you get a good spell dmg boots from mind mastery.
Arcane is a bit better than before TBC, but it's still bad.

Arcane definitively seems to have no high priority at blizzard (yes the tree is broken, but is it really a big problem? we always could live without it, like priests without discipline). I don't expect this problem solved anytime soon, although blizzard could surprise us with WotLK.

The problem is not just a few arcane talents or spells, blizzard doesn't has a concept for the arcane tree. Hell it's the whole mage concept that is broken at that point, our survivability, aoe, mana reg, glass cannon style, cross tree synergies, nearly identical talents and spells in every tree, boring 1 spell spam in fights, low group / raid support, ...
#898SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Thunderfury before the nerfs was SICK. The proc chance was changed from 30% to 18% or something like that. The proc was made so it wouldn't proc on secondary targets and chain procs from sword spec/hand of justice/instant poison/windfury/lifestealing were nerfed. I think is was george who released a video of him doing phase 1 nefarian with every buff imaginable and basically destroying one side.
Speaking as someone who has Atiesh, I have to say that it's probably the most disappointing legendary ever implemented. The fact that it's the only caster one just adds insult to injury, honestly.

I dunno why Blizzard is so fixated on melee weapons, but it really annoys the hell out of me. They have had this fixation with melee weapons since day 1. You just have to look at the drop tables to see that, there are always tons and tons of melee weapons in every raid, yet there's only a few cases where there's even more than *1* desirable caster weapon. This results in melee always having their shiny weapons while we wait for our first-ever Archimonde sword after 15 kills.

I know random loot is random, but they could really, really stop making such wasteful loot tables, and is it really necessary to have *3* melee legendaries in the history of WoW vs 1 crappy caster one? Nevermind the poor Hunters.
#899SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Raiste
well speaking of legendaries, i think this is a problem with caster weapons in general. The biggest difference between melee and caster weapons wise is the proc based itemization melee get vs just flat stat based itemization casters get. Look at the enchants even. Every single melee high end enchant has been a great proc based enchant, casters still get pigeonholed into stupid +40 dmg enchant (as a mage my PvE weapon is my arena weapon so I can't put the "higher end" +53 dmg on it). I think it'd be much more interesting if casters received some good proc based weapons and enchants finally.

As far as mana regen, this is a huge issue. Right now as a mage I am so completely paralyzed mana wise if something bad happens during a fight (ie shadow priest dies, evocation gets interrupted etc) that my dps just takes a nosedive because of mana management issues. Armor switching is not the answer, just need more solid and reliable way to regen mana. Maybe add a 20% increased mana regen from items/spells when molten armor is up (much like fel armor for warlocks). Heck I would much prefer that they gave us reliable passive regen and removed evocation all togather.
#900SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Firefly
I see mentioned here again and again that our damage isnt on par with other classes. Im 11/47/3 and i usually have a 5th spot for full raid (we are 6/6 and 3/4). Usually i have 3 rogues and a lock a bit above me (depending on content). So i was wondering if its the itemization at t6 gear that screws mages? As i see it the changes they are making in 2.3 are great for me, im hoping for about 10% damage increase since im not using stopcast atm. And that should make it possible for me to catch and probably beat rogues.

I dont think there is any reason why they should make mage armor free. I would much more prefer that they buff our gems and that they didnt share cd with healthstones. 50% increase to the current gems, and a new rank would be nice.
#901SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vand1
One thing I have not seen suggested for our mana regen issues is to do exactly what Bliz did for warlocks when they made life tap scale with spell damage. How about making our mana gems scale with our (arcane) spell damage? After all, they are created using an arcane spell. Oh, and take them off the same CD as the healthstones.
#902SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Habanero
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post
well speaking of legendaries, i think this is a problem with caster weapons in general. The biggest difference between melee and caster weapons wise is the proc based itemization melee get vs just flat stat based itemization casters get. Look at the enchants even. Every single melee high end enchant has been a great proc based enchant, casters still get pigeonholed into stupid +40 dmg enchant (as a mage my PvE weapon is my arena weapon so I can't put the "higher end" +53 dmg on it). I think it'd be much more interesting if casters received some good proc based weapons and enchants finally.
A Spell Crit/Haste weapon enchants (possibly procs just like Mongoose) would be nice. Also speaking of weapons, [Blade of Eternal Darkness] was an example of a really cool caster weapon I'd love to see the mechanics of recycled.
#903SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Ztorm
I seriously don't see how increasing the mana gem return, unless they DRAMATICALLY increased the amount returned for ALL ranks or have it based on spell damage/int. Same goes for the changes to mage armor. If you're OOM and there's 10% left, it means either you fucked up on mana-management or your SP died. I mean, having it free will be nice, but as a fire mage, the situations in which you would have to revert to mage armor are rare. Until Blizzard does a massive overhaul of mana-regeneration, we're going to be dependent on shadow-priests to do optimal DPS.

In regards to rogues, I wonder why so many mages think we should be able to out-DPS them on meters. In terms of class roles and definitions, we should always be behind rogues in single-target boss fights. Rogues bring very little in terms of raid buffs and utility. They can silence targets via kicks, they can use wound poison/mind numbing - which results in a dps loss for them, and that's about it. In terms of weaknesses, rogues are limited in their target switches due to combo points and distance; they are restricted in positioning - especially if they're daggers. Rogues have no "expose weakness" or other debuffs that increase raid damage, no AoE capacity, no buffs to increase raid survivability or give healers mana, and a very weak CC. Meanwhile, mages bring the best CC in the game, food/water, raid buffs (AI), and low-threat AoE. A rogues DPS has to exceed ours by a margin that can justified the loss in utility.
#904SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
It's an old saw by now (and I happen to agree that Rogues should be number one single target dps by a fair margin) but it's not so one-sided for utility.

Kick really is incredibly good and near mandated for a number of encounters. It's certainly better than CS/ES by a huge margin. Poisons also are near-mandated or extremely useful in several as well and Blind/Stuns are pretty nice for trash too. While it is a bit more of a stretch, Sap even is used in BT and situationally is superior to poly for some pulls while distract oddly enough is pretty nice as well for MH bosses or some trash in BT. Only Spell-Steal is actually needed for Council and AB/Food-water is also accomplished with a single mage.

At the same time, Rogues have the best personal survivability of any class in MH/BT fights and that should account for something I think. Vanish, Evasion, Sprint (or Improved) and CoS are all very nice things to have.

It's an old argument again but the Utility card is overplayed a lot I think. I'd honestly say that Rogues bring more stacking raid utility than Mages. The only notable exception is AE situations but even there, AR/BF Rogues bring pretty decent damage to what AE situations presently exist.
#905SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
I didn't know that life tap scaled with gear. This is rediculous: No mana return in the game scales with anything, except shadowpriests and Life Tap? What the hell is wrong with Life Tap? Costs for spells stay at the same level, I don't see why the damn thing should scale at all. I'm sorry, but +spell gear reducing a warlocks tap-time is utterly unjustifiable. Do we get haste with spell damage? Do we get to cast more spells per minute with more gear? Didn't think so. Why should a lock?

I'm getting sick of the problem-plague the mage class seems to enjoy. It's been almost 3 years since WoW has been out and barring the first few months when indeed locks sucked salami it's been rather clear-cut that in most scenaria locks are better off than mages.

How can I help not wondering whether WotLC is a good chance to reroll orc lock?
#906SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Habanero
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I didn't know that life tap scaled with gear. This is rediculous: No mana return in the game scales with anything, except shadowpriests and Life Tap? What the hell is wrong with Life Tap? Costs for spells stay at the same level, I don't see why the damn thing should scale at all. I'm sorry, but +spell gear reducing a warlocks tap-time is utterly unjustifiable. Do we get haste with spell damage? Do we get to cast more spells per minute with more gear? Didn't think so. Why should a lock?

I'm getting sick of the problem-plague the mage class seems to enjoy. It's been almost 3 years since WoW has been out and barring the first few months when indeed locks sucked salami it's been rather clear-cut that in most scenaria locks are better off than mages.

How can I help not wondering whether WotLC is a good chance to reroll orc lock?
Life Tap has benefited from +shadow damage for a long time. It does not increase the amount of mana you get per point of healing (Improved Life Tap, Fel Armor [w/Demonic Aegis] do that directly), but it increases the speed at which you can replenish a given amount of mana. That would be akin to +arcane damage reducing the cooldown for mana gems.
#907SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Antoine
It was changed sometime after Naxx came out, I believe. It's because it was giving back a trivial amount of mana (base at that level was 430, whereas shadowbolt was 380ish) and still took up a GCD (which mana pots/gems don't).
#908SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Habanero View Post
Life Tap has benefited from +shadow damage for a long time. It does not increase the amount of mana you get per point of healing (Improved Life Tap, Fel Armor [w/Demonic Aegis] do that directly), but it increases the speed at which you can replenish a given amount of mana. That would be akin to +arcane damage reducing the cooldown for mana gems.
No? Maybe that would be true if you could make enough of the best mana gem to cover any fight - the amount of mana that you get per point of healing is an almost entirely irrelevant number for raiding, as the ratio of healer mana: lock mana provided is so incredibly good, healing locks for life tapping is a negligible drop in the bucket compared to the actual normal raid healing on any encounter.
#909SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
I agree with Sancus: The conversion rate is irrelevant because the lock will either regen the health (however much it is) or get healed. The fact remains that the scaling increases the gain/tap.

say: Lock with 0 damage gear needs to tap 3 times per 10 bolts, Why does lock with +1000 gear only tap once per 10 bolts for same effect, given they have same manapool?

It's unreasonable: If the damn thing doesn't give enough mana, increase the spell. Not scale it!

The only energy gain that scales apart from that is shadow priests and I think we've established that that one factor makes them unbalanced for a number of reasons. I subscribe to the theory that VT should keep scaling mana regen for the SP himself but only return a fixed amount to the group he's in.
#910SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I agree with Sancus: The conversion rate is irrelevant because the lock will either regen the health (however much it is) or get healed. The fact remains that the scaling increases the gain/tap.

say: Lock with 0 damage gear needs to tap 3 times per 10 bolts, Why does lock with +1000 gear only tap once per 10 bolts for same effect, given they have same manapool?

It's unreasonable: If the damn thing doesn't give enough mana, increase the spell. Not scale it!

The only energy gain that scales apart from that is shadow priests and I think we've established that that one factor makes them unbalanced for a number of reasons. I subscribe to the theory that VT should keep scaling mana regen for the SP himself but only return a fixed amount to the group he's in.

I don't even think that VT should scale for the priest - it should give back a fixed percentage of the mana cost of the spells that being used on the thing that it afflicted by VT. However this is the Mage TC thread so don't think that we should be worried about warlock and shadowpriest mechanics (no matter how broken they are).
#911SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
macbeet
There are a lot managregenerations you forget.

Scaling Life Tap does not make the Warlock Imbalanced damagevise, it just makes him indepentent of group setup (which is good).

Scaling Shadowfiend (Priest pet) does not make the Shadowpriest overpowered either, it just is his form of evocation... and without shadowpriests would have very hard mana issues.

One of the last shaman spell in the enhancement tree gives mana back based on melee attack power dealt, so it scales too and has a CD.

Evocation scales with Spirit and soon with int, although we do not tend to increase these stats as we gear up. Scaling Mana Gems would not make us overpowered either, just indepentent of group setup, and I think we all agree that the current dependence is crap...

All these abilities are somewhat capped in their pvp power: evocation and shadowfiend have a cd, managems too and are limited/block the healthstone, lifetap hurts yourself so you need some air to use it....

So blizzard, give us scaling managems !

PS: Hunters seem to be the only class without a scaling manaregeneration(unless i miss something), and guess what, the suffer like us in long fights...

On the other hand: should every class (especially healers) get sclaing mana regeneration, better gear would increase the boss fight duration to keep them challenging. Not a nice afterthought... bssfights are already getting much too long in my opinion.

Last edited by macbeet : 11/10/07 at 8:40 PM.
#912SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Rounced
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
There are a lot managregenerations you forget.

Scaling Life Tap does not make the Warlock Imbalanced damagevise, it just makes him indepentent of group setup (which is good).
Actually yah it does, you need to really think that statement through before posting it.

If they don't have to life tap then they are spending more time shadowbolting. If they have to pause every 10 shadowbolt to lifetap then they are losing 6% dps time to lifetap. Now lets say they only have to lifetap every 20 shadowbolts, then they are only losing 3% of their dps. That means they just gained 3% more dps in addition to what the gear did.

420 mana per lifetap was pretty retarded but 2k+ per lifetap is also.

Last edited by Rounced : 11/10/07 at 8:56 PM.
#913SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3macbeet
Their damage increases, yeah, but I dont think it is to harsh to say, that an extra 1.5 seconds now and then will make them imbalanced, especially since their base spell cost is pretty high.
#914SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vand1
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I didn't know that life tap scaled with gear. This is rediculous: No mana return in the game scales with anything, except shadowpriests and Life Tap? What the hell is wrong with Life Tap? Costs for spells stay at the same level, I don't see why the damn thing should scale at all. I'm sorry, but +spell gear reducing a warlocks tap-time is utterly unjustifiable. Do we get haste with spell damage? Do we get to cast more spells per minute with more gear? Didn't think so. Why should a lock?
Life tap increases by 80% of a warlock's spell damage, so rather than the top rank returning 580 mana like the tooltip says, it's likely closer to 1500 for a decently geared warlock...in other words, more than our top mana gem, even if we've got SCB equipped. Plus they can do it anytime they damn well please. A very good and intelligent warlock friend of mine insists that scaling life tap is perhaps the biggest single change that made warlocks what they are today. She recalls the days in MC where she would have to tap several times in a row in order to get back enough mana to continue fighting (hmm...sound a bit like evoc downtime?). Now, a single life tap is all decently geared warlocks needs to keep going for a good while more.
#915SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3pipermoonrunner
I remember the consensus for relative stats for 10/48/3 is about

1 hit = 1.5~1.7 dmg, 1 crit = 0.5~0.7dmg, 1 haste = 1.3~1.5 dmg

I went on the PTR today, respec and put on my available fire gears, at

Int: 415, Spi: 258, Fire dmg: 1102, Hit: 128, Crit: 320, Haste: 25

I plugged them into Lhivera's script, to my very surprised i got the following relative stats:

1 hit = 1.39 dmg
1 crit = 0.61 dmg
1 haste - 0.99 dmg

haste is a lot lower than I expect. I planned to switch to back to fire and get all available new haste gears (Except for pants, T5 is good for the hit).

I can't figure out why haste value is so low.
#916SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 frmorrison
Making Life Tap is want put Warlocks at the top or near it n the TBC. I lose 15% of my dps time to the scaled Life Tap. Assuming it just gave 580 mana, that time would at least double.

Don't forget Dark Pact, it gets 98% of +damage, so at a certain point it gives more mana back than Tap (assuming the pet has mana to give and you have the talent).
#917SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
Their damage increases, yeah, but I dont think it is to harsh to say, that an extra 1.5 seconds now and then will make them imbalanced, especially since their base spell cost is pretty high.
If you're saying this on EJ forums you've clearly missed the point. Here we discover that balance and imbalance can be lost and found within less than 2% variations. theorycrafted frost and theorycrafted fire are less than 10% appart and for EJ standards, that's a lifetime.

If you think 1xGCD won't make a difference, I'd like to see some mathematical evidence proving it please, because from where I'm standing, whether a lock taps once or three times in a 6 shadowbolt rotation is the difference between "locks are fine" and "we'll never make up the difference". Two Taps are one shadowbolt. And that's at least 2.5k noncrit if memory serves.

Yes enh shaman's regen scale with AP, however Enh Shamans are more similar in terms of game mechanics to Rogues than casters: I assure you that even without shamanistic rage, they WILL mash both shock and stormstrike CD. Their regeneration via their 41st talent is irrelevant, in fact on my enh shaman who is barely in T4 level gear I don't particularly care for the damn spell most of the time anyway. BoW, JoW, new manaspring/shock cost-reduction talent/water shield will make the 41st talent redundant in every way possible barring the damage mitigation it will grant.

Yes shadow-fiends scale with gear, but for healing priests we don't care, they can have all the mana they want as far as I'm concerned and we've already established that Shadow-priests are unrealistically over-capable in regeneration terms.

Piper: Haven't you already posted this same story about stat equivalence already in this and other mage threads? Can we please keep the discussion relevant to TC in 2.3 rather than rehashing the same-old "1Hit=1.7dmg for 10.48.3" please. We all know by now that a number of theorycraft formulae and/or calculators/simulators/spreadsheets will produce stat equivalence and I don't see how re-stating them for everyone's gear helps us discuss 2.3 TC.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/10/07 at 9:21 PM.
#918SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Antoine
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Can we please keep the discussion relevant to TC in 2.3 rather than rehashing the same-old "1Hit=1.7dmg for 10.48.3" please. We all know by now that a number of theorycraft formulae and/or calculators/simulators/spreadsheets will produce stat equivalence and I don't see how re-stating them for everyone's gear helps us discuss 2.3 TC.
I find it ironic that you say this when you've spent the last page whining about Life Tap. It's established at this point that Mages and Warlocks have a different relationship with mana. Warlocks use mana faster and have a spammable way to regen, where mages have different ways but spend it slower. This isn't changing any time soon, especially in 2.3.
#919SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Antoine View Post
I find it ironic that you say this when you've spent the last page whining about Life Tap. It's established at this point that Mages and Warlocks have a different relationship with mana. Warlocks use mana faster and have a spammable way to regen, where mages have different ways but spend it slower. This isn't changing any time soon, especially in 2.3.
Touché. I have a particular dislike for redundant posts, especially of the "x gear y spec, thorycraft = ?" kind. Perhaps I've been using my Tear Stained Handkerchief - Items - World of Warcraft too much.

The exploration into lifetap is however relevant, even if by proxy, as you will know we're getting our "mana issues" looked into, apparently. Knowing and understanding the competition I feel is a part of that.

Edit: And as for how we deal with mana, you are absolutely right: We do have a different relationship with mana. We regen give or take 10% the same way from level 70 greens to BT epics while you seem to scale much much more effectively. Barring of course arcane meditation and mage armor, which while they do scale with gear (despite our best efforts to avoid spirit) they are neither specced nor cast under most scenaria. Nor do they scale nearly as well as your regen mechanic does.
#920SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3pipermoonrunner
Pinkfbrew:

My question/confusion is that, my finding seems to contradict to what's commonly proposed.
#921SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by pipermoonrunner View Post
Pinkfbrew:

My question/confusion is that, my finding seems to contradict to what's commonly proposed.
To be honest it does look a tiny bit off, but I wouldn't say it's so far off as to be unreasonable. I'd say it's not so much that hit/haste lost value as it is a side-effect of spell damage -gained- value due to removal of dmg tax. Relative values of crit/hit/haste between each other seem intact, just everything seems globally lower w.r.t. +dmg. Working As Intended I'd say.
#922SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Zwink
Mana issues are being way overblown in the last few pages of this thread. Mana is a major problem with Arcane Blast and Missiles, but not so much with either Fireball or Frostbolt. Mage Armor, Evocation, and the occasional Mana Potion should resolve any mana issues you have spamming Fireball on any Black Temple encounter. You won't be able to use Molten Armor or Destruction Potions, but you'll most likely be able to chain Flame Cap every cooldown. It's when you need to AoE or Spellsteal that mages have mana issues, but that is what Shadow Priests and Mana Tide Totem are for. To further eliminate any mana concerns, I've been considering going 18/43/1 - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. With all the Hit on Black Temple gear I would just have to switch out Anetheron's Noose or Waistwrap of Infinity for Belt of Blasting. Elemental Precision gives 7 mp/5 per point, whereas Arcane Meditation is over 25 mp/5 per point raid buffed.

The biggest issue facing Mages today is that CoE is only used by our class and currently it requires 3 Warlocks for you to get it. Depending on your raid makeup 3 Warlocks most likely means one less Mage in the raid. I know I'll be planning our progression raids around 3 Warlocks and 2 Mages most likely.
#923SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Darkmantle
While the high end lifetaps may be excessive the number of naxx guilds that dropped warlocks down to 2 because they just didn't do enough damage has to be remembered. In a wonderful reversal of the current situation those warlocks did coe and cor because fire mages were such better damage than them.
#924SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ebbv
I use Molten Armor except on fights where the Resist is helpful. If my shadowpriest doesn't die I don't have mana problems at all. If he does then I have to start chain chugging potions. I really don't think mana is a big deal. I swap in a Nightstaff of the Everliving with +20 SPI currently for Evocation, and the new Evocation should return the same amount without swapping any gear (BTW when deciding if INT gear is worth the bag space note that we'll only gain about 300 mana by swapping in INT gear for the new evocate, ~375 with 2pc T6.)

Regarding Lifetap, it's an old topic, and let's be honest, the problem is not Lifetap, it's that Warlock single target DPS *and* AE are as good or better than ours. That's our beef. But c'mon, it's been clear since Magister's and Dreadmist which class Blizzard favors.
#925SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Vand1 View Post
One thing I have not seen suggested for our mana regen issues is to do exactly what Bliz did for warlocks when they made life tap scale with spell damage. How about making our mana gems scale with our (arcane) spell damage? After all, they are created using an arcane spell. Oh, and take them off the same CD as the healthstones.
You can't just slap scaling with +spell damage to anything and everything. Life Tap scaling with +damage, for example, was and is poorly conceived. It does not take a genius to see that the X% of time they spend Life Tapping at one gear level to maintain a rotation goes to 0 as gear levels increase, meaning not only does gear increase their damage, it increases the proportion of time they spend actually dealing damage.

Scaling itself is all about precision. Tagging scaling with +damage to mana gems is highly imprecise.

While the high end lifetaps may be excessive the number of naxx guilds that dropped warlocks down to 2 because they just didn't do enough damage has to be remembered. In a wonderful reversal of the current situation those warlocks did coe and cor because fire mages were such better damage than them.
Past injustices do not excuse present ones.
#926SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Searix
I dunno, there's still to many issues blizzard has left open, i fear that the ice block/mana gem change (assuming the gem change is minor) won't fix a lot of problems i've seen like...

PvE:
1) Dependance on CoE - Hammered throughout the thread
2) Immunity Fights - Why? (Fire for Illidan/Surpremus/Al'ar, Frost for Rage/Hydross/Vashj; How does this fit in the "We want all classes to stay with one spec" ideal)
3) Inability to use healthstones while lowest HP class - Resolved with Ice block change
4) Mana at cap - Only pure dps class (other than hunters) who has no spammable way to continue their main source of dps when all cooldown functions are exhausted.
5) Arcane tree - What's its purpose now?
6) Water elemental pet dieing. A lot.
7) Warlock aoe outdamaging ours (Debatable with TLC and arcane spec pre-patch, no contest post)
8) Spell haste and Instants/1.5s

PvP:
1) Reliability on 21 frost - Fixed with ice block change
2) Frost absolutely relying on crits to do it's damage, when resilience is prevelant
3) Abyssmal performance in the drain game
4) Ignite double dipping with resilience change, while being dispellable, and only gaining an extra 10% crit damage over warlock/melee crit co-efficient (a lot less than 10% with the resilience 2.2 DoT change)
5) Uselessness of Flamestrike and Blizzard in arena
6) Spellsteal, Slow mana cost in arena
7) Ignite, TLC breaking sheep
8) Impact proc delay
9) Spell haste and Instants/1.5s

I could list others but it felt good to get that out at least
#927SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
Destro locks should be looked at as fire mages are. IE if that lock has a spriest and ele shaman, how does that compare to mages wiith the same.

Anything else is silly.

Rogues are gods right now not because the class is godly, but because the class is the single best buff leverage class around and smart guilds get that.
#928SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Northerner you're wrong: A 0.21.40 lock will output almost identical DPS to a mage of equal gear -if he has to tap-. Given Spriest and non-reliance on his own life tap the dps they output, I'm sure you've seen, is much better than us. It only took me 2h with a 2.2PTR T6 lock which i adjusted to have almost identical spellpower hit and crit with my live mage to work out the same Dr. Boom dps was maintainable as long as you had life to feed the tap. If you took the tap out of the equation the numbers were unreachable by mage standards, barring the arcane silliness we're losing now anyway.
#929SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vhad
That's not true either, destro locks scale much better with the raid than mages do. Shadow Weaving and the whole CoE/CoS thing coupled with ISB uptime means that they are doing far more damage than any mage of equal gear. I've seen destro locks in my guild do almost 2k dps on Rage without 4 set tier6 and he didnt have a spriest so he had to tap. Granted this is not the norm - he did use CoD over CoR which was a net raid dps decrease - I'm still not entirely sure the 2.3 coefficient change will make mages much more than just about equal destro locks for said reasons.

Edit: Bah, wanted to link to the WWS but it doesn't store for more than 15 days
#930SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Leialyn
Destro locks scale with other destro locks... thats why they are so overpowered... having two crit talents where mages have only one.
If you look at the base stuff ...

Fire Mage:
------------
- 115% on 3s spell = 38,3 spelldmg per second
- 10% more fire damage
- 3% more damage + 3% more damage taken

- 10% CoE
- 5% Misery
- 15% Scorch

- 20% more fire damage 20% of the time

- 5% more from T6

Destro Warlock:
------------------
105 on 2.5s spell = 42 spelldmg per second
- 15% more shadow damage with sacrifice

- 10% CoS
- 5% Misery
- 10% Shadow Weaving

- 20% more shadow damage estimated 70% of the time with 2-3 destro locks in raid

- 6% more from T6

Comparison:
--------------
They have 5% more from sacrifice, we have 5% more from scorch debuff. Thats almost equal, but whats not equal is this:
We have 3% more damage done, they have a shitload more regarding damage coeficient of shadowbolt. We have molten fury, they have imp shadowbolt.

So what needs to be done:
------------------------------
- The damage coefficients of all "empowered" talents (emp fireball, emp frostbolt, shadow and flame) need to be adjusted so they are based on the cast time. So lets say we take 5% per second, then emp fireball gives 15% more for a 3sec spell... what it does atm.
But Shadow and Flame should then only increase it to 12-13% (12.5 if you take it exactly) but not 20%.
And maybe add 8% more for Scorch, since fire mages have to use it quite often.

- imp Shadowbolt vs molten fury ... yeah, imp shadowbolt definetely needs to be lowered somehow. And well, our Molten fury once was 30% more, no clue why they changed it. So maybe 30% Molten Fury and 10% improved Shadowbolt would be a bit closer to be fair.

- T6 Bonus... well, nothing to say

Did I miss anthing?

Edit:
- AoE: They should imho change the damage and casttime of SoC to be more like Flamestrike: 3s casttime and ~800 base damage (1100 is way too much) but instead let it explode instantly (maybe no traveltime) and the aoe also hit the target the seed is casted on... and it no longer uses up corruption.

Last edited by Leialyn : 11/12/07 at 11:22 AM.
#931SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3hypetech
Originally Posted by pipermoonrunner View Post
I remember the consensus for relative stats for 10/48/3 is about

1 hit = 1.5~1.7 dmg, 1 crit = 0.5~0.7dmg, 1 haste = 1.3~1.5 dmg

I went on the PTR today, respec and put on my available fire gears, at

Int: 415, Spi: 258, Fire dmg: 1102, Hit: 128, Crit: 320, Haste: 25

I plugged them into Lhivera's script, to my very surprised i got the following relative stats:

1 hit = 1.39 dmg
1 crit = 0.61 dmg
1 haste - 0.99 dmg

haste is a lot lower than I expect. I planned to switch to back to fire and get all available new haste gears (Except for pants, T5 is good for the hit).

I can't figure out why haste value is so low.

I plugged in my unbuffed stats as 10.48.3 and at 400 int, 174 spirit, 1038 fire damage, 164 hit, 303 crit and 0 haste I got back:

1.00 Damage: 1.56 Crit Rating, 0.94 Haste Rating
1.00 Hit Rating: Additional Hit Rating will not increase DPS
1.00 Crit Rating: 0.64 Damage, 0.60 Haste Rating
1.00 Haste Rating: 1.06 Damage, 1.66 Crit Rating
#932SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3koetjeka
Hey guys

I was wondering what the haste rating formula was to calculate the % haste because I wanted to know how much I need for fitting 2 Arcane missiles in 6.5 seconds (3x ab, 2x am).

thanks in advance!
#933SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Northerner
I think you misunderstand me Pintofbrew. I am not saying at all that destro warlocks are presently balanced against fire mages. I am saying that when comparing classes and abilities it is key to do so in a setting where both are getting equal raid buffs.

I would say that it is a given that non-optimized destro warlocks are already competitive with fire mages. The point would be that optimized ones are clearly superior in a raid setting and LT is essentially a non-issue with proper group composition.
#934SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3ReignConfused
Haste is a lot of personal playstyle.

Against it you have the major argument:
It doesn't actually raise your DPM, all you're doing is spending what you have quicker. (Same basic argument I throw against AP all the time)

Due to the above argument, it doesn't scale at all. I mean the more dmg you have the more haste is going to increase your DPS, but you're not technically throwing out more overall damage unless you have excess mana.

For it we have the major argument:
It helps you cast quicker, Lower cast time gives you more opportunity to move around and react. We've all cast a fireball for 2 seconds to have Rain of Fire on us and we had to cancel & blink before that .5. And it raises your DPS, we've all HAD that fight where we can't spend our mana fast enough.


It's situational and preferential and no equation you can EVER run will accurately tell you anything beyond stand and shoot, which I'm pretty sure you won't be seeing much of.
#935SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3alvinrod
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
It doesn't actually raise your DPM, all you're doing is spending what you have quicker. (Same basic argument I throw against AP all the time)
The difference in this case is between passive and active stats.

You could calculate AP as being at least a 2.5% increase in damage by taking the amount of damage increase it yields against what percentage of the time it's in use. Now the question is whether you'd rather be able to have that 2.5% as static damage or be able to selectively use it. (It does increase the rate at which you use mana, so the damage increase isn't free, but I'm ignoring that just for the sake of argument.)

Passive damage is great because I dont' have to worry about doing anything, it's just there. However damage from activie abilities allows me more control. Maybe the boss has a phase where it's taking 200% damage for 20 seconds. Using the AP at that time nets me additional damage.

Spell haste is just another passive stat in my mind and since mages have finite mana pools and most encounters are of sufficient length that I will be close to empty by the end of that fight without spell haste, I see very little reason to pick it up in great quantity on my gear. Something like the trinket from Illidan where I can actively control when I use that spell haste (most likely in addition to a spell damage trinket) I feel that it's more wortwhile.

I'd also have to look at how much spell haste costs in terms of item budgets. A single point of spell haste is worth more than a single point of spell damage once you have a lot of spell damage, but if Blizzard makes the cost of one point of spell haste equal to a certain value of spell damage, it's no longer worthwhile to pick up some items simply because I'll still get more value from something with more spell damage on it. If we're trading crit for spell haste then I'm more inclined towards spell haste since spell crit seems to have such a horribly expensive cost.

With all the new ZA loot out, it's probably easier to get a good idea of what spell haste costs in terms of itemization points. I haven't really done much research into though so perhaps a blue post has clarified some of these questions or someone already has calculated some good estimates for the itemization cost of spell haste. Personally, I don't like spell haste, but if it's a clear cut winner I'd make sure to pick up an appropriate amount.
#936SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Sancus
Ratings all have the same cost, that's why they have different values for giving 1% of their respective stat. That's also(the main reason, at least) why hit > haste > crit, because it takes 12.6 hit for 1%, 15.7 haste for 1%, and 22.1 for 1% crit.
#937SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Koetjeka: There is little point to stacking the undoubtably massive haste you need to get 10sec to compact into 6.5sec, because you'd be losing signifficant benefit from making 2 of the 3 AB you're casting hit GCD wall and the third one come close to it. You'd be essentially increasing AM DPS signifficantly, but doing nothing at all to AB.

I doubt it would be worth it, but with low hitrate req perhaps there is value to be had from all that dmg/haste gear in ZA and a rotation spec. Looking like a pipe dream as far as I can see, but if anyone is willing to come up with numbers I'd be interested to see.

Northerner: As always, you are correct.
#938SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Taja
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
I dunno, there's still to many issues blizzard has left open, i fear that the ice block/mana gem change (assuming the gem change is minor) won't fix a lot of problems i've seen like...
PvP:
1) Reliability on 21 frost - Fixed with ice block change
Not true, I feel more that having a water elemental is currently the most important because that pet is just to good to pass on. On any serious resilience level fire/arcane spec are subpar. Not because of no iceblock but lacking PvP talents overall.

2) Frost absolutely relying on crits to do it's damage, when resilience is prevelant
Frost damage relies on shatter > fb > icelance > coc/fb and nova/lance. All classes get hurt by resilience, I dont see frost getting the worst of it.

3) Abyssmal performance in the drain game
Agreed.

4) Ignite double dipping with resilience change
Agreed

5) Uselessness of Flamestrike and Blizzard in arena
You cannot have every spell usefull in Arena, a long cast small radius AoE with high mana cost. How exactly do you make that viable. Without PoM its not doable. Second of all blizzard is usefull it just requires 1 point in imp blizzard to make it work properly. AoE-ing from under the bridge in Blade edge, using it on the starting area in RoL.

6) Spellsteal, Slow mana cost in arena
Spellsteal suffers from the problem its totally random what buffs it get, making it pretty much useless in 3vs3 or higher. In 2on2 vs warrior/pala is about the only time you can use it all the time. By making it cheaper I dont see me spamming it all the time because of the insane amount of gimmick buffs on everyone. No idea about slow, it get hurts more by being able to be dispelled then the mana cost.

7) Ignite, TLC breaking sheep
Fixed

8) Impact proc delay
Thought this was fixed ages ago.

9) Spell haste and Instants/1.5s
PvP gear has no spellhaste.

Mages definately have issues in Arena but the ones you type out are hardly the issues we face. I think our biggest thing currently is LoS abuse (together with hunters/elem sham). This does not show well in 5on5 since there are usually lots of burst moments there, but in lower brackets its hard to get frostbolts off. Combine LoS issues with interrupts on every non instant spell and you are forced to rely on instants mostly. Resulting in the mana problem.

Last edited by Taja : 11/12/07 at 8:42 AM.
#939SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Leialyn
Originally Posted by Taja View Post
4) Ignite double dipping with resilience change
Agreed
Have you all tested, that Ignite is influenced by resilenced?
I didn't, but Ignite is no "normal" dot, its damage is fixed (2*20% of crit damage) and its not influenced by damage amplifiers (scorch debuff, etc).
(Back in old classic days, Ignite got "double bonus" from damage modifiers because the spell itself got modified and Ignite got modified as well, like Thaddius for example)

The fire spell is already lowered by resilence and therefore ignite should not be.
#940SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
It is a known fact that ignite gets reduced according to DOT resilience reduction even after the original fire crit has been reduced for crit size reduction.

Not that it particularly matters, if you're fire spec in arena you're either mooching or in such a low bracket that there isn't any resilience anyhow.
#941SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
It's somewhat of a moot point to compare 2.2 fire mages and destro locks. By removing the 10% dmg nerf...blizzard has admitted that the fire mages are not where they're suppose to be in terms of DPS.
#942SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
That is wrong Cardynal, you read too much into Blizz's moves. The removal of the damage tax is an admission that the damage tax is unfair and unjustifiable. The fact that we get the tax removed means nothing else aside of that; you make it up like some massive damage increase is heralded by it when we have no such indications. Au contraire, the only thing we know is incoming imminently is a new 21st (or 11th) talent for frost, IB for all, and "looking into" managem and "mana issues".

Of course there is point in comparing lock to 2.2 or indeed 2.3 fire mages. We need to understand what is it that makes them the mathematically superior choice to us, understand it, evaluate it, and decide whether it's a case of (a) they have too much synergy (hence they need a nerf) or (b) we have too little synergy/scaling (hence our synergy/scaling needs to be looked at).

The only announcements pertaining where "mage damage" should be I can recall are the infamous "mage dmg=zomg" and the Blizzcon announcement that we're the "kings of aoe" which by extrapolation means we aren't the kings of DPS, as before BC there was argument on whether mages or rogues should have that title.

Whether or not these statements are true (we are in fact, neither Zomg in damage nor by reasonable margin kings of AOE) is irrelevant. We're talking Blizzard's intentions and I see no indication of incoming DPS buffs past 2.3.
#943SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3cbags
Is there any set time frame for the trainable IB? Is it a definite 2.4 change, or is it a WotLK change...if it is the later it seems to have no bearing currently as to where blizzard feels the Mage class is currently...seeming only like a "We realize you guys are whining, we'll get to it eventually, you'll love us then!"

When I think it's been described here fairly clearly, that IB is a zero sum change on endgame content, correct? The 21 point replacement for it would have to be something totally nutty for it to have an effect on the end game raiding specs, that would give Frost specs the power to compete with the Fire.

This is the Theorycrafting after 2.3...but seeing as 2.4 and beyond are essentially pipedreams and promises...ignore them until there is something substantial to work with. Just my .02, but I am nothing yet.

I will say I have learned more about my class in the 2 months reading this site than any other though.
#944SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
That is wrong Cardynal, you read too much into Blizz's moves. The removal of the damage tax is an admission that the damage tax is unfair and unjustifiable. The fact that we get the tax removed means nothing else aside of that; you make it up like some massive damage increase is heralded by it when we have no such indications. Au contraire, the only thing we know is incoming imminently is a new 21st (or 11th) talent for frost, IB for all, and "looking into" managem and "mana issues".

Of course there is point in comparing lock to 2.2 or indeed 2.3 fire mages. We need to understand what is it that makes them the mathematically superior choice to us, understand it, evaluate it, and decide whether it's a case of (a) they have too much synergy (hence they need a nerf) or (b) we have too little synergy/scaling (hence our synergy/scaling needs to be looked at).

The only announcements pertaining where "mage damage" should be I can recall are the infamous "mage dmg=zomg" and the Blizzcon announcement that we're the "kings of aoe" which by extrapolation means we aren't the kings of DPS, as before BC there was argument on whether mages or rogues should have that title.

Whether or not these statements are true (we are in fact, neither Zomg in damage nor by reasonable margin kings of AOE) is irrelevant. We're talking Blizzard's intentions and I see no indication of incoming DPS buffs past 2.3.
Like i said...this damage comparison has only been done in 2.2 from what I've seen. Once 2.3 goes live...we'll have to see what kinds of numbers mages are putting out in comparison to destro locks. It is a decent damage increase...i'm seeing at least 6% more damage on fire after the 10% is returned in theory. You make it sound like 10% is nothing and not even worth taking it into consideration.

I would like to believe that a Multi-million dollar company does take more time in development and research than to simply pick nerfs/buffs out of a hat. I'm sure many people feel that they do...but they know a lot more about the direction of a class than we do.

How do we even really know that we will need another dps buff after 2.3? The only 2.3 testing i've seen done is Dr. Boom tests and theory crafting.

As far as raid synergy goes...I do see your point that mages bring little to the table as far as buffing other's damage (unless you actually have a fire destro lock). But on the same note, rogues bring VERY little as far as synergy. They are simply the consumders of raid buffs.

And on another note...how often do you actually see 3 destro locks in a raid? And even if they are destro...a lot of the time they're going to be required to have their imps out to increase the raid's HP. I always have at least 1 of the locks in the Tank group for the imp...

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/12/07 at 3:22 PM.
#945SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Ztorm
Rogues are purely consumers and can get away with it because they can out-dps the next highest class by a good 10-30%. The problem with mages is that the amount of utility and raid synergy we provide is not enough to justify our lower DPS. Warlocks currently bring better DPS AND raid utility/synergy. I mean, look at the benefits of adding additional warlocks to a raid compared to mages:

Raid Benefits from Additional Warlocks
-Additional curse to increase raid OR their own DPS
-Extra healthstone (up to 3) if properly spec'd
-Improved shadowbolt, which increases damage of other warlocks and shadow priests. Increased SP DPS results in greater mana return for the raid.
-Extra fear/banish
-Imp buff to increase party survivability (if affliction)
-Shadow Embrace to reduce damage on tank(if affliction)

Raid Benefits from Additional Mages
-Extra sheep for CC
-Faster application of fire vulnerability or winterschilll, mostly increase damage of other similar spec'd mages

If you think about it, unless you need the extra CC, you can get by in most raids with only bringing one mage and putting destro-locks in the SP/shaman group. In order to make mages more viable, our DPS or raid synergy has to be increased. I think this is a perfect opportunity for Blizzard to add definition to our Arcane tree by making it the raid utility/synergy tree. Design the tree so that the farther we go down the arcane tree, the less damage we do but the more utility we provide. For example, they can include a misery-like debuff early in the arcane that increases damage taken by the target by 5% and an improved version farther down the tree. Make the debuff stack-able so there's a reason to bring multiple mages to a raid (ie: one mage will provide 5% and a second mage will make it 10%).
#946SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
I love the idea of mages being buff consumers in raids - that can soak up lots of class buffs to make their own dps stronger, like rogues. Unfortunately as everyone else mentioned.... if we can soak up all these class buffs and still be 'average at best' on DPS - something does indeed seem very wrong.

As the above poster put it, warlocks bring more to the raid. period. Either magedps or synergy needs to be increased for sure. I dont understand the point of mages now. We soak up all these buffs like a rogue but simply cant do anything amazing with them.
#947SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Cardynal
I agree that we bring less than warlocks...and if we always did do less damage, I would agree with you there. But I hardly ever see warlocks beating mages on meters in 2.2 as arcane...and fire in 2.3 is supposidly suppose to do the same damage as arcane in 2.2 if not more.

For example....look at the top DPS guilds on Teron...

Teron WWS

On almost every fight...the AM mage is decently over any warlock.

One reason that you don't see them going over mages on a stand still fight is that they do have to use curses for other things than damage. Mages take more of the stance that rogues do...being a consumer of raid buffs and doing more damage than the provider of the raid buffs. Now if we do enough damage as a buff consumer...i'm not sure. I feel there should be some improvement since there really are not that many fights that take advantage of the AE damage that mages put out in Hyjal/BT. In fact...you only use AE on trash...

And do remember that I personally feel that no class should ever be compared to rogues with warglaives, as they cannot be touched and shouldn't be atm.

I hold off any real judgement until we start seeing some 2.3 WWS

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/12/07 at 4:36 PM.
#948SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I agree that we bring less than warlocks...and if we always did do less damage, I would agree with you there. But I hardly ever see warlocks beating mages on meters in 2.2 as arcane...and fire in 2.3 is supposidly suppose to do the same damage as arcane in 2.2 if not more.

For example....look at the top DPS guilds on Teron...

Teron WWS

On almost every fight...the AM mage is decently over any warlock.

One reason that you don't see them going over mages on a stand still fight is that they do have to use curses for other things than damage. Mages take more of the stance that rogues do...being a consumer of raid buffs and doing more damage than the provider of the raid buffs. Now if we do enough damage as a buff consumer...i'm not sure. I feel there should be some improvement since there really are not that many fights that take advantage of the AE damage that mages put out in Hyjal/BT. In fact...you only use AE on trash...

And do remember that I personally feel that no class should ever be compared to rogues with warglaives, as they cannot be touched and shouldn't be atm.

I hold off any real judgement until we start seeing some 2.3 WWS
Ah, but is it justified when you consider 1/11 of that mage's damage is coming from the Warlock?
#949SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3macbeet
well its called a "buff" for a reason^^

And surely rogues gain more from a warrior in the raid than 1/11!
#950SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Ztorm
To be honest, I'm not seeing a huge distinction between mages and destruction locks on these parses. WWS parses are also kind of biased; they do not accurately reflect player roles in the encounter and they do not account for group composition. For many of these fights, the destro lock may be in a hunter group or the tank group while the arcane mages are almost always in the SP/shaman group.

More importantly, Teron isn't the best fight to assess warlock DPS. Our warlocks generally have a soul-stone rotation on the fight, which takes significant time away from their DPS. In addition, with AM spam, arcane mages are not subject to the spell pushback caused by death blossoms and incinerates. Destro locks only have 70% pushback prevention with talents. But like you said, it's going to be hard to judge until patch 2.3.
#951SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Ah, but is it justified when you consider 1/11 of that mage's damage is coming from the Warlock?
If we are intended to be the consumer of raid buffs, then yes. Without a heavy dps class to consume the buff...then it is wasted.

Now as far as Mage VS Rogue damage if they're both intended to be consumers of buffs...it does need to be taken into consideration that there are still more ranged friendly fights than melee friendly fights. If a mage were to do as much damage as a rogue on every fight...why take rogues when they're often harder to keep alive from group wide ae's.
#952SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
If we are intended to be the consumer of raid buffs, then yes. Without a heavy dps class to consume the buff...then it is wasted.

Now as far as Mage VS Rogue damage if they're both intended to be consumers of buffs...it does need to be taken into consideration that there are still more ranged friendly fights than melee friendly fights. If a mage were to do as much damage as a rogue on every fight...why take rogues when they're often harder to keep alive from group wide ae's.
True, without classes to exploit such buffs, the buffs would be pointless.

But it makes me wonder whether the buffers or the buffed are the ones making the more significant contribution...
#953SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Prod
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
If we are intended to be the consumer of raid buffs, then yes. Without a heavy dps class to consume the buff...then it is wasted.

Now as far as Mage VS Rogue damage if they're both intended to be consumers of buffs...it does need to be taken into consideration that there are still more ranged friendly fights than melee friendly fights. If a mage were to do as much damage as a rogue on every fight...why take rogues when they're often harder to keep alive from group wide ae's.
People always say this. It just seems like a natural thing to continue to say after years of it. The truth is though that it is currently completely false. Melee are fine, and fights do not overly punish them. In fact, rogues can simply CLOS out of most situations. Sometimes our dps warrior or enhancement shaman get a doomfire or something, but these people are not dying. If anything, our deaths are priest/mages on Gurtogg (somtimes). I really wish everyone would just quit saying melee have it so hard so Mages are balanced around having easy mode raiding.
#954SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3 Vontre
Pretty much any encounter with randomly targetted aoe or pbaoe is increasingly hurtful to melee the more you stack, and there are a lot of encounters with these mechanics. Melee is still very much hurt by range issues, it's part of their balance. People don't just say it, it's still true.
#955SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Prod
Ok, if completely hypothetically you brought 15 melee dps to Anetheron, then an infernal could cause a lot of trouble. Thankfully in the real world this situation doesn't exist and every guild uses classes like Hunters/Mages/Warlocks/Shadow Priest.

It seems silly that the idea is "if we brought all melee the melee would have a harder time so this is why they do the most dps". There are many dps and debuffing classes. Assuming a guild is trying to bring at least one of each CLASS, after tanks and healers are accounted for, you can't stack the raid heavily one way or the other. In real world guilds, melee are not punished for being melee because the mechanics of boss fights aren't there to punish their limited numbers.

The same argument would work for ranged too. I'm sure if you brought no melee and all ranged dps, they would have a harder time spreading out the damage coming in from aoe and chain abilities. If anything, I think increasing the Mages in a raid composition would increase the difficulty of raid healing. The only way we can really mitigate any damage is frost/fire ward. We can all agree to the lack of utility manashield brings, and the effectiveness of a 5 minute cd IB.

Edit:
I did Naxx/AQ40 again this weekend and I was amazed by how unfriendly a lot of things were to melee compared to current raiding. Trying to 4 man Ouro (16% ), the rogue could almost never be in to dps because of sweeps on the tank. Lots of fights punished our melee simply for being in range. I'm not seeing it in TBC.

Edit2:
I was also amazed by the quality of Naxx compared to TBC, but that is another thread :|

Last edited by Prod : 11/12/07 at 8:01 PM.
#956SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Raiste
After seeing the design trends and philosophies of the game especially in the transition from vanilla to TBC, I think it is safe to assume that mages will never ever be the "ranged rogues" of the game (nor they should be), pvp or pve. It may happen due to a fluke or a bug or a mechanic like the 2.2 MSD but never by intention.

In my view mage problems in PvE are two fold:

1)Reliance on outside debuffs to compete: As it has been hashed out nicely by Manly and others, we are too reliant on other classes to do competitive DPS. We need CoE and we need that shadow priest in our group. The opportunity cost of CoE is obviously a CoD/CoA and of giving shadow priest to the mages is e.g. the healers may not get one. This makes little sense why this needs to be so. Blizzard has already admitted they need to address the mana reliance, hopefully they will address the CoE reliance issue as well.

2) No real in combat utility: Sure mages have good utility with food/water, portals, AB etc. But outside of polymorph they bring little in terms of desired in combat buffs/utility:

Rogues: They don't bring any synergy to the raid but they are uncontested DPS kings of endgame raiding. A combat swords rogue in T6 more than justifies his/her raid spot just by the pure DPS they bring over any other class.

Warriors: Battle shout, Blood frenzy (if specced), Ability to throw on tank gear and help "tank" during trash pulls etc.

Druids: combat rez, Tree of life, Moonkin aura, LoTP (ability to OT/DPS without need to respec or change gear!!!)

Shaman: totems, heroism, self rez!

Priests: who doesn't want a shadow priest in their group?

Hunters: 3% dmg party buff for BM, expose weakness for survival, hunter's mark and trueshot for MM

Warlocks: curses that greatly amplify raid dmg, soul stones

Paladins: They are sadly not viable DPSer at least until 2.3, but they refresh judgements, bring 3% crit to the raid etc and paladin blessings (unlike AB) are big DPS buffs in themselves and unlike mages, more paladins = more blessings and at least 3 are almost always desirable in any raid.

This is what concerns me. Currently we bring nothing to the raid while in combat. Our debuffs (imp scorch and WC) only benefit us and only help us remain competitive. No one ever says omg I want a mage in my party and this is the area where mages can use some serious help. Would be nice to get a party buff or raid debuff that was not self centered for a change.

Last edited by Raiste : 11/12/07 at 7:57 PM.
#957SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post

Druids: combat rez, Tree of life, Moonkin aura, LoTP (ability to OT/DPS without need to respec or change gear!!!)

Shaman: totems, heroism, self rez!
While I agree with the majority of your post, druids most certainly -can't- tank without gear change. Once in a while, on trash that broke loose, yes, a cat can swap to bear and swipe, but I assure you bears and cats do not wear the same gear at all. And Tree of Life buff isn't relevant to the discussion: We're comparing raid utility of DPS classes.

Shamans also give 10% melee AP buff & Stormstrike to other shamans (though it's mostly chewed up by poisons unfortunately).

As for DPS warrior's ability to offtank during trash, I think it's irrelevant to the discussion: What can be done on trash is not a deciding factor for DPS class ballance.

Finally, on the topic of whose the "ranged rogues" as you put it, I don't see why you disagree with us being it; Rogues you argue, have 0 utility but bring damage that excuses it. We bring near 0 utility, why should we not be ranged DPS kings? Say I agree with your idea that we shouldn't: Who should? Hunters? Locks? Why? You just pointed out they're more useful. Adding best range DPS surely isn't needed to their arsenal of powers.
#958SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Copernicus
Somewhat 2.3 related, but specifically having to do with respeccing for Illidan as frost.

If I spec 3/3 Imp Blizzard for the Parasites, are my options really between Frozen Core, Improved Cone of Cold, and Ice Floes? I can easily see spending 56 points after getting the full shatter chain, permafrost, imp blizzard (plus all the DPS talents except Ice Floes). And the last three talents all have good things going for them. Does anyone who speccd just for Illidan into frost have any advice?

And on the same note, what's the safest way to use my Water Elemental in phase 2?
#959SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Nadiar
Yeah, I'd say on my druid only about 1/3 of my Cat Gear is useful in Bear Form. If I'm wearing Cat Gear and jump into Bear, I have very similar statistics to a Fury Warrior with a shield on.
#960SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vand1
Given all the talk about exactly what role mages do/should fill in raids, I thought it might be amusing to be reminded of what Bliz's original thoughts were on this matter. Here are a few quotes from the mage page in the original owner's manual.
  • "Mages can dish out the most ranged damage in the shortest time."
  • "They exist to blast monsters from range. In fact, in this role, they are unrivaled by all other classes."
  • "Only the rogue can hope to approach the massive amount of damage the mage can deal out, and even then, the rogue must get to within melee range to do so."
So if anyone wonders why some mages think we should be "ranged rogues," one need look no farther for answers than the book we all got when we first bought the game. Current reality is so far removed that it would not surprise me if we all receive notices in the mail about a class action suit being files against Bliz (just kidding).
#961SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Raiste
I know full well that cat and bear gear is completely different. But in add fights when you need OT for about 2 mins and once the add dies they are free to dps, druids do better than basically any other class. Of course they wont put out significant dps in bear gear, but their dps will be better than a prot warrior or a prot pally's.

Anyways as far as mages should or should not be ranged rogues, I think devs have made themselves pretty clear that they should not. We were "ranged rogues" in Naxx. Fire mages and fury warriors along with rogues dominated DPS charts with hunters/warlocks etc coming in a distant. Come TBC what were the first things blizzard overnerfed? They overnerfed warriors (warriors for the first two months of TBC were a very weak class due to multiple things), and you guessed it, mages. Before we can even see the "jaw dropping" dps we were supposedly putting out, our coefficients were nerfed as were our empowered talents. We achieved some slight edge in ranged dps classes with MSD and 2.2, but obviously this was not desired either.

Seems pretty clear to me that the devs do not want us to be the ranged rogue class. I at least hope that they can give us comparable utility with other non-rogue dps classes to compensate.

Last edited by Raiste : 11/12/07 at 9:17 PM.
#962SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Vand1
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post
Seems pretty clear to me that the devs do not want us to be the ranged rogue class.
I just wish they would decide what role it is they want us to play (and make it a valuable one), and then empower us to perform that role better than any other class.
#963SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Alvira
Hi,

I did some PTR testing when I could (but I couldnt get any data recorded because non of my recount or dmg meters were working). However, based on the new spell queue system and my testing with a hybrid arcane/fire spec (not ready to give up arcane yet), here's what I gathered.

Fire is definitley buffed. BUT the old arcane spec that uses rotations is now even more effective than before. The key thing is, you need two piece T5, and use fireball as part of your rotation.

I was using a rotation of 3XAB and 2XFB. And first the mana efficieny side. The buff to mana regen was powerful. With mage armor up, I took a very long time to run oom, whthout any raid buffs. I think with raid buffs, this rotation can be continued for a very long time, long enough to sustain for most or all fights.

Second, the DPS part. The key weakness of the previous arcane rotations were that their DPS was inferior and they relied on AB spam to get ahead. A rotation with fireball is very high DPS.

I couldn't get actual parse or anything. But with two piece T5, my arcane blasts were averaging 2000 dmg, and so were my fireballs. But fireball took 3 seconds to cast while arcane blast cast much faster. My fireball crit was much higher though, because of ignite, so it evened out.

But the net result I calculated based on a standard rotation was that I would average around 1100 DPS in a typical rotation based on those numbers. And that was non-raid buffed.

And I didn't factor in scorch. If I took time to scorch, the fireball hits would of course be higher, but to be honest, I think its better to let other full time fire mages cast scorch. Because this type of rotation doesn't use fireball often enough to justify spending time scorching.

And with the increased mana efficiency, and with enough raid support, I think this build would be able to spam arcane blast more often, which will then raise its DPS above the typical fireball spam rotation of fire mages.

So, Arcane isn't dead yet. You just have to go back to the old arcane way of rotations and hope/beg for a shadow priest in your group. For progression from two piece T5 up to 4 peice T6, it might possibly be the higher DPS spec. It at the very least should be a competitive one.

Once you hit four piece T4, fire will out strip arcane (and you won't be wearing two pieces of T5 anyway by then). But right up till then, I believe it is viable. Just my observations (can't be backed up any actual parse), from PTR.

Looking forward to the PTR. Arcane is not quite dead yet!
#964SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3
Edited onPatch 2.2.3
Raiste
Originally Posted by Vand1 View Post
I just wish they would decide what role it is they want us to play (and make it a valuable one), and then empower us to perform that role better than any other class.
amen, wish they'd take a queue from WC3 and make us sorta like the enh shaman version of mana users. The best candidates for the changes are already existing spells like armors and dampen/amplify magic. e.g.

mage armor: returns xmp5 to the mage and his party in 30 yrd radius
molten armor: increases crit mage's crit by 3% and party's crit by 1%
ice armor: In addition to the current effects, increases chance to resist stun/fear effects by X% for the party

amplify magic: increase damage and healing DONE by X, increases magic damage taken by 2X
dampen magic: decreases magic damage/healing DONE by X, decreases magic damage taken by 2X

These are not huge changes, just something that would increase our in combat utility with minor changes to things we already have.

Last edited by Raiste : 11/12/07 at 9:46 PM.
#965SourcePosted on Patch 2.2.3Tyrian
amplify magic: increase damage and healing DONE by X, increases magic damage taken by 2X
dampen magic: decreases magic damage/healing DONE by X, decreases magic damage taken by 2X
While its a novel idea, its a step towards turning mages into paladin-like buffers. Every raid, every boss - every class will be nagging you for their buff. "Warlocks need amplify magic pls". They would have to turn the spells into class-buffs like blessings and even then it would be pretty annoying. Passive auras and armor ideas are much more easier to manage =)
#966SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
If they do that amp magic change it still doesn't fix the fact that want no more than 1 mage per raid. It would just confirm that 'oh hey we need a mage in the raid' rather than actually making it interesting to bring more than 2.

If you make it more like a group buff, then yes that works. The problem however is that mages will always be grouped together due to their spriest/shaman requirements. And if you want to make 'stacking mages' something as interesting as stacking warlocks (for increased isb uptime and more COA/COD, which do tremendously help tip the scales comparing one class dps vs another). But something is important to mention, the group buff given my mages must absolutely stack. If it doesn't stack, then since mages are always grouped together it will have no net benefit towards 'making us desirable in a raid'. But then, if you follow this through, you might as well just go ahead and increase mage dps another way, and that'll be good enough to make us actually desirable in raids.

EDIT: in fact, what I would want is something closer to ISB in fact. Something like this:
-each time fireball/frostbolt/arcane missiles crits, a buff goes on the target that lasts 2 seconds which increases magic damage taken by 5%.

Last edited by manly : 11/13/07 at 2:05 AM.
#967SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0seminarca
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post
1)Reliance on outside debuffs to compete: As it has been hashed out .. [snip]
Reliance on outside buffs/debuffs is something everyone has to deal with, even Rogues. Take a T6 Rogue with full raid buffs/debuffs, in an optimized melee group.

Now remove his Windfury/SoE totem and Unleashed Rage.

Now remove his Battle Shout.

Now remove his LotP if applicable.

Now remove CoR from the boss .. Faerie Fire .. the 5x Sunder Stack ..

See where I'm going with this? The fact that Rogues perform unequivocally better could have something to do with the fact that most of the debuffs they need are already present (Warriors will stack Sunder while tanking, a DPSing or tanking Druid will put up FF etc). But if you remove the Rogues stackage, you'll find he does much worse.

Theorycraft posts and threads on these very forums suggest if you have a single Shaman in the raid that just so happens to be Resto, you'd be better off plunking him in the melee group for Windfury totem. That bias right there is the issue, and Windfury totem (even after its nerf) is one of the major factors.

Now I don't know whether a self buffed Rogue will outdps a selfbuffed Mage on a boss fight, and neither is that relevant. But my point is: 1) with the commonly available raid buffs/debuffs already present in most raids and benefitting Rogues greatly and 2) melee having WF/Shaman preference does play a part in it. I know that even in our raids (mid-SSC/TK level) melee get pampered with optimal groups (Enh Shaman, DPS Warrior, sometimes Ret Pally or Feral Druid depending on raid makeup) whereas Mages mostly just get a Shadow Priest. Naturally, our melee outperforms ranged on all but AoE encounters.
#968SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kycan
Could make it as something as simple as casuing Ignite to increase fire damage taken by 10% or some such. The mage equivalent of ISB. Would scale by number of fire mages and is not constrained by group.
#969SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
JasonX
Originally Posted by kycan View Post
Could make it as something as simple as casuing Ignite to increase fire damage taken by 10% or some such. The mage equivalent of ISB. Would scale by number of fire mages and is not constrained by group.
That will be the best and most logical solution I can think of. Maybe frost needs something along the same line too, for 21 point talent. Although I'm thinking that they will likely implement a talent that reduces damage taken by x% for y seconds instead.

Last edited by JasonX : 11/13/07 at 4:23 AM.
#970SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by manly View Post
EDIT: in fact, what I would want is something closer to ISB in fact. Something like this:
-each time fireball/frostbolt/arcane missiles crits, a buff goes on the target that lasts 2 seconds which increases magic damage taken by 5%.
Wouldn't that totally redo how the value of crit and haste are handled? Not just for mages, but all other classes?
#971SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ReignConfused
Stacking some serious crit if that talent comes into play!

Edit: Removed my question because upon further review, I can probably dig for the answer in the PVP archive and this was also probably the wrong forum. Continue on your way, nothing to see here!

Last edited by ReignConfused : 11/13/07 at 4:13 AM.
#972SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ztorm
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
And on the same note, what's the safest way to use my Water Elemental in phase 2?
Wait for tank to move Flame of Azzinoth to the top of his kite path, then summon your water elemental. Bloodlust immediately after you summon, so your WE gets the best effect. As soon as your WE expires, cold-snap and summon another one. You want to get through phase 2 as quickly as possible, so that's the ideal time to snap. If you are using the camp method and are on the edge of a circle, make sure you summon your elemental away from the tank so it doesn't get hit with blaze or eye beam.
#973SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
Originally Posted by kycan View Post
Could make it as something as simple as casuing Ignite to increase fire damage taken by 10% or some such. The mage equivalent of ISB. Would scale by number of fire mages and is not constrained by group.
How would this be the equivalent of ISB? One of the kye features if ISB is that it's increasing damage for two clases (Priests and Warlocks) at once. No-one else uses fire damage - same as no-one else uses frost. If we are to gain buffs that have synergy with other classes, they need to move outside our elemental choices, because all our elemental options give us is a lack of flexibility and compatability with other classes.
#974SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Gramme
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
Somewhat 2.3 related, but specifically having to do with respeccing for Illidan as frost.

If I spec 3/3 Imp Blizzard for the Parasites, are my options really between Frozen Core, Improved Cone of Cold, and Ice Floes? I can easily see spending 56 points after getting the full shatter chain, permafrost, imp blizzard (plus all the DPS talents except Ice Floes). And the last three talents all have good things going for them. Does anyone who speccd just for Illidan into frost have any advice?

And on the same note, what's the safest way to use my Water Elemental in phase 2?
I wouldn't worry too much about choosing a spec for the parasites unless you're the only person designated to deal with them (which strikes me as slightly risky). We tend to use two mages, with help from a third if he's nearby. The parasites are sufficiently flimsy that 2 x (talented but non-shatter) Cone Of Cold and 1-2 x AE should be enough to kill them.
#975SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Gramme View Post
I wouldn't worry too much about choosing a spec for the parasites unless you're the only person designated to deal with them (which strikes me as slightly risky). We tend to use two mages, with help from a third if he's nearby. The parasites are sufficiently flimsy that 2 x (talented but non-shatter) Cone Of Cold and 1-2 x AE should be enough to kill them.
Conversely CoC, Frost nova, ice lance both until dead works just as fast at half the mana.

When i spec frost for illidan i just go the full shi-bang of 0/0/61, getting everything but frost warding and frostbite. Full blizzard helps a deal on the adds, the only mob that can be frost bitten are the parasites, but that doesn't really help. Everything else is just passively good to have.
#976SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
How would this be the equivalent of ISB? One of the kye features if ISB is that it's increasing damage for two clases (Priests and Warlocks) at once. No-one else uses fire damage - same as no-one else uses frost. If we are to gain buffs that have synergy with other classes, they need to move outside our elemental choices, because all our elemental options give us is a lack of flexibility and compatability with other classes.
I think ISB is overpowered here. The fact that ISB increases shadow damage taken by 20% and has 4 charges is a bit too strong IMO.

I would think that, if ignite provides a debuff that increases fire/arcane/frost damage taken by x%(e.g. 20%), it will be justifiable to bring more than 1 mage.
#977SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Alvira
I would average around 1100 DPS in a typical rotation based on those numbers.
That's nice.
#978SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kikler
I go for 10/0/51 on illidan , 1 mage does nova , then both COC 2k crit each , parasites down If they survive i do 1 AE if they are 2 , ice lance if it's 1.
#979SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Mystz0r
Right, I think we've moved about far away from the subject at hand, and delved into whining about warlocks and how Blizzard CAN improve mage viability. I still have one pressing question: what spec should I go for tomorrow? Currently, I think I'm inclined to go deep fire. It doesn't have the pushback and pet-dying issues of frost, and when I was it, I liked it. However, respeccing every single week for Illidan isn't that appealing - so I'm wondering: what are your thoughts? What spec will you go tomorrow?

Is any kind of arc/x viable? (33/28) or (40/0/21)? Haven't had a chance to go to the PTR, so if anyone could summarize some conclusions, it'd be much appreciated
#980SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Axira
Originally Posted by Mystz0r View Post
Is any kind of arc/x viable? (33/28) or (40/0/21)? Haven't had a chance to go to the PTR, so if anyone could summarize some conclusions, it'd be much appreciated
arc/fire 33/28 is definitally viable, especially if you like stacking up on critrating... your dps might be a bit more unstable ... (sometimes higher or lower then cookiecutter 10/48/3) and you might also have a bit of threatissues at moments where you end up in crit-luckystreaks.

I've bad experiences with 40/0/21 for raiding tho ... because well, frost can't compare to fire (or arcane) in terms of DPS.
#981SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Shawn
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
If I spec 3/3 Imp Blizzard for the Parasites, are my options really between Frozen Core, Improved Cone of Cold, and Ice Floes? I can easily see spending 56 points after getting the full shatter chain, permafrost, imp blizzard (plus all the DPS talents except Ice Floes). And the last three talents all have good things going for them. Does anyone who speccd just for Illidan into frost have any advice?
Keep in mind that you will overwrite the Slow of Cone of Cold with Blizzard if you spec 3/3 Improved Blizzard. I'd always go 3/3 Permafrost and 2/3 Imp Blizzard if planning to AoE with Blizzard and Cone of Cold. Though I'm not really sure if Blizzard is really a good way to go for the Parasites. I'll always Nova, CoC, AE them as Frost (Icelance if Frostbite procs or Nova holds). Against the Shadow Demons it might help to spam Rank 1 Blizzard though a Hunter Trap would be just as effective. There's also the chance that you'll get paralyzed and having no slow then would be pretty devestating.
And on the same note, what's the safest way to use my Water Elemental in phase 2?
It should survive all the time if you have a Shadowpriest in your group and if it gets healed occasionally with Chain Heal and Circe of Healing. As long as it's not targetted by Barrage it should survive.
If you have a Shaman in your group, let him put Tranquility Totem early on. Once the first Flame is at ~90% let him switch to Spelldamage, summon your Elemental and then ask for Heroism. Use Cold Snap rightaway. You can push some really good numbers with Frost in that fight IMO.
#982SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Leialyn
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
I think ISB is overpowered here. The fact that ISB increases shadow damage taken by 20% and has 4 charges is a bit too strong IMO.

I would think that, if ignite provides a debuff that increases fire/arcane/frost damage taken by x%(e.g. 20%), it will be justifiable to bring more than 1 mage.
They would probably change the warlock debuff to give 20% to all shools before giving something like this to mages ;p

Btw, since this is a 2.3 TC thread, what do you think, will the dps loss of a 18/40/3 spec be that significant compared to a 10/48/3 spec?
#983SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Mystz0r View Post
Is any kind of arc/x viable? (33/28) or (40/0/21)? Haven't had a chance to go to the PTR, so if anyone could summarize some conclusions, it'd be much appreciated
Deep fire beats arcane/fire for single target damage, but loses in AoE.

Deep frost beats arcane frost for single target damage when you can keep your elemental alive for a few seconds, has winter's chill, ice barrier, can have 75% slow on blizzard, shatter and some other goodies for illidan.
Arcane/frost can be better single target DPS if you can leech winter's chill and if your elemental would die all the time within a few seconds, you gain AoE bonuses but lose control goodies.


I've been 5/0/56 for a few weeks now since we use mages to control parasites and demons.
The damage is decent enough not to be a waste of a raid slot. I wouldn't recommend it if you have issues with enrage timers, but it works well enough and I feel it offers the best options for Illidan if that is what counts for you.
#984SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Assuming you have Illidan on farm like we do, I plan to just stay Fire on Illidan and just use AM on p2, I have mana to burn, the dps won't be great, but c'est la vie. The dps won't be not-worth-a-raid-slot bad, at least.

I have all the Illidan loot I want anyway so I could just sit out, theoretically :P
#985SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0thesmoosh
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
Btw, since this is a 2.3 TC thread, what do you think, will the dps loss of a 18/40/3 spec be that significant compared to a 10/48/3 spec?
I'm also interested in the answer to that, but wouldn't this be the build we should be comparing?
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
#986SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Amarilia
Fire isn't optimal for illidan of course, but I don't see why everyone says it's not viable for it. Dragon's breath works well against the parasites and you can still blast wave if needed. Frost offers more control but to say it's absolutely needed for parasite duty? Not really.
After our first two illidan kills, we never respecced for illidan and parasites were never any problem.
You're crap in phase 2 of course but I don't get it why you would ever be frost the whole week and thus playing a less optimal spec because that spec is better in one phase of a bossfight.

Alternatively, you could just do illidan as last boss of the week and spec pvp frost for the rest of the week.
#987SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kycan
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
How would this be the equivalent of ISB? One of the kye features if ISB is that it's increasing damage for two clases (Priests and Warlocks) at once. No-one else uses fire damage - same as no-one else uses frost. If we are to gain buffs that have synergy with other classes, they need to move outside our elemental choices, because all our elemental options give us is a lack of flexibility and compatability with other classes.
My goal wasn't really to create a buff that synergizes with other classes. Frankly, I have no desire to fulfill such a role. As has been discussed here a bit, mages, along with rogues, are consumers of buffs, not buffers themselves. I personally am fine with that.

The idea was simply to give a reason to put more than one mage in a raid. The more mages, the higher uptime on Ignite, thus the greater damage from each individual mage.
#988SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Kikler View Post
I go for 10/0/51 on illidan , 1 mage does nova , then both COC 2k crit each , parasites down If they survive i do 1 AE if they are 2 , ice lance if it's 1.
Our Hunters have been dealing with the parasites amazingly well.

They drop a frost trap towards the back and whoever gets parasite just runs on top of the trap or if one is up on top of the area that is still trapped. 2 of them just turn and a multishot from each kills the parasite instantly, if something happens then the mages can just spin and fireblast before it gets near the raid. We just keep our cameras at max range and then you can watch the parasites as they spawn and there is no reason to interrupt dps unless there is a reason to interrupt dps.

They die so fast that frostnova would just be a wasted GCD.
#989SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Praen
Arcane vs other specs

When u try to evaluate mage dps, everybdy should consider whole factors effecting it. For instace everybdy says 10/48/3 cookie cutter built can be the best one in raid dps, especially for single target fights. On the other hand, that built also the most problematic one in terms of threat creation. A fire mage w/ tailoring spec can hit 1100 fire spell dmg easily right at the beginning of his end-game raiding life. But his guild tank may not be as luck as that mage. So as a deep fire mage if u have to slow down ur dps, or cast invisibility spell to dampen ur agro, can we still say this built's the best dps spec for mages?

As we all know, blizz nerfed MSD and Capacitor because of arcane mages. Even if its explaination says MSD has 5% proc chance, i got 5 procs in a row many times while i was casting arcane misl. That gem's feature shines w/ arcane misl.; especially when it procs w/ clearcast at the same time. In 2.5 secs casting time, i saw more than 10k damage w/ full raid buffed and capacitor equiped, plus arcane power in use.

I dont have any t5 piece atm but i have 950 sustained dps in almost all single target boss fights, like Void Reaver, Karathress or Gruul. My record's 1050 on a single target long fight (Karathress). 7-10% of my dps comes from Capacitor and now blizz nerfed it. If i keep using it, its contribution will down to 5-7% probably. I cant saya precise data for contribution of MSD, but as far as i can see it helps damn a lot for arcane dps. My spell rotation's ABX3+Arc Mis+Fire Blast. Everytime either clearcast or MSD procs i was casting arcane misl. This's my guess but i think MSD was affecting my overall dps by 15% or maybe more and guess what, Blizz nerfed it too

So from now on, is there any way to keep my dps in same lvl as it's before? I dont wanna give up arcane spec because i really like its 40% threat reduction. Also deep arcane spec gets huge benefit from raid buffs like blessing of kings, mark of the wild. Stats which u gain from these buffs also increase ur spell dmg too. Arcane mages dont need a fragile pet like frost mages or dont need to wait till 20% for shining of their dps. From the beginning of fight to the end, arcane mages keep their dps up w/o worrying about their agro, pet or boss's health situation.

So what u guys offer to arcane mages for keeping up their dps after 2.3 patch?
#990SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ztorm
Originally Posted by Amarilia View Post
Fire isn't optimal for illidan of course, but I don't see why everyone says it's not viable for it. Dragon's breath works well against the parasites and you can still blast wave if needed. Frost offers more control but to say it's absolutely needed for parasite duty? Not really.
After our first two illidan kills, we never respecced for illidan and parasites were never any problem.
You're crap in phase 2 of course but I don't get it why you would ever be frost the whole week and thus playing a less optimal spec because that spec is better in one phase of a bossfight.

Alternatively, you could just do illidan as last boss of the week and spec pvp frost for the rest of the week.
For a guild learning Illidan, the hardest parts of the fight are probably phase 2 and the shadow demons in phase 4. Being frost helps your guild significantly with both. The higher dps afforded by frost in phase 2 reduces the time spent during that phase, subsequently reducing potential mistakes. Likewise, the shadow demons in phase 4 are best slowed using frostbolt with permafrost or imp blizzard. This allows the raid more time to DPS them down, especially if they target a player closer towards the front. In addition, I would argue that frost is very viable for the bosses leading up to Illidan. The extra survivability on mother is nice (although probably unnecessary after the nerf) and having an out to take stress off your healers during council is very beneficial as well.
#991SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Praen View Post
When u try to evaluate mage dps, everybdy should consider whole factors effecting it. For instace everybdy says 10/48/3 cookie cutter built can be the best one in raid dps, especially for single target fights. On the other hand, that built also the most problematic one in terms of threat creation. A fire mage w/ tailoring spec can hit 1100 fire spell dmg easily right at the beginning of his end-game raiding life. But his guild tank may not be as luck as that mage. So as a deep fire mage if u have to slow down ur dps, or cast invisibility spell to dampen ur agro, can we still say this built's the best dps spec for mages?

As we all know, blizz nerfed MSD and Capacitor because of arcane mages. Even if its explaination says MSD has 5% proc chance, i got 5 procs in a row many times while i was casting arcane misl. That gem's feature shines w/ arcane misl.; especially when it procs w/ clearcast at the same time. In 2.5 secs casting time, i saw more than 10k damage w/ full raid buffed and capacitor equiped, plus arcane power in use.

I dont have any t5 piece atm but i have 950 sustained dps in almost all single target boss fights, like Void Reaver, Karathress or Gruul. My record's 1050 on a single target long fight (Karathress). 7-10% of my dps comes from Capacitor and now blizz nerfed it. If i keep using it, its contribution will down to 5-7% probably. I cant saya precise data for contribution of MSD, but as far as i can see it helps damn a lot for arcane dps. My spell rotation's ABX3+Arc Mis+Fire Blast. Everytime either clearcast or MSD procs i was casting arcane misl. This's my guess but i think MSD was affecting my overall dps by 15% or maybe more and guess what, Blizz nerfed it too

So from now on, is there any way to keep my dps in same lvl as it's before? I dont wanna give up arcane spec because i really like its 40% threat reduction. Also deep arcane spec gets huge benefit from raid buffs like blessing of kings, mark of the wild. Stats which u gain from these buffs also increase ur spell dmg too. Arcane mages dont need a fragile pet like frost mages or dont need to wait till 20% for shining of their dps. From the beginning of fight to the end, arcane mages keep their dps up w/o worrying about their agro, pet or boss's health situation.

So what u guys offer to arcane mages for keeping up their dps after 2.3 patch?

I think what we need to offer is a course in the English language. I really hope that English is your second language or that you are not from the USA, because otherwise you just clearly demonstrated how badly the public school system is failing our society.

Please take a minute to read the forum rules regarding abbreviations and "LEET" speak and then reformulate that incoherent mess into something with a clear question that is worth answering instead of just telling you to review this thread for the 2 minutes it would take to note that Arcane is effectively dead as a raiding spec in the upcoming patch.

I'm sorry there isn't anything we "guys offer to arcane mages for keeping up their dps" since we aren't the games designers. We are just raiders who theorycraft on how best to play the game that Blizzard designs and there really aren't any hidden secret methods to keep Arcane as a viable spec once the patch goes live. If you like playing as a Deep Arcane specced mage then keep on playing it but just realize that you really won't need the additional aggro control anyway (except to keep Arcane Explosion threat under control) since your dps will be so poor that it really won't be an issue anyway.



If English is indeed your second language, or you are under the age of 12, I apologize for the comment on the "LEET" speak but do ask that you refrain from asking questions that have already been answered dozens of times in this and in other threads on the subject.
#992SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
Thanks for the advice regarding Illidan. The main concern I have is that with lag + frost nova, the novaing mage can sometimes get next to them and get parasited. I think I'm just going to go with CoC and no Frostbite - with Permafrost it will slow them enough to be taken care of during the 10+ seconds of chill. And with them chilled I have less lag concerns so I can go Frost Nova + Ice Lance afterwards if needed.

I'd prefer to use Hunter traps or Earthbind totems, but we want to use as many of those as possible on Shadow Demons and the second parasite happens just before a Shadow Demon phase. Blizzard isn't an option there because I don't want to be hit with a shadow demon while so close to Illidan.
#993SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Asahina
Originally Posted by Praen View Post
A bunch of stuff about arcane spec, I think, and mentioning fire being a massive agro problem

Tbh I was fire right from the bat in the Burning Crusade and I cant say I ever had agro problems, sure, I had to use invisibility on some boss fights, mainly void reaver I guess but if your tank cant keep up, then get a new tank tbh. I would only ever pull agro on some trash in 5 mans where I wasnt paying attention, or on Void reaver where I was too busy calling for my group.

I'd honestly say Fire isnt a massive agro problem, I have never ever had to hold back for it at least
#994SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 Vontre
You would incur less dps loss by swapping Molten Armor for mage armor than using that 18/40/3 build.

Last edited by Vontre : 11/13/07 at 2:30 PM.
#995SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Massael
Having raided as fire pretty consistently in TBC (I knew the arcane nerf was coming and had inconsistent spriest availability) I've never noticed any severe threat problems. Even maintaining 11-1200 DPS it's rare that i'll need to invis unless I get a string of crits very early in the fight. In my experience fire is averaging about 700TPS if you go all out, any respectable MT should be well above that threshold.
#996SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
You would incur less dps loss by swapping Molten Armor for mage armor than using that 18/40/3 build.
Given mage armor and arcane meditation are now of equal mana-regen worth, unless you're pondering the possible case of having both up (60%regen while casting) then the 3% crit loss will most likely be a smaller DPS blow than losing (any combination of) Playing with Fire, Emp. Fireball, Elemental Precision, DB, Pyroblast/BW. There is of course merit to possibly speccing out of ele. pre. for it if you can't readjust gear to not be over the cap but I doubt that's realistic. And even so, you'd still have to ditch DB/BW. Besides, theres diminishing returns to speccing out of Ele. Pre.: The talent reduces mana costs by 1/2/3%, so you aren't gaining as much mana as you think...

Many have wondered if they could spec so on wow EU and US forums but personally? I don't see the point. How often would wearing mage armor make a profound difference on your mana-situation? That's the same buff arc. meditation gives and as far as I'm concerned it's just not worth the talents.
#997SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Nyuu
Well my DPS was lower then when I was arcane during tonights BT, but that probably has more to do with the fact I haven't been fire in so long and don't have the best gear to go back too for it. After I got used to it and some addons, I was back on top of the meters or near the top again so as much as I will miss arcane, I can live with fire.

One thing that I got to thinking about though was if a talent was added to the fire tree that would allow fireball/fire crits to apply or refresh the scorch vulnerability so we don't have to consistently reapply scorch every once in awhile, much like warriors had to do with sunder armor. Maybe a talent in general that caused an elemental weakness debuff from our spell criticals.
#998SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
The math really isn't ambiguous at this point. If it was desired that any given spec of mage would do more PvE damage and it would not upset the PvP applecart (where frankly, Mages at 2.1k+ ratings are not there for fireball or frostbolt to say the least) then it would have been changed.

The fact remains though that Mages are being taken on raids. They probably are being taken in large numbers over many other classes and even by "min-max" raids. The "why?" is arguable but until the actual use falls, Blizzard is probably correct in doing what they are doing.
#999SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
I still have some issues with the mage class in 2.3. I still think Blizzard could have done a better job with mages. The issues that have been raised with mages are:

1) Lack of raid synergy. Some have suggested for mages to get raid/party synergy that makes bringing more mages desirable, or at least competitive dps with rogues to justify their lack of synergy.

2) Bosses with immunities. It seems to me that bosses with immunities are usually fire or frost immune, which hurts only fire/frost mages (except for less common fire destro lock). It seems justifiable for blizzard to make fire elemental bosses immune to fire, yet they will never receives more damage from frost attack even though it is equally logical.

3) Mages are commonly viewed as a weaker version of locks, with less synergy, less dps & less survivability (except for frost mages). Blink is getting less useful when boss designs are leaning towards unavoidable raid-wide damage. High HP & fel armor are kings when it matters.

4) Mana issues, which they claimed to be looking into. Currently, I'm fine with mana as long as a shadow priest exist in my party.

5) Arcane spec offering sub-par dps. I was arcane spec for a long time, and I'm rather disappointed that arcane spec is simply not competitive enough with the nerf to MSD & lightning capacitor, as well as AB costing too much mana to be competitive.

6) Personally, I think scorch takes too long to stack. The original idea of a 5 stack scorch was for pre-bc raiding where 5x fire mages are common. Nowadays, it is common to have just 1 fire mage in a raid, making it much harder to stack scorch. It becomes even harder when raid bosses are frequently designed to requires people to move or hold dps for extended duration.
#1000SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lapochka
Well :)

I just thought i would contribute to this thread a bit

I must agree that it was fun to do the MH waves with the TLC or have spellhaste and spam lightning bolts fastedr then a elemental shammy.. WWS did show nice dmg %.. but guys cmon - its Kara trinket. i am sure that blizzard were just fuckheads in the firstplace not giving it a though before handing it to an arcane mage

And yes i think that the chief developer at blizz has some obsession with warlocks, allways making sure that mages should be kept down^^

But people saying that they cry or the arcane spec is burried. still dont think so. Try to overDPS a "nerfed" arcane mage on supremus with fire build ^^
I am glad though that i might be able in the future to see some frostmages in the raid.

As for the builds i must admit that arcane was nicely overpowered before - it was actually the longest period that i have had arcane since i bought this game 2 years ago. But i still miss fireballs, scorch ignites..

I am speced 40/18/3 (i see loads of talents wasted in deep fire spec) and as i see it i gain 2 things from the patch - 15%(50% encrease) in mana regen and 10% "more dmg". This couldnt be more sweet - not mentioning that now i will not be alone in making the scorches . a happy day for me!
#1001SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0angelumiere
Hello,

First I would like to thank all those people contributing to this forum. They helped me a lot on how to maximise my dps by sharing their knowledge in the different mage threads.

I'm in a guild who is at 2/6 down Serpentshrine and 1/4 down The Eye.

What I wood like to know is what happens to the raid dps if all mages respec deep fire?
We generally raid with 2 to 3 mages and will be taking 5 to 7 debuff slots on the boss.
We also have 3 to 4 warlocks and 1 to 2 shadow priests in the raid.

I've read this debuff slots thread but can't find an answer.

If we spec frost and manage to keep the elemental up, the dps-loss won't be that much
and we won't have to respec for Al'ar when we will be working on him. And we will only be using 1 debuff slot on the boss.

Any advise or comments?

P.S. : sorry if I made mistakes, english is only my third language.
#1002SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dryssa
Originally Posted by angelumiere View Post
Hello,

First I would like to thank all those people contributing to this forum. They helped me a lot on how to maximise my dps by sharing their knowledge in the different mage threads.

I'm in a guild who is at 2/6 down Serpentshrine and 1/4 down The Eye.

What I wood like to know is what happens to the raid dps if all mages respec deep fire?
We generally raid with 2 to 3 mages and will be taking 5 to 7 debuff slots on the boss.
We also have 3 to 4 warlocks and 1 to 2 shadow priests in the raid.

I've read this debuff slots thread but can't find an answer.

If we spec frost and manage to keep the elemental up, the dps-loss won't be that much
and we won't have to respec for Al'ar when we will be working on him. And we will only be using 1 debuff slot on the boss.

Any advise or comments?

P.S. : sorry if I made mistakes, english is only my third language.
If you bring 3 mages, they'll use a total of 7 debuff slots (3 fireball DOTs, 3 potential ignites, 1 improved scorch). They'll do the highest personal DPS of any mage spec, as well as boosting Warlocks' fire damage. As for Al'ar, since you're still progressing on him you'll probably want to have your mages spec frost specifically for that fight. 100g per week isn't much to ask for progression.
#1003SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kadgar
A quick question about spell haste, a mvp in the german wow forum claims (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....11822748&sid=3), that spell haste for fireball is calculated always for the unskilled casttime.
So final fireball casttime would be ((3,5 - x% spell haste) - 0,5 sec) instead of (3,0 -x% spell haste).
Sounds strange to me, anybody can confirm how it works?
#1004SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Lapochka: May I advise a spell checker, a re-read and less ^^ . Using the apostrophe the full stop and not starting sentences with But will also help. Calling Blizzard "Fuckheads" will definitely not.

As for the TC, (we are in the TC forum after all) if you see "loads of wasted talents in deep fire" compared to 10.48.3 perhaps I'm terribly wrong, but for the last seven or so months now deep fire has been significantly superior to 40.18.3 unless you're wearing terrible pre-heroic drops. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, in gear 33.28.0 will be superior to 40.18.3 unless the majority of your rotations are in their majority 2/5T5 AB based.

With no empowered AM you are limited to AB*X,FBall*2 or Sc*4 in place of FBall, switching to a much heavier AB basis if mana allows. It is extremely difficult to make this spec surpass full fire in almost all encounters, barring heavily fire-resistant bosses.

There is not even a discussion point on whether 40.18.3 fireball/scorch rotations are close to 10.48.3.

I'd like Lhivera's and Vontre's but I believe if you're capable of reading and signing up to EJ you're also capable of:

1) Reading the Forum Guidelines.

2) Reading some Other Posts before you post.

and as a consequence:

3) Posting a post in accordance with the Forum Guidelines.

4) Not posting what has been said/discussed before and therefore pointless and/or mistaken.
#1005SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by kadgar
A quick question about spell haste, a mvp in the german wow forum claims (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....11822748&sid=3), that spell haste for fireball is calculated always for the unskilled casttime.
So final fireball casttime would be ((3,5 - x% spell haste) - 0,5 sec) instead of (3,0 -x% spell haste).
Sounds strange to me, anybody can confirm how it works?
Since 100% haste cuts the cast time in half of a spell, the proper formula to use is:
( (cast time after talents) / ( 1 + total haste ) )

Using just the Bracers of Nimble Thought, 28 spell haste, 1.78% haste.
The spell book shows 2.95s cast.

If it were based off the untalented cast time of 3.5s then;
3.5/1.0178=3.439s - .5=2.939s or 2.94s cast

Whereas with post talented at 3s cast;
3/1.0178=2.947 or 2.95s cast.

Seems like your MVP over there needs to have his MVP status removed.
#1006SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Searix
After a full night of BT, i must say i am quite impressed with mage dps with this new patch.

10/48/3, great gear, typical raid buffs, shadow priest but no shaman, with destruction pots, 4th on najentus just behind 3 rogues with enhance sham, picking up 2 spines and ~12 seconds of bandage

Ignoring supremus, Akama bugged out and i was way out of position trying to sheep killing my dps. Sat for Gurtogg.

2nd on souls, 1st phase 3 dps. This includes dieing phase 2 at 2% when our tank got stunned and i was next highest on aggro. No elements on any of the phases. Was using pots so dieing i had no buffs up p3.

5th Teron, living entire time, but a deal of pushback.

Overall if i were to get elements and shaman every boss, i would've been right on par with rogues, maybe above.

Last edited by Searix : 11/14/07 at 6:35 AM.
#1007SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Lapochka
Pint, thank you for your constructive post about my spelling

Don’t take me wrong...but taking "advice" from a firemage with 10.33% hit , talking about my preheroics drops and raid dmg doesnt quite make any point.

If i was uncertain of what I was saying, I would not say it here. - Seriosly, the day that i start to get pwned by deep fire build mage i will change with out hasitation.
I have been following the guide to mage DPS from wow forums and have been using 10/48/3.. but that was for heroics and for Kara and some SSC... - from my raiding experience I can clearly state that using 40/18/3 build with a scorch, fireball and fireblast rotation = win.
I might agree thought that the scorch build will be worth tying out after 2.3

Last edited by Lapochka : 11/14/07 at 5:36 AM.
#1008SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Overall if i were to get elements and shaman every boss, i would've been right on par with rogues, maybe above.
Besides your whole post bragging about how you did, and the grammar, there are a few problems with this statement.

1) Mages need CoE to compete on most bosses that CoR is on.
2) You didn't read a lot of this thread.

Saying where you finished on a meter is pointless without numbers. Possible to provide a WWS with the numbers?

Your gear selection boggles me. Why would you stay Fire if you dropped your crit that low going for haste, seems counter productive, unless thats an alternate gear set. And are you saying that you had NO buffs during p3 RoS, or just no consumable buffs? Huge difference there.

Btw, hemo rogues bring a ton of raid utility via hemo.
Really dude, I mean c'mon. That's like saying... well I don't know, but that's just plain stupid. We've know that Hemo is a great dps increase for the melee for a long time now, the only difference now is that it gets the same buffs SS does now, so the rogue who specs it isn't useless anymore.
#1009SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Prod
I came into 2.3 with a LOT of skepticism about fire. But that has changed. I did 1800 dps on Gorefiend tonight (only 41% crit rate, I'm at 35+ and also 2 combustions, 1 flamecap, 0 destro pots) and I believe I used the crusade trinket over the BT one, which I don't think I should have. I did not have the new meta gem.

The most significant change isn't the fire coefficient but the new casting system. No pushback problem, easy scorch rotations to keep buff up, no lag. It was all very smooth.

The point I want to make is this. Even with arcane spec, I'd be fighting lag with AM. Lag is gone with fire. It's pretty amazing. I'd respec regardless of the arcane nerfs.

For those wondering, the frost mage in the guild was neck and neck with me until his elemental had downtime, at which point I would zoom ahead. Frost seemed very viable depending on the fight.

Last edited by Prod : 11/14/07 at 5:58 AM.
#1010SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
I came into 2.3 with a LOT of skepticism about fire. But that has changed. I did 1800 dps on Gorefiend tonight (only 41% crit rate, I'm at 35+ and also 2 combustions, 1 flamecap, 0 destro pots) and I believe I used the crusade trinket over the BT one, which I don't think I should have. I did not have the new meta gem.
What kind of DPS were you pulling pre-2.3 as fire on Teron?

The most significant change isn't the fire coefficient but the new casting system. No pushback problem, easy scorch rotations to keep buff up, no lag. It was all very smooth.
No pushback problem? Do you mean the interrupting casts problem? If that, yea fire gains a small bit off dps from that, and being able to get casts off faster too!

The point I want to make is this. Even with arcane spec, I'd be fighting lag with AM. Lag is gone with fire. It's pretty amazing. I'd respect regardless of the arcane nerfs.
How are you fighting lag with AM? Would think it would be doing the same as fire.

For those wondering, the frost mage in the guild was neck and neck with me until his elemental had downtime, at which point I would zoom ahead. Frost seemed very viable depending on the fight.
This was always true even before this patch. That's why in all the modeling done on specs and dps, a deep frost spec, with elemental up always tops the dps, but soon as the elemental dies off, the dps of this spec plummets.

This is making me look forward to Rage tomorrow personally. Was always able t do 1400-1500dps as fire there, and that was with bad trinket combos. Wonder how much dps the mages with perfect gear gained really.
#1011SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
If I return, I'll believe it when I see it.

Honestly, what changed? Even if the new anti-latency works, it benefits Shadowbolt more than Fireball (and shadowbolt the same as frostbolt as it happens, barring co-efficients and ISB etc). Think about it.

I'd love to crunch real parses at this point but I retired for other reasons and I'm sure not begging back a raid slot just to check my "new" against old. There simply is not any possible way though that these changes will result in a much different unpredicted relative ranking for dps.
#1012SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0angelumiere
Originally Posted by Dryssa View Post
If you bring 3 mages, they'll use a total of 7 debuff slots (3 fireball DOTs, 3 potential ignites, 1 improved scorch). They'll do the highest personal DPS of any mage spec, as well as boosting Warlocks' fire damage. As for Al'ar, since you're still progressing on him you'll probably want to have your mages spec frost specifically for that fight. 100g per week isn't much to ask for progression.
Thank you Dryssa.

I loved the Arcane spec, but respec isn't really an problem, it's the price to pay if you want to down bosses.

Personnal DPS is nice, but does anyone know what happens with the raid dps?

We have 4 affliction Warlocks and 1 Destru Warlock as well as 2 SP in the guild and since they allready use a lot of slots is fire still the best choice for the raid?
#1013SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
To be honest, Mage dps hasn't really decided a fight, never-mind an attempt since Naxx.

It's good to contribute and obviously it's important to beat enrage timers or situational needs but seriously... if you are missing those milestones, it is probably not due to mages hitting 1400 instead of 1000 dps. Other changes (group synergies!, CoR/FF, proper seed use, etc) will net you more dps in the end if that is all you lack. Honestly, it is far easier to boost Rogue group dps than caster's just by mechanics and since there is a class that leverages very well, you should probably use that.
#1014SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
1) Mages need CoE to compete on most bosses that CoR is on.
2) You didn't read a lot of this thread.

Saying where you finished on a meter is pointless without numbers. Possible to provide a WWS with the numbers?

Your gear selection boggles me. Why would you stay Fire if you dropped your crit that low going for haste, seems counter productive, unless thats an alternate gear set. And are you saying that you had NO buffs during p3 RoS, or just no consumable buffs? Huge difference there.
I was here when the topic was 2 posts in.

Sorry for the confusion, no consumable buffs (food, adept's) As expected i got fully rebuffed after rez due to ghost time.

No WWS this time, sorry Wish i'd had one to show you.

My gear is recovering from arcane spec. For a couple weeks i'll still struggle a little because i have to wear items i normally wouldn't to get my +hit back up. I plan on going up replacements to all my haste gear as they drop(Rage bracers, exalted hyjal (2k away), ring of captured, Anethereon's noose, etc.)

Conversely, your trinket selection is a bit weird

Really dude, I mean c'mon. That's like saying... well I don't know, but that's just plain stupid. We've know that Hemo is a great dps increase for the melee for a long time now, the only difference now is that it gets the same buffs SS does now, so the rogue who specs it isn't useless anymore.
Yes, wrong terminology, sorry.
#1015SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
Hey Searix, a few of us have been here (and elsewhere, /wink) for a good while too.

An initial positive impression is all well and good but let's be honest, there's no reason for that impression to carry through. A 5-6% tops dps increase from actual changes combined with a nebulous anti-latency change that parsed out like shit on the PTR is no cause to crow unless something is bugged or the anti-latency is suddenly working better than it did there. Even then, it helps locks more than mages.

Not here to start a fight sir, just clarifying.
#1016SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Lapochka View Post
Pint, thank you for your constructive post about my spelling

Don’t take me wrong...but taking "advice" from a firemage with 10.33% hit , talking about my preheroics drops and raid dmg doesnt quite make any point.

If i was uncertain of what I was saying, I would not say it here. - Seriosly, the day that i start to get pwned by deep fire build mage i will change with out hasitation.
I have been following the guide to mage DPS from wow forums and have been using 10/48/3.. but that was for heroics and for Kara and some SSC... - from my raiding experience I can clearly state that using 40/18/3 build with a scorch, fireball and fireblast rotation = win.
I might agree thought that the scorch build will be worth tying out after 2.3
Perhaps you should avoid ad hominem adressals and in stead read what I posted: I did not say you were wearing pre-heroic drops, I said your spec would be superior only if you were. As for adressing my gear it has neither any point nor is it what I use on bosses. I assure you I'm on 13% hit, which you'll note becomes 16% when ToW is out, something which I have in my raid.

If you want to judge information based on armory reports perhaps WOW US/EU forums are better for you.

Good luck in your scorch/fireball/fireblast rotation. I'll stick to what's proven rather than what's speculated.
#1017SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Perhaps you should avoid ad hominem adressals and in stead read what I posted
You derailed the thread talking about his spelling and attacking a feature of him, that is ad hominem no matter how true it is or not...


Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to checking out my DPS today, I'm also going to look a bit more into haste for fire in the future, see how it pans out compared to "standard items".
#1018SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sorbe
Originally Posted by Vand1 View Post
I just wish they would decide what role it is they want us to play (and make it a valuable one), and then empower us to perform that role better than any other class.
I think it's both very sad and very clear what the mage role is in TBC now. It's to be a lower dps, lower aoe, lower raid synergy, low health, glass cannon. We were supposed to own ranged DPS as our original charter, but even that's not been true for a very long time(Hunters and Locks usually do better). Our one trick pony was to do massive damage, but other players dont like that in PVP or PVE and complain loudly on the forums if we actually do it.

Speaking as a mage player since Alpha, it's my opinion that all the PVP crit fun mages had with HUGE trinketed AP POM Pyros in the battlegrounds utterly poisoned the Blizzard "balance" gods against letting us be "ranged rogues" in PVP or PVE. Blizzard's new push seems to be to normalize DPS across classes, ignoring whatever utility, healing, armor the other classes have. If other classes have more defenses than mages, but similar or better DPS, how will we be competitve?

In summary, I would say that "Blizz hates mages" at this point.

P.S.> I've offered up long lists of ways to improve the mage class, but I'm convinced that Blizzard simply doesnt WANT to improve us or even grant us our due.
#1019SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Chri
As an addendum to Searix's experiences with raid fire specs, I ran last night with a deep (61) frost spec, and did fairly well. Being significantly undergeared for BT (more or less full ssc/tk with 1 piece of t6), I still managed to hold 1100-1200 dps, not including Water Elemental damage, on most fights, with a low of about 1025 dps on Gorefiend. I definetly think frost will be able to hold its own, especially considering fights such as Illidan.
#1020SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sinborn
I didn't respec with the coming of 2.3. My guild has just gotten into Hyjal, and after last night we now have enough attuned to head into BT. I kept the arcane spec for yesterday because I knew we were doing Al'ar and rage to key up the stragglers.

I have a question. Can fire keep up with arcane on the trash waves in hyjal? I know arcane explosion keeps up with SoC, even post-TLC nerf. Can fire maintain the same level of AoE dps?
#1021SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Xei
Originally Posted by Chri View Post
As an addendum to Searix's experiences with raid fire specs, I ran last night with a deep (61) frost spec, and did fairly well. Being significantly undergeared for BT (more or less full ssc/tk with 1 piece of t6), I still managed to hold 1100-1200 dps, not including Water Elemental damage, on most fights, with a low of about 1025 dps on Gorefiend. I definetly think frost will be able to hold its own, especially considering fights such as Illidan.
I know anecdotal evidence is generally frowned upon here, but the only boss I was in for last night (that had WWS running) was Solarian, which isn't a decent comparitor for DPS being AE dominated.

My serve of anecdotal evidence comes from Zul'Aman and the bear boss - which is essentially a stand and nuke boss. As a 2/0/59 spec sporting the lovely bugged 10%hit, ~1100 frost damage and 22% crit (before WC) I was ahead of our Lock (but is SL spec atm for Kael tanking as we are still learning it) our 10/48/3 Mage and our Hunter - all of which generally perform highly on the meters.

When/if I do get some decent WWS parses to show deep frost builds in non-AE DPS hax fights I will post them, but it has only been one day :p
#1022SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
Alright well, here's some numbers from yesterday
(keep in mind I'm still sporting MSD over CSD, and yes it sucks pretty hard. tons of wasted MSD procs on scorch.)

rage - 1700 dps (#5, no coe, no destro pot) - Wow Web Stats
anetheron - 1500 dps (#5, no coe, no destro pot) - Wow Web Stats
kaz'rogal - 1600 dps (#1, no coe, no destro pot, fucked up badly on mana usage) - Wow Web Stats
azgalor - 1275 dps (#2, no coe, no destro pot) - Wow Web Stats
naj'entus - 1575 / 1440 dps (note: my dps is lower because I keep nuking when the shield is up to keep crusade up) (#2/4, no coe, no destro pot) Wow Web Stats
supremus - 1100 / 1000 dps (#1/4, coe on, no destro pot) - Wow Web Stats

EDIT: SOC > firespec AOE, but not by that much. Mostly depends on how agressive you play, but its still a bit better.

Last edited by manly : 11/14/07 at 12:01 PM.
#1023SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0irbi
I've taken several WWS parses pre 2.3 where I was capable of breaking 1000 dps consistantly as an arcane mage (3blasts,1missile)

After this week I save WWS parses of the same encounters and compare the dps loss. Hopefully I will get around to posting this information for you guys.

I think player skill is something that math and raw numbers fail to demonstrate, for instance...


I know several frost mages that do not know how to utilize their skills effectivly. For instance, on Leo, I see frost mages exibit similar behavior as fire and arcane mages (i.e. "oh crap run from the whirlwind" and do 0 dps) when in fact they could chase down Leo, beat the crap out of him, and iceblock the debuff (of course dps calculations can't show you this)

Similarily single target DPS calculations don't account for threat aspects (they assume no threat issues, survibility issues, player techniques, etc)

While I think raw dps calculations are a great basis for determining a raid spec in extreme cases (a spec that has been proven to do 1000dps less than another clearly cannot compensate with player skill) I think players tend to lose sight of the skill and utility aspect of some specs as a way to compensate for a marginal difference in dps.

EJ is, and has always been, the best resource for me for class information. I would like to personally thank this community for their numerous contributions.
#1024SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0perbelly
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
I didn't respec with the coming of 2.3. My guild has just gotten into Hyjal, and after last night we now have enough attuned to head into BT. I kept the arcane spec for yesterday because I knew we were doing Al'ar and rage to key up the stragglers.

I have a question. Can fire keep up with arcane on the trash waves in hyjal? I know arcane explosion keeps up with SoC, even post-TLC nerf. Can fire maintain the same level of AoE dps?
I have only been to hyjal once with fire spec and that was the day before the patch to try to get used to it again. Our arcane mage was beating us by quite a bit but I'm not sure exactly which aoe I should've used. I was doing flamestrikes with blastwave and db when i could. The good part about that is how much mana you use. As arcane i would use my entire mana bar every wave with pots, but as fire i would have about 1/3 of my mana remaining. I wasn't sure if I should just do ae with mage armor even though I don't get hardly any of the benefits from the arcane tree.
#1025SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
personally I use a very simple rule of thumb for firespec aoe:

1- if combustion is up, flamestrike->blastwave
2- if blastwave is up, blastwave
3- if focus is up, flamestrike
4- arcane explosion
5- I don't use TLC anymore, although Vontre assures me its still the best. I prefer not taking the risk of having a tlc when meeting the boss, but that's not very optimal.
6- don't dragon's breath. the cone is too small.
7- if skull is up, use skull + flamestrike spam.
#1026SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Another Mage and I respecced into Improved Flamestrike several weeks ago and we regularly lead in AoE DPS in Hyjal depending on how aggressive the Warlocks are being, by simply standing far back and chain casting Flamestrikes. We're both trolls and pop berserking for this, which helps too. Your mileage may vary, I do miss Blastwave and DB sometimes.
#1027SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sinborn
I see you still have a MSD socketed, manly. Is it superior to the new meta? I got one cut last night but since I haven't regemmed for fire spec, I haven't socketed it. What's your opinion?
#1028SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by manly View Post
personally I use a very simple rule of thumb for firespec aoe:

1- if combustion is up, flamestrike->blastwave
2- if blastwave is up, blastwave
3- if focus is up, flamestrike
4- arcane explosion
5- I don't use TLC anymore, although Vontre assures me its still the best. I prefer not taking the risk of having a tlc when meeting the boss, but that's not very optimal.
6- don't dragon's breath. the cone is too small.
7- if skull is up, use skull + flamestrike spam.
I follow the same except I do think that DB is a very nice AOE and if it's tanked right you can easily hit 10 targets in hyjal trash with it. I do though often save it for saving people including myself from lose crap. I dont have skull either.
#1029SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0irbi
Originally Posted by manly View Post
personally I use a very simple rule of thumb for firespec aoe:

1- if combustion is up, flamestrike->blastwave
2- if blastwave is up, blastwave
3- if focus is up, flamestrike
4- arcane explosion
5- I don't use TLC anymore, although Vontre assures me its still the best. I prefer not taking the risk of having a tlc when meeting the boss, but that's not very optimal.
6- don't dragon's breath. the cone is too small.
7- if skull is up, use skull + flamestrike spam.

I haven't done the math but conceptually...

You get a 1/3 mana return if you crit so I would imagine that as a fire mage, molten armor would give you a degree of mana return. Although the effect of the return would vary depending on your crit vs your spirit (mage armor equivalent)
#1030SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Setia
I disagree about not using Dragon's Breath in a fire AE rotation. Even if you only get half of the mobs you'd hit with AE, the damage difference, with Ignite, and with the very probable mana return from Master of Elements, still makes it better.

Supposing 1250 + damage, 26% base crit, and not counting the CSD:

DB -> 735 base + (1250 * 1,5/3,5 * 0,5 * ,95) * 1,13 * (1 + 0,35 * 1,1) = 1548 average hit

AE -> 392 base + (1250 * 1,5/3,5 * 0,5) *1,03 * (1 + 0,26 * 0,5) = 768 average hit

AE costs 545 mana; DB costs (700 *0,94) = 658 mana without MoE, 461 when you get at least one crit.

My own rotation:

0- Initial Flamestrike

1- If Blast Wave is up, BW
2- If Dragon's Breath is up, DB
3- If the Flamestrike DoT is about to finish, Flamestrike. Else AE. Repeat.
#1031SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Beska
While we're talking about rotations, I've always assumed the ideal fire spec rotation is keeping up scorch, fireballs and then inserting fireblasts when they're off cooldown. Has anything significantly changed to make another rotation more viable?
#1032SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
I see you still have a MSD socketed, manly. Is it superior to the new meta? I got one cut last night but since I haven't regemmed for fire spec, I haven't socketed it. What's your opinion?
The CSD is superior to the MSD for a few reasons. In terms of spreadsheet math, the MSD comes out slightly ahead (with zero haste gear) - but the chances of a wasted proc, the MSD not scaling with haste gear/heroism, and its weakness for a frost spec on Illidan makes the CSD a better option.
#1033SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Solflare
Originally Posted by Beska View Post
While we're talking about rotations, I've always assumed the ideal fire spec rotation is keeping up scorch, fireballs and then inserting fireblasts when they're off cooldown. Has anything significantly changed to make another rotation more viable?
Yes, the ideal rotation is keeping up scorch. An 8 Fireball/1 Scorch would suffice considering max hit and no spell haste. Fireblast shouldn't be in the rotation, because of the global cooldown. I only fireblast when repositioning.

As far as AoE rotations are concerned. I use the same rotation as Setia and find it quite beneficial. Since moving into close range for Blastwave can easily be followed by a Dragon's Breath.

0- Initial Flamestrike
1- If Blast Wave is up, BW
2- If Dragon's Breath is up, DB
3- If the Flamestrike DoT is about to finish, Flamestrike. Else AE. Repeat.
#1034SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Setia
With a small amount of haste (with the break point around 30 haste rating in top-end gear) and 4/5 T6, you're better off, even from a pure DPS standpoint, simply spamming Fireball. With lesser gear, less haste and no T6, Fire Blast still gives a small DPS boost if you have mana to spare.
#1035SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
I see you still have a MSD socketed, manly. Is it superior to the new meta? I got one cut last night but since I haven't regemmed for fire spec, I haven't socketed it. What's your opinion?
Well, I'm waiting to see if I get a cowl of the high lord tonight, which would greatly simplify gemming. Otherwise I'll put a clutch blue gem somewhere and go for CSD.

I've had a bunch of lost focus procs on scorch, its very frustrating.
Originally Posted by Setia View Post
My own rotation:

0- Initial Flamestrike

1- If Blast Wave is up, BW
2- If Dragon's Breath is up, DB
3- If the Flamestrike DoT is about to finish, Flamestrike. Else AE. Repeat.
I avoid flamestrike not because its the most efficient aoe, but rather due to range issues. Yes flamestrike is better dps than AE but also a much smaller radius.

I could care less about mana concerns. Firespec can't go oom. It's just mind boggling.

If I were given the choice, I'd much rather MSD proc/focus into blizzard than flamestrike, due to the larger radius. But then theres aggro issues. I guess you can't have it perfect.
#1036SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Prod
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
What kind of DPS were you pulling pre-2.3 as fire on Teron?



No pushback problem? Do you mean the interrupting casts problem? If that, yea fire gains a small bit off dps from that, and being able to get casts off faster too!



How are you fighting lag with AM? Would think it would be doing the same as fire.



This was always true even before this patch. That's why in all the modeling done on specs and dps, a deep frost spec, with elemental up always tops the dps, but soon as the elemental dies off, the dps of this spec plummets.

This is making me look forward to Rage tomorrow personally. Was always able t do 1400-1500dps as fire there, and that was with bad trinket combos. Wonder how much dps the mages with perfect gear gained really.
Pre 2.3 I was arcane (and not an ideally geared arcane mage) and I felt I could pull similiar numbers with MORE effort. I didn't need chain chugging pots or quartz.

I would fight lag by trying to time my next AM the second the 5th bolt went out. It was extremely inefficient with my 200 ping compared to this simple fireball spam.

This cast system is amazing. I just spam the button, and even if I lag a bit, it all seems to get out as efficient as auto-attacking fireballs would be. In pure theory, we're able to say X was better than Y all day, but the results for myself show that being able to spam a button and not lose half a second to lag each cast drastically improved fire. Haste is not only a viable stat now but it's far superior to crit.

Also, yeah, the MSD pretty much blows. I could never use it for evocate, and it's increased proc chance would lead to it being used on the first 5 scorches (I'm the only fire mage.) Looking forward to the new gem once I get my pants.
#1037SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Beska
I'm always getting 100-150 odd more DPS using Fireblast in my rotation. Although it's worse DPM, I rarely run out of mana for it to be an issue. Is there something I'm missing?
#1038SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ReignConfused
100-150 more DPS?! Not to question, but I'm highly doubting that number.... That's a 10% increase for top geared mages putting out wild DPS. Can you show parsings on this or were you testing it on boom or is that just a number? Also this topic has been covered a thousand times in a thousand different threads. Please look into it the math has been done before.

Also, I know it's been covered before, but they were reworking the mechanic of the removal of the stopcasting macro right before the patch? Apparently they were having serious issues with it, some people were experiencing worse lag between spells and such. Hortus said they were going to rework the mechanic to fix it, about 3 days before the patch. But to me, when I was doing my rotations I noticed that it felt a LOT like spell queing. Like if I hit it again at the last half second of the spell it qued my next fireball? Is that how it's supposed to work, because I remember a lot of people in EJ were talking about how it sounded like spell queing but it wasn't?

Last edited by ReignConfused : 11/14/07 at 2:36 PM.
#1039SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Setia
That's how it felt to me... In the last days of the PTR I ran a short test, I was getting something along the lines of 100 ms between spells, regardless of whether I was pushing the button once about 0.4 seconds before the spell ends or if I was spamming the spell with the mousewheel.
#1040SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ReignConfused
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
I see you still have a MSD socketed, manly. Is it superior to the new meta? I got one cut last night but since I haven't regemmed for fire spec, I haven't socketed it. What's your opinion?
Vontre's Mage DPS Spreadsheet

The last few pages of that thread are almost entirely devoted to that question you asked.

There's math in there, WWS parsings, Fight breakdowns.....

The general consensus was, much as Copernicus said CSD is better, you suffer a small DPS loss, yada yada all the stuff he said. Also in addition it seems you scale better, you gain more DPM, the gem requirements are much easier to hit, and (my personal contribution) bigger numbers fly out of monster heads.
#1041SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Here's my comprehension of the way the current casting system works. More advanced tests to be done this week to clarify some details.

0.00 - you cast fireball
0.00 - the 'cast fireball' is sent to the server whether or not you're currently casting (as opposed to 2.2 where it wouldn't let you)
0.00 - a client-side GCD is triggered (this is where the details are a bit hazy)
0.20 - the server receives the message 'cast fireball'
0.20 - the server responds to the client saying 'spell is not ready' because you were already casting a fireball previous to this
0.40 - the client receives the answer from the server
0.40 - the client side GCD is removed as a result of receiving the message

In other words, to avoid players spamming the server with casts, as long as you don't get an answer from the server you can't cast other spells (lets call it a temporary GCD).

Also, it seems that consecutive casts of the same spell can be chain-casted server-side. Here's my best understanding of it:

- If the server receives a cast message 250 ms prior to the end of the ongoing cast, and that both spells are the same (ie: consecutive casts of fireball), then once the current casts completes on the server, it will begin to cast the next one immediately.



The parts that needs extended testing is the following questions:

1- Make sure the 'temporary GCD' does exists.
2- Is it possible to cast 200 fireballs in a row and that it would take precisely 600 seconds to execute with no haste gear ? (ie: that the '1 spell deep' queue does exists) (also ie: no latency penalty)
3- If yes, does it apply only to consecutive casts ? This is easy to test, alternate between fireball/frostbolt.
4- And for good measures, try with a G15/N52 spamming fireball to see the results.
#1042SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0aliengrey
Originally Posted by manly View Post

If I were given the choice, I'd much rather MSD proc/focus into blizzard than flamestrike, due to the larger radius. But then theres aggro issues. I guess you can't have it perfect.

From what I know and tested focus doesn't work with the blizzard spell but with any other spell.
#1043SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Also, it seems that consecutive casts of the same spell can be chain-casted server-side. Here's my best understanding of it:

- If the server receives a cast message 250 ms prior to the end of the ongoing cast, and that both spells are the same (ie: consecutive casts of fireball), then once the current casts completes on the server, it will begin to cast the next one immediately.

The parts that needs extended testing is the following questions:

1- Make sure the 'temporary GCD' does exists.
2- Is it possible to cast 200 fireballs in a row and that it would take precisely 600 seconds to execute with no haste gear ? (ie: that the '1 spell deep' queue does exists) (also ie: no latency penalty)
3- If yes, does it apply only to consecutive casts ? This is easy to test, alternate between fireball/frostbolt.
4- And for good measures, try with a G15/N52 spamming fireball to see the results.
1- It does, and I guess it is affecting Rogues, Warriors, etc. too and they're pretty upset about it because you can hit a Hamstring or something on someone who turns out to be out of range and you get locked out of being able to hit it again before the temporary GCD is removed. At least that's my understanding of how it's affecting them I haven't played my Rogue or Warrior yet in 2.3.

2- The problem with pulling this off is it seems the "queue window" (the time frame in which you can hit your next spell and the server will automatically begin casting it when the current spell ends) is fairly small, and may even be adjusting with your latency (more testing required here.)

3- I rotated in Scorches and had no problem hitting them somewhat before the red area on Quartz (with obviously no /stopcasting macro), which was usually a good amount before my Fireball finished. So I don't think it has to be the same spell.

4- Gonna have to wait for someone else here I don't have one.
#1044SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Beska
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
100-150 more DPS?! Not to question, but I'm highly doubting that number.... That's a 10% increase for top geared mages putting out wild DPS. Can you show parsings on this or were you testing it on boom or is that just a number? Also this topic has been covered a thousand times in a thousand different threads. Please look into it the math has been done before.
It's just anecdotal evidence. Just from my tests on Boom with no other changes in variable it just seems that 100dps is around the margin DPS increase I get by injecting Fireblast.
#1045SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0koetjeka
I have a G15, but I don't know how to test it :P

at the moment I made this macro and it works very well I think:

(button "2" down)
0,001 sec
(button "2" up)

repeat while pressing the key
#1046SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Anaxo
Originally Posted by aliengrey View Post
From what I know and tested focus doesn't work with the blizzard spell but with any other spell.
How recently did you test this? I know before 2.3 (I haven't tested this patch yet, as I'm waiting for the usual post patch server flakiness to subside), blizzard did work with focus procs. For some reason, the cast bar would show the normal 8 second channel instead of 4 seconds, but after 4 seconds elapsed the cast bar would drop off. It's an odd UI bug, but the spell itself definitely had the haste applied.
#1047SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Massael
Originally Posted by Beska View Post
It's just anecdotal evidence. Just from my tests on Boom with no other changes in variable it just seems that 100dps is around the margin DPS increase I get by injecting Fireblast.
That may well be an artifact of how long you're pounding on him. Boom tests really don't last that many casts, so the less you're casting obviously fireblast could appear to have a larger affect. Over hundreds of fireballs you may well see a decrease in DPS, it's not something you could test without being raid buffed on a purely tank and spank boss.
#1048SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Beska View Post
It's just anecdotal evidence. Just from my tests on Boom with no other changes in variable it just seems that 100dps is around the margin DPS increase I get by injecting Fireblast.
That really depends on your current gear. After a specific point, fireblast actually lowers your dps.

IE at 950dmg and 35% crit, fireballx2, 1xFireblast is equal to fireball spam. However if you go to 1000dmg, fireball spam is higher. This does not include the 4t6 bonus.

Fully geared fire mages are rocking out closer to 1300 fire damage with 4t6. Throwing in fireblast would lower their dps by 75 in theory.

Basically fireblast is only usefull for dps when you have to move. Other than that, you should be trying to use fireball only. Setting up 1 mage to do all the scorching also increases the dps as having multiple mages scorch = lower raid dps.
#1049SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Basically fireblast is only usefull for dps when you have to move. Other than that, you should be trying to use fireball only. Setting up 1 mage to do all the scorching also increases the dps as having multiple mages scorch = lower raid dps.
And also increases the likelihood that scorch will drop from the target. Skimping out on throwing a scorch every 6-7 casts is a great way to screw your dps.
#1050SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0aliengrey
Originally Posted by Anaxo View Post
How recently did you test this? I know before 2.3 (I haven't tested this patch yet, as I'm waiting for the usual post patch server flakiness to subside), blizzard did work with focus procs. For some reason, the cast bar would show the normal 8 second channel instead of 4 seconds, but after 4 seconds elapsed the cast bar would drop off. It's an odd UI bug, but the spell itself definitely had the haste applied.
You might be right. I tried this out just before 2.3 and I couldn't tell the difference. I don't recall the focus buff ever consuming the blizzard channel at all. All I remember is my quartz bar saying 8 sec... it could of been 4 seconds but it didn't seem like it.
#1051SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Finkum
Pre 2.3 Blizzard definitely worked as Anaxo described (with Quartz). I was using an odd arcane spec with just enough points in frost for imp blizzard, and whenever focus procced and there was > 1 mob around I'd spam it (yes it was hideously inefficient, but nevermind that). The normal 8-second channel would show and then vanish after 4 seconds, and the waves would hit twice as fast as usual.
#1052SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
When using an aoe spell, Lightning Capacitor will still get a charge for each crit of the spell, and fire off if you get 3. I guess it doesn't check for simultaneous charges. Anyway, basically got a bolt every other AE.
#1053SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
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This is far from my best performance on Rage winterchill, first time I've been fire on him, granted none of the 2 fire mages had malediction CoE or 4/t6 and having to get used to raiding with fire again - atleast for my part - is it realistic to get near those destro warlocks? First I was very pessimistic, and I'm sure it's much more than me being naive thinking it should be possible to push closer to them, checking TC dps with Lhavieras script didn't yield much comfort. Shrug.
#1054SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
spiderella
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post

Matching a warlock at 1800 DPS (or the mage equivalent on total damage, DPS can be misleading) is I think pretty easily in range for a fight of this length given CoE and bloodlust. The lock at 2.2k DPS gets 9 ferocious inspiration procs and scores some pretty substantial CoD ticks; raid DPS would have been higher had he used CoE (almost 80k in added mage damage versus 40k on his own chart). Even with 3 mages there are some fights where I think CoD still makes sense. It's situational, the closer a fight is to a tank-and-spank generally the more CoE makes sense but each fight is different. I almost feel like I need a support group to give me the courage to stand up and demand CoE sometimes :P

Last edited by spiderella : 11/15/07 at 2:30 AM. Reason: clarification
#1055SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Random discovery of the day

If you activate icon before skull, they don't stack. If you activate skull first, icon stacks with it. I've also heard rumors of the same thing applying with hex shrunken head.
#1056SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Beska
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Random discovery of the day

If you activate icon before skull, they don't stack. If you activate skull first, icon stacks with it. I've also heard rumors of the same thing applying with hex shrunken head.
Mentioning trinkets, is there a down-low on what's the best combo now? I don't personally have the Skull, I'm wondering if Shrunken Head + Sextant or Shrunken Head + Silver Crescent are better. The extra static damage is nice, but two on-use trinkets. :pshyduck:
#1057SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Beska View Post
Mentioning trinkets, is there a down-low on what's the best combo now? I don't personally have the Skull, I'm wondering if Shrunken Head + Sextant or Shrunken Head + Silver Crescent are better. The extra static damage is nice, but two on-use trinkets. :pshyduck:
Unless i'm mistaken, Serpent-Braid and Skull should still be hands down the best combo, especially since they stack
#1058SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
It's always been the following for fire
[The Skull of Gul'dan]>[Hex Shrunken Head]>[Icon of the Silver Crescent]>[Darkmoon Card: Crusade]
#1059SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
I don't really understand how is Icon viewed as superior to Crusade for fire spec? Didn't a lot of theorycrafts put Crusade above Icon?
#1060SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
I don't really understand how is Icon viewed as superior to Crusade for fire spec? Didn't a lot of theorycrafts put Crusade above Icon?
No, the basic averaging puts Crusade at like 78 damage and Icon at 68, but this ignores the fact that no fight is really a perfect multiple of the 2 minute cooldown, and it also ignores the multiplicative effect of stacking skull, icon, bloodlust, and combustion.

Activatable trinkets are pretty much always better than their commonly calculated (duration/cooldown)*(damage add)
#1061SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
No, the basic averaging puts Crusade at like 78 damage and Icon at 68, but this ignores the fact that no fight is really a perfect multiple of the 2 minute cooldown, and it also ignores the multiplicative effect of stacking skull, icon, bloodlust, and combustion.

Activatable trinkets are pretty much always better than their commonly calculated (duration/cooldown)*(damage add)
I see. However, for my own playing style, I would place Icon below Crusade. This is because I won't always get to use Icon exactly every 2 minutes. There are often situations where I tend to wait a while longer just so I can stack Icon + other effects, or simply because I anticipate that I will need to move or hold dps to handle some boss abilities.

I'm not really good at maximising my trinkets yet. Maybe when I get better I will be able to use Icon to greater effect.
#1062SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ReignConfused
So, I was talking to another mage in my guild, and he said something I thought was curious. I asked what he thought of haste, and he said "I really don't see what spell would benefit from it over other stats with the exception of maybe AM" It got me to thinking about what was valued when people were doing AM builds. There were always a few requirements to it, you wanted 2 pc T5 so you could AB spam, you wanted MSD because the AM pulses each had a chance to proc it and ditto with TLC. Now... TLC made crit worthwhile in the AM spam build, but with MSD and TLC nerfs...

Anyway in a roundabout way, what I'm getting at is that in an Arcane build right now, if you were looking at AM spam really the only stats you would be at all concerned about would be + dmg and + haste. You could keep your MSD meta or really one of the 3 socket helms would work fine too. But stack something like Quag's Eye and Skull get the haste gear from ZA and BT/MH and lastly the new badge gear.... You could stack a significant amount of haste onto this build. I know that haste doesn't increase DPM, but that was the other nice thing about AM spam.... If you had a ret pally on a raid, which a lot of people do now seeing the MASSIVE DPS boost they got, you're always going to have JoW up which is exceptionally nice on AM spam. Stack a shadow priest in your group as well as the fact that you're getting 60% of your mana back while casting, and I was wondering if this might be a potential idea for a raiding build?
#1063SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Tempestra
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Random discovery of the day

If you activate icon before skull, they don't stack. If you activate skull first, icon stacks with it. I've also heard rumors of the same thing applying with hex shrunken head.
I can confirm this, as I just got the hex shrunked head. Hex first and then Icon leads to a... pretty hefty damage increase. Wouldn't be shocked to see it nerfed, but it's a fun trick in the meantime.

Edit: As for which trinkets, I agree with Manly... Skull > Hex > Icon > Blessings. 78 average on some fights would be... generous. Plus being able to burst during certain periods can't be over-looked.
#1064SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
It could be viable, but I don't think a hasted AM build will be competitive to fire spec DPS. Ever since MSD was nerfed, I don't think there is potential for AM to ever be competitive. We just can't get to spend mana as quickly as it was pre 2.2 with MSD, so mana should not be a concern. Also, AM doesn't scales as fast as fireball, so I don't really see much potential here.
#1065SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ReignConfused
Okay so here's what I've whipped up so far, I haven't gotten to actually plugging these numbers into Vontre or Lhivera but I plan on that after sleep.

What I've done is take the best possible haste items a person could gear themselves out with and put them onto one guy.

I did -sort of- the same to another character with no haste. (T6 and what I thought was good gear from BT/MH)


My non-haste came out ...............................My Haste came out

272 Stamina...............................................329 Stamina
251 Intellect ..............................................282 Intellect
240 Crit rating ~8.6%.................................370 Haste rating ~ 23.5%
852 Spell dmg............................................683 Spell dmg

So in haste gear you gain
57 Stamina
31 Intellect
23.5% haste!

You lose
8.6% crit
169 dmg (Big ouch)


Anyway I plan on doing some theorycrafting with these numbers later on, in the meantime bed


PM me if you -have- to know what items I was using, the spell haste is pretty limited, but for the non I assumed full t6 with 12 dmg gems and best (imo) items in BT/MH that I could find.
#1066SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Prod
Did you also calculate lost hit rating?
#1067SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Friccs
Muahaha - haste is just too expensive in comparison to what you have to sacrifice.
#1068SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
Haste isn't something we can honestly stack up to 300 right now.

Blizzard has only made gear with haste alone. No hit, no crit just haste. I wanna collect a silly haste suit but I am not spending DKP to get tons of it.

My focus is to fit in spell hase where I can in my setup. Spots open for haste over hit are cloak, offhand, rings, helm. Depending on how much spell hit I gain from items on the teir 6 content level I might be able to squeeze in boots or belt.

Overall a little spell haste is a good investment, but just like crit you don't stack it in place of spell hit or damage in every case. Its something you add a bit of here and there to shave around 0.2 - 0.3 seconds off your spells.

Right now I am planning on getting a few haste items for non boss/raid events and a few for raiding.
#1069SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0tedv
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
Haste isn't something we can honestly stack up to 300 right now.

Blizzard has only made gear with haste alone. No hit, no crit just haste. I wanna collect a silly haste suit but I am not spending DKP to get tons of it.
I think that's the core issue. While haste should in theory help fire mages the most, the itemization of haste gear makes it most useful for shadow priests, who want neither hit nor crit, and still spend a lot of time casting a hastable spell (Mind Flay). And even for priests, the value of haste is only comparable to spell damage, not clearly superior.
#1070SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
I think frost benefits equally, if not more so, from haste then fire, no? Haste is wasted on scorches, whereas frost is only casting frost bolts. Granted, it doesn't effect the WE (or does it? I've never seen someone really state if it does or not), but still. Frost doesn't care about the lack of DPM increase, since it's hard to go OOM as frost already. Meh.. I'm pretty disappointed with this patch. I'm missing arcane so much, and I need to replace a few fire specific items before I can even try frost. I really dislike fire spec. It's so horrible on trash with scorch stacking, it has no way to dump mana quickly when it's available (it's ironic that pallys are putting up JoW a lot more now that we all specced out of arcane.. it was like pulling teeth before), our fuckin warlocks never put up CoE (except one who is destro) etc.. R.I.P. AM Spam

At least with frost it will be a little more interesting to play, and I won't get so easily ganked when farming or in BGs.
#1071SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
I believe the water elemental only benefits from the mage's frost damage, stamina, and intellect.

Haste rating is fine, it's better than crit rating and worse than hit (up until the cap). The main problem is lousy itemization- all the haste items are haste and damage, when all the good non-haste items combine at least three of damage, sockets, hit, or crit.
#1072SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
There is nothing inherent to an arcane build that will make your haste rating more valuable that it would be with fire. The very notion is silly.
#1073SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
For all those who aren't understanding why haste affects all specs equally (ecept for possibly frost since currently haste does not affect water elementals). This only holds true for mages.

Every single mage build has at least this 1 thing in common. You're constantly casting. Be it arcane spam...fireball spam...or frostbolt spam. This is even more the case now with the new casting system (it's spell queuing no matter what blizzard says it is).

So lets assume you're casting for 15 seconds. This is the LCD of 2.5, 3, and 5. You would cast 3xAM OR 6xFrostBolt OR 5xFireBall.

Now lets assume you're wearing 785 haste rating. That is 50% haste or 75% the normal cast time of every spell. Your 15 seconds of spell casting now turns into 11.25 seconds if you cast the same number of spells.

AM : 3(5(.75)) = 11.25
Frostbolt : 6(2.5(.75)) = 11.25
Fireball : 5(3(.75)) = 11.25


Since you are now doing the same amount of damage in 25% less time, you have an equal dps gain of 25% on all 3 spells.


HOWEVER, just because haste affects dps equally for all spells that have a cast time...it does NOT mean that the ratio of damage to haste dps benefit is the same for all spells. Talents that give x% more of bonus spell damage will skew this ratio...since not all trees for mages have the same +X amount of bonus damage for thier primary nuke. AM gets 45%, Fireball gets 15%, frostbolt gets 10%.

On a related note, +% damage (not bonus damage) doesn't not affect the ratio of haste to damage dps benefit. Here is the math to prove it. Note that this does not take crits into account.

Assume a fireball before %damage is added hits for 1000 damage. Also assume that fireball does 10% extra damage and you have 157 haste rating (or 10% haste). The dps would be

(1.1(1000))/(3(.95)) = 385.964912

Now assume you have 0 haste rating. To figure out how much damage you need to give the same haste rating would be...

(1.1(1000 + x))/3 = 385.964912

((385.964912(3))/1.1) - 1000 = x = 52.63dmg

Now assume you have 157 haste rating again but 20% extra damage...

(1.2(1000))/(3(.95)) = 421.052632

And the second calculation again with 20% damage and 0 haste

((421.052632(3))/1.2) - 1000 = x = 52.63 dmg

This shows that you have the same ratio of haste to damage dps benefit for all talent lines if you do not consider crit. I haven't done the calculations for crit...so that may skew it.
#1074SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ReignConfused
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
Did you also calculate lost hit rating?
Silly thing to say considering the lost hit rating is still probably going to impact fire more than most. But you're right no I didn't. Oh look with the 6 open pieces of gear I was able to get the 5% I didn't reach. Cool there I did it, both are hit capped. (the non haste spec had enough hit from the gear I chose)


In all seriousness the reason I didn't calculate the lost hit was because there was really no need. AM spam is already getting a flat 10% and at the gear level I chose you pretty much get hit by default.


AND The reason I chose AM spam, over all other spells, even though it benefits all equally. Is because AM pulses 5 times. No matter how fast you cast it, so the reasoning behind that is that with JoW up ... AM becomes a very cheap spell to cast, combine it with a Shadow priest, gems, pots, and the new improved mana regen, not to mention evocate.... I seriously think that DPM is not going to be the issue here, the more haste you stack the faster you get your JoW ticks. THATS why I think it could work.

The other reason it would work, is because Crit and hit are both incredibly valuable to fire and frost builds. Crit more so to fire, and frost receives very little benefit from haste because a big sector of your DPS (WE) Doesn't get any benefit from it. An Arcane build, while it likes crit, is sacrificing nothing else. It want's damage, and I'm saying that the added haste is > than the lost crit and a bit of lost damage. I'll try to run the numbers tonight but I'm confident the haste build will show a decent amount of DPS.

Last edited by ReignConfused : 11/15/07 at 2:21 PM.
#1075SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
I would say your a bit misguided on the big portion of damage line. Water elemental will still do the same damage either way. Your frost bolt dps, the lion share of your dps, will gain a lot from haste.

Either way haste is good for fire and frost equally, since scorch and the WE will both lose out on the benefit. In the end with inifinate damage the scale will swing heavily in the favor of the Fire mage with talents and basic mechanics.

Its not a question of ultimately how much better will each tree be with haste, its realistically with the gear available and the benefits haste supplies each tree that will determine how much each spec will want to invest into haste. There is a hard cap for each spec on haste and thats when your cast time = global cooldown. Until then, how do we gauge benefit.
#1076SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
AM with and without judgement will cost the same with haste as it would with no haste. It doesn't get cheaper with more haste, the mana spent per second scales up with haste on AM just like any other spell that gets a benefit from haste.

All specs have something that haste doesn't work on - frost has water elemental, fire has scorch and arcane has AB spamming. The real question is how big is that portion of those specs and how good is spell damage/crit for them so you can compare it to haste.

I see. However, for my own playing style, I would place Icon below Crusade. This is because I won't always get to use Icon exactly every 2 minutes. There are often situations where I tend to wait a while longer just so I can stack Icon + other effects, or simply because I anticipate that I will need to move or hold dps to handle some boss abilities.
This is exactly why the icon (or any other "on use" trinket) is always at LEAST as good as its theoretical value. The theoretical value is assuming that statistically the % of the trinket uptime you lose is the same as the % DPS time you lose when the trinket is inactive. When a fight has any mechanic that makes it worth it to not pop the trinket on-cooldown, you're actually gaining MORE than the theoretical value. If you want an intuitive approach, think about it as "using it when it matters and letting it cool down when it doesn't matter". That's why on-use trinkets will always have at LEAST their theoretical damage*time/coodlown, and in general will get slightly more.
Wether the "getting more out of on-use trinkets" is enough to make the icon better than the card or not is harder to tell, especially when the card isn't a flat 80 damage either at least on some of the fights. The more "tank&spank" the fight is, the better the card, and the more predictable dps downtimes there are in a fight, the better the "on-use" trinkets, especially if they're long enough to make your card buff fall off.
Of course on top of that the shorter the fight is the more benefit the icon will get from combustion and heroism. On a 10 minutes fight for example, the icon will get 1/5 heroism per use on average, resulting in the 153/6=25.5 damage getting a 0.45/5=0.09 bonus resulting in it being worth almost 2.3 damage more just due to heroism (assuming neglicible haste rating on gear).
#1077SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Qbert
In reply to haste-bashers. Regardless of what other stats the items have on them, Spell Haste is still better point for point than crit and dmg.

Having to compare one item versus another isn't anything new just because there is a new stat, you could easily find many items that are better than items with a lot of haste but that does not change the fact that the stat is simply better than anything else point-for-point when hit capped.

The main problem seems to be that people are entirely underrating haste just because they don't have enough of it yet to virtually see a vast improvement. You add 30 spell damage and your fireballs will hit ~50+ harder.... that is easy to see. You add 30 crit rating, YAY my crit rating went up ~1.3% on my stat page, hooray. However, you add 30 spell haste and all you get is your fireball tooltip reading 2.94 seconds instead of 3.00 and no virtual cast time reduction (despite the fact that there is an actual cast time reduction and it is very valuable).
#1078SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Keyne
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
This is exactly why the icon (or any other "on use" trinket) is always at LEAST as good as its theoretical value. The theoretical value is assuming that statistically the % of the trinket uptime you lose is the same as the % DPS time you lose when the trinket is inactive. When a fight has any mechanic that makes it worth it to not pop the trinket on-cooldown, you're actually gaining MORE than the theoretical value. If you want an intuitive approach, think about it as "using it when it matters and letting it cool down when it doesn't matter". That's why on-use trinkets will always have at LEAST their theoretical damage*time/coodlown, and in general will get slightly more.
This assessment (as a response to the OP) is invalid. On use trinkets (OUTs) are definitely NOT at least as good as their theoretical values.

If not provably untrue, it is at least too complicated for me to picture mentally that the strictness of your statement (as implied by your use of caps.) exists. I think what you are implying is that improvements on the theoretical maximum value of OUTs exist when atypical damage multipliers exist (e.g. Curator Evocation, casting combustion, gaining bloodlust, etc.) In that regard, your assessment is true.

The problem is that the simple model for OUTs is based on popping the trinket on every cooldown. The poster that you are responding to, however, is saying that he values OUTs less because he is not generally capable of this (whether because of distraction, encounter mechanics, etc.)

In summary, its very clear that an OUT can behave worse than its theoretical value: just don't pop the trinket. But the OP and your response to it are talking about two different ideas. The maximization of these things requires BOTH a plan for when the best time to activate the OUT is (what you talk about) and the mindfulness (not entirely sure that is a word) of the player to activate it (what the OP talks about.)

Postscript - In the future, thinking that something is "at least as good as its theoretical value" should generally set off warning lights in your head. Something is likely amiss in your assessment, as theoretical values are generally maximum values by definition. The only constraint, of course, is the precision of the model used to find it.
#1079SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Keyne
Spell Haste

Disclaimer: This post is based on top-of-the-head observation. I.E. I could easily be proven wrong on this.

The reason that spell haste and spell hit ratings are so valuable is because of the nature of the DPS formula:

DPS = Hit% x Spell Damage*
Net Cast Time**

It should be obvious, when looking at this formula, that a 1% increase to Hit or a 1% decrease in Net Cast Time will always yield a 1% increase in DPS. Because Hit% is hard capped at 99% and Net Cast Time is theoretically asymptotally approaching 0, a 1% increase in the two major inputs into Spell Damage is strictly less than 1%. (Hint: order of operations)

I feel like I am not saying something that I wanted to say when I started writing this post, and generally I try not to post incomplete thoughts, but what I have here should be sufficient on its own) if for nothing else, to generate discussion).
#1080SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Activable trinkets are better for a totally different reason. If the fight lasts 20 seconds, you get 100% uptime from icon. If the fight lasts 2 min, you get the expected 1/6 uptime. However, since most fights durations aren't multipliers of 2 min, you often end up with increased uptime. This is not to mention cooldown stacking, which also come into play. For us most fight lasts 3 min, so I get 1 combustion, 1 bloodlust, 1 flamecap and 2 trinket activations. In this case I'm far and away much better with icon over crusade. Stacking combustion, bloodlust, execute range/molten fury, flamecap, skull and icon gives a good dps increase.

The problem is that for the most part people estimate activable trinkets over an infinite duration. Usually icon is modelled as 43 + 155 / 6 = 43 + 25.83 = 68.83 passive damage. But then, ignoring cooldown stacking, if the fight duration is 3 min, then your uptime is in fact 40 seconds out of 180 seconds, which gives: 43 + 155 * (40/180) = 43 + 34.44 = 77.44 dmg.

This is essentially the same as frost dps from WE. The closer the fight matches the cooldowns of the spec your playing, the better the dps. For a 20 seconds fight, AP / icon will give a totally absurd dps increase. The same principle applies when comparing specs - fight duration will have a big impact due to cooldowns differing from spec to spec.
#1081SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
The theoretical maximum is 100% uptime, and I don't think that's really useful. Average uptime is dependent on average encounter duration, the shorter that average is, the higher the average uptime on the trinket will be.
#1082SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
chase
Lets say we gather up 174.4 haste rating or 11.1111111% haste. My fireballs drop from 3.0 seconds to 2.7 seconds. So I "save" .3 seconds per cast.

In a 10 minute fight with zero lag and standing still casting nothing but fireball I could fit in an extra 22 fireballs. That is a very significant increase in damage.

However, I never see it working that way. I have yet to see myself get caught with AoE/re-position and thought to myself "If only this fireball were 2.7 seconds I would have gotten it off, instead of canceling."

What I'm saying is that when I am able to enter fireball spam mode this might help me get off 1 extra fireball during that time, hasted as opposed to unhasted. We are given blocks of time where we can plant our feet and spam fireball. Those times when AoE/Postion force us to move are not going to allow us significantly more fireballs.

Fire 10 fireballs in a row and get your 11th free. (assuming 0 latency) Chaincast 10 fireballs in a row and the 11th will count towards extra damage due to haste. If your opportunity to cast comes in blocks that are under this, than you gain no extra damage. (but you do increase dps)

Is it more damage? I'm sure it is. However, 11.11111% haste is more than likely not a 11.11111% increase in damage done.

This why I don't see myself picking up much haste unless I can "trade" it for a more undesirable stat.

Edit:Changed number to match math

Last edited by chase : 11/15/07 at 4:38 PM.
#1083SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by chase View Post
Lets say we gather up 157.7 haste rating or 10% haste. My fireballs drop from 3.0 seconds to 2.7 seconds.
Nope. This is an erroneous belief about Haste that almost everyone has, so don't feel bad.

Haste actually allows you to cast your spell 10% more often, it doesn't take 10% off your cast time. The same is true for melee, it allows you to swing 10% more often.

The easiest way to explain this is using 50% as an example. If you have 50% haste on Fireball you can cast Fireball 50% more often, not twice as often. So whereas previously you could cast 1 Fireball in 3.0 seconds, you will now be able to cast 1.5 Fireballs in 3.0 seconds. In other words it will reduce your cast time to 2.0 seconds, not 1.5.

Note that this is different from the MSD proc which specifically states it reduces cast time by 50% (this is equivallent to 100% haste.)

This is what the recent Troll Berserking fix/nerf was about. It was still taking 10-30% off of the cast time, rather than giving 10-30% haste (or allowing you to cast a given spell 10-30% more often.)
#1084SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
157 haste rating gives roughly 10% haste.
3 seconds fireball with 10% haste final cast time =
3 / (1 + 0.10) = 3 / 1.1 = 2.7272s

10% haste doesn't makes your fireball 2.7s cast time.
#1085SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
My reasoning is that if you're not popping the trinket on-cooldown (assuming you're at your top game and not just being lazy, of course), you probably have a reason, which generally has something to do with you not being able to deal damage for the whole 20 seconds.
If you would randomly pop the trinket every time it came up without thinking about it, you would, on average, get the theoretical value. If you put any thinking to it and not pop it when you can do better popping it later, you're getting *more* than the theoretical value.
The only way you would get lower than the theoretical value is if you:
A. Get unlucky with random fight elements. But then again the *average* is still the same, as just as you got unlucky you could've gotten lucky and had the random elements happen when the trinket is inactive, thus increasing your trinket uptime, keeping the average at the theoretical value.
B. Pop it stupidly when you know you'll be losing the effect. This again is an invalid argument as I assume skillful play.

To illustrate with an example:
Every 2 minutes boss silences for 20s.

Idioticly mashing it on-cooldown:
20s uptime no matter how long the fight is.
Of course we can be smarter and:
Popping it at the start and then after every silence:
-First 2 minutes of the fight get the theoretical value
-Every other 2-minute-segment of the fight the trinket will be up for 20s/100s=1/5 uptime, higher than the theoretical value. If the fight ends with a segment shorter than 2 minutes you're (in most cases) getting an even *higher* value than the theoretical value.

My bottom line is that if "damage interrupts" are perfectly unpredictible, you will on average get the theoretical value. If they are predictible on any kind of level you will get an additional benefit from the trinket since you use it when you can actually deal damage and let it cool down when you can't. Which is why I claim that the theoretical value is the MINIMUM value for "on-use" trinkets. Of course if you play dumb you can screw yourself over and end up with less than theoretical, but even then if assuming dumb play happens randomly, on *average* you're still getting the theoretical value, at least. So the only thing that actually reduces it from the theoretical value, on average, is simply forgetting to use it.

This is why the claim "but on so and so fight I don't use it on-cooldown" doesn't mean the trinket is less useful. You're not using it on-cooldown because it'll cause you to gain more than its theoretical value.
#1086SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kaimani
I did a few searches of this massive thread and haven't found much talk of 33/28 builds in regards to the changes we've seen in 2.3, and historically I've never seen many proponents of it in general. Combined with the new caster meta gem, it seems like the absurdly large scaling of crits that a mage can achieve with this build places it in a unique position, and can easily rival or surpass the traditional deep fire nuke spamming build when a certain level of crit % is achieved.

I decided to give this build a shot last night through the first 6 bosses of BT, and found our WWS parses for the evening showing my dps was equal to or greater than it had been in any prior raid (I had been AM spamming with MSD and TLC prior to 2.3). While I haven't theorycrafted the exact cutoff point myself, it seems logical that at some crit percentage 33/28 has to come out on top over a traditional deep fire setup. In my case I had a 46% crit rate with fireball over the course of the evening thanks to having an elemental shaman most of the time and a ret pally doing their thing.

Has anyone else experimented with this build in Hyjal/BT? At least for me it seems to be comparable to how I was able to perform with the pre-nerf AM spamming setup.
#1087SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
You have no armory link but I remember estimating the breakpoint between 33/28 and 10/48/3 for fireball spamming being at around where your crit chance was. However such crit chances are pretty unrealistic to have with any gear level I've been playing with unless you're gearing towards crit more than needed, which will actually reduce your DPS as both a 33/28 and a 10/48/3 spec (both specs gain more DPS from spell damage than from crit, with 33/28 having them closer together obviously, so if you overgear for crit to make 33/28 better than 10/48/3 you actually reduce your overall DPS with both specs).

Bottom line is that yes, with enough crit 33/28 is better fireball spamming spec than 10/48/3. I can't be bothered to check ATM wether for T6 geared those levels of crits are reachable or not (without actually losing DPS by over-evaluating crit of course), but it shouldn't be too hard of a math since you're using a very simple rotation.
#1088SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
Originally Posted by Kaimani View Post
I did a few searches of this massive thread and haven't found much talk of 33/28 builds in regards to the changes we've seen in 2.3, and historically I've never seen many proponents of it in general. Combined with the new caster meta gem, it seems like the absurdly large scaling of crits that a mage can achieve with this build places it in a unique position, and can easily rival or surpass the traditional deep fire nuke spamming build when a certain level of crit % is achieved.

I decided to give this build a shot last night through the first 6 bosses of BT, and found our WWS parses for the evening showing my dps was equal to or greater than it had been in any prior raid (I had been AM spamming with MSD and TLC prior to 2.3). While I haven't theorycrafted the exact cutoff point myself, it seems logical that at some crit percentage 33/28 has to come out on top over a traditional deep fire setup. In my case I had a 46% crit rate with fireball over the course of the evening thanks to having an elemental shaman most of the time and a ret pally doing their thing.

Has anyone else experimented with this build in Hyjal/BT? At least for me it seems to be comparable to how I was able to perform with the pre-nerf AM spamming setup.

The question also comes about, are you resetting meters for boss fights? I always found arcane fire to be amazing on trash pulls and it fell behind on boss fights where sustained dps takes hold.
#1089SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kaimani
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
You have no armory link but I remember estimating the breakpoint between 33/28 and 10/48/3 for fireball spamming being at around where your crit chance was. However such crit chances are pretty unrealistic to have with any gear level I've been playing with unless you're gearing towards crit more than needed, which will actually reduce your DPS as both a 33/28 and a 10/48/3 spec (both specs gain more DPS from spell damage than from crit, with 33/28 having them closer together obviously, so if you overgear for crit to make 33/28 better than 10/48/3 you actually reduce your overall DPS with both specs).

Bottom line is that yes, with enough crit 33/28 is better fireball spamming spec than 10/48/3. I can't be bothered to check ATM wether for T6 geared those levels of crits are reachable or not (without actually losing DPS by over-evaluating crit of course), but it shouldn't be too hard of a math since you're using a very simple rotation.
Here's an armory link for you.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...moon&n=Kaimani

Please excuse the gem in my mantle... I destroyed an old purple one to activate my meta. :-)

My gear has actually ended up pretty much straight down the middle as far as hit/crit/dmg is concerned, I've never heavily stacked any single one because I've switched my specs so much throughout my raiding career. If anything I'm a little crit heavy, but I've never consiously made any sacrifices to hit/dmg to get there.

As for the trash vs. boss dps argument, it seemed to make little difference, and we do seperate our WWS parses so bosses/trash are not intermingled. On bosses I was generally the top damage dealing caster unless I died early or was interfered with in some other way. Much like deep fire its impossible to run OOM, especially with a shadow priest.

Perhaps next week I'll run these same bosses with 10/48/3 and compare the two WWS reports, but I have a feeling the difference between the builds is more or less a wash. I'd recommend arc/fire for those who are currently returning to some elemental build from their recently nerfed AM spam, you might be pleasantly surprised.
#1090SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ReignConfused
I did extensive playing around with Vontre's and completed my gear setup for both specs.

This is what I came out with, (assuming both are hit capped (they were) and both have 300 ish spirit (they don't but whatever))


My haste AM spec 50/11/0

Unbuffed stats

954 Dmg
62 Crit
370 Haste
348 Int
410 Stam

Now I plugged this into Vontre's a few different ways and I was really excited about the results.

First off I assumed 0 pushback because AM doesn't suffer Pushback, then I assumed that JoW was up 100% of the time as well as receiving a shadow priest.

outside of a raid and no consumables this gives a theoretical 1184 DPS for 7.5 Minutes
INSIDE a raid with consumables and totems
Mage armor : 1370 DPS 30:31 Seconds
Molten Armor: 1406 DPS 12:46 Seconds

This confirmed a few things for me (crit? 3% only upped 30dps, I really don't think it benefits arcane hardly at all, at least not AM spam)

So it looks good, this spec would probably reflect VERY closely on it's theoretical because there's not much to go wrong with it aside from canceling a cast and running the fuck away. There's no resist fights, it's a very nice spec to be.


On to the no haste build! 10/48/3 Rawr fire!

1123 Dmg
302 Crit
317 Int
353 Stam

I assumed 20% pushback because of all the minor things and it makes up for scorch ramp up not being figured in here. Same everything as AM spec
Outside of a raid : 1502 DPS 7:52 seconds
With all the bells: 1711 DPS 17:24 seconds


Obviously fire pulls out ahead. A good 300 dps ahead.... but still, the hasted AM build isn't that bad, I still think it would be a viable spec for a few reasons.

1) Who likes respeccing for every other fight or staying fire and throwing gimp DPS on fire resistant or immune mobs?
2) AM spam is going to reflect more accurately to the theoretical more often.
3) Dude, with procs and beserking you're talking 60% haste rating... thats like... a 3 second AM. That's going to look cool as hell!



Anyway, yeah Fire is still top DPS and DMG king, but I like the idea of a hasted Arcane build and if Blizzard implements more Fire resist/Immune fights in Sunwell, and comes out with more haste gear, I think we all might want to take this build a bit more seriously.
#1091SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Chii
Hi All

Been reading EJ forums now for quite a while and decided to take the plunge to sign-up and start posting.

I was running with Deep Arcane in 2.2 because of MSD/TLC and was bummed out like everyone when 2.3 nerfed. I've decided to stay Deep Arcane post 2.3 for a week so I could have some baseline numbers to compare my damage against when I eventually re-gear up(+spell hit) and respec deep fire.

Here's my initial comparison with Deep arcane in 2.2 vs 2.3 in fairly similar Raids (one night of clearing 5/6 bosses from SSC) with the same type of gear and raid make-up. I pack 4pc T5, MSD and TLC/Crusade and T4-T5 level gear in all other slots.

Here is my deep arcane output in 2.2 Wow Web Stats

Key #s:
Arcane Missile 69% of total Damage
TLC 6% of total damage w/ 203 hits
MSD Focus Proc = 150x

And here's my deep arcane output in 2.3 Wow Web Stats

Key #s:
Arcane Missile 61% of total Damage
TLC 5% of total damage w/ 180 hits
MSD Focus Proc = 108x

I was reasonably satisfied that I was able to maintain decent dps as deep arcane post 2.3. Though this was probably due to the ability to AE a lot of stuff in trash and boss fights. I look forward to playing around in Deep Fire and even Deep Frost soon to see how the numbers stack up for me. But I am kinda happy to see that deep arcane may work for me in raiding.

- Please keep feedback regarding the WWS related to me or anything that would relate to me.
- My armory is not up to date as I was fooling around with different gear before I logged off.
#1092SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Keyne
Responses

Chase: I don't think you are giving haste enough credit, as it seems you are thinking in terms of one fireball. You concede that the value of haste is obvious for fights with no dps interuptions, where you are free to do your rotation continuously. Here is an illustration of how haste helps with interuptions:

Assume 174.4 haste rating (2.7 second fireball) vs 0 haste rating (3 second fireball).
Assume interuptions are such that they require complete cancellation of spell (assume away spell pushback).
Assume time between interruptions is a random variable (natural assumption).

If the time between interruptions is between 2.7 and 2.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 5.4 and 5.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 8.1 and 8.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 10.8 and 11.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 13.5 and 14.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 16.2 and 17.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 18.9 and 20.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 21.6 and 23.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 24.3 and 26.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.
If the time between interruptions is between 27 and 29.999 seconds, haste gear yields 1 extra fireball.

Notice here that the duration of the window where the interrupt causes different numbers of fireballs to occur is a proportion of the "whole time" we are looking at, namely 10%.

10% of the time, total spell interruption means that wearing haste gear yields an extra fireball. Without actually doing the math to completion, I'm fairly confident that this translate to a percent increase in DPS equal to the % haste (in probability).

Galzohar: I'm sorry wary of posting this, as at this point I feel like I am just arguing semantics (which generally does not further the goal of increasing our productivity in raids in any meaningful way). I should start by saying that I don't disagree in any way with what I think you are trying to say. What I disagree with is how you are saying it. Namely:

"Which is why I claim that the theoretical value is the MINIMUM value for "on-use" trinkets."

and

"This is why the claim "but on so and so fight I don't use it on-cooldown" doesn't mean the trinket is less useful. You're not using it on-cooldown because it'll cause you to gain more than its theoretical value."

"Theoretical values" are maximum values. By definition, you cannot get more than the maximum value out of something. If you notice that in practice that you are getting "more" than the theoretical value of something (other than what is attributable to the probabilistic nature of crit, hit, and the base damage range), this means that your model that tells you what the theoretical maximum value is somehow incomplete. Your misuse of the term "theoretical value" is my only objection with your posts.

As I said, I am CERTAINLY arguing semantics here, but when we model complex scenarios like the optimization of OUTs in this forum, we tend to give answers like, "Icon of the Silver Crescent = XXX.XX dps." When people read what you wrote, they are led to believe that there are situations where they get more than that XXX.XX, which is not possible if the model takes all the variables into account.
#1093SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Zure
Back of the envelope calculations at 1450 spell damage shows 33/28 topping 10/48/3 on infinite duration fireball spam at 31.5% crit from gear/buffs/base (not counting Arcane Mind).

This is with:
Molten fury as flat 4% damage
Combustion as a flat 1.5% spell crit
Arcane Potency 2/3 as a flat 2% spell crit
Arcane power as a flat 2.5% damage
PoM+Pyro as a flat 1% damage
4/5 Arcane Mind as a flat .75% spell crit
Both specs hit capped, with Elemental Precision giving 38 extra spell damage to 10/48/3

I'm a little surprised that 33/28 does so well. Anything I'm missing?

Next up would be to look at mana from Arcane Mine (small), Arcane Med (huge), and slightly higher MoE returns (small) versus Elemental Precision and Pyromaniac (~6% mana cost reduction to fire spells)


EDIT: Re OUTS

"Theoretical value" is being used by OUTs proponents to mean the value of the trinket if the On Use was converted into a passive stat. So the theoretical max value can indeed be too low, if the value of a passive stat is lowered by the mechanics of a fight.

Any time you have to stop DPSing for a portion of the fight, passive damage produces less DPS than it would otherwise. So an OUT that is activated during a 100% dps time is worth a relatively greater amount of passive stat for that fight.

Last edited by Zure : 11/15/07 at 6:27 PM.
#1094SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
What they mean to see is that the commonly accepted model used for OUTs is totally incorrect.
#1095SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0croswen
Originally Posted by ReignConfused View Post
Anyway, yeah Fire is still top DPS and DMG king, but I like the idea of a hasted Arcane build and if Blizzard implements more Fire resist/Immune fights in Sunwell, and comes out with more haste gear, I think we all might want to take this build a bit more seriously.
Personally I am hoping that Blizzard notices how retarded the fire immune fights does not make any more them.

Plus if you were learning a fire where the boss was Fire immune, my understanding is that you are better off specing Deep Ice. This is because you don't need to regem/regear just for 1 fight & you can easily get within 3-5% of the DPS of a Deep Fire build, without having to worry about semi complex Arcane Rotations.

I would rather they buff the Arcane tree so that it is the highest DPS tree with the lowest DPM, as Blizzard said it would be, instead of what is right now.. Which is this weird mana eating spec that doesn't do so well.
#1096SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0andastra
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
"Theoretical values" are maximum values. By definition, you cannot get more than the maximum value out of something. If you notice that in practice that you are getting "more" than the theoretical value of something (other than what is attributable to the probabilistic nature of crit, hit, and the base damage range), this means that your model that tells you what the theoretical maximum value is somehow incomplete. Your misuse of the term "theoretical value" is my only objection with your posts.

As I said, I am CERTAINLY arguing semantics here, but when we model complex scenarios like the optimization of OUTs in this forum, we tend to give answers like, "Icon of the Silver Crescent = XXX.XX dps." When people read what you wrote, they are led to believe that there are situations where they get more than that XXX.XX, which is not possible if the model takes all the variables into account.

The "theoretical value" used in mage theorycrafting is not its maximum value. The XXX.XX dps shown in all computations for trinkets like Icon of the Silver Crescent is the value it would have if you used it immediately after every cooldown. It also assumes that fight length is a multiple of cooldown length. Timing things like molten fury, combustion, flame caps, heroism, destruction pots, etc. to coincide with using the trinket would beat the value given in the calculations. It is NOT a maximum value.
#1097SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
What they mean to see is that the commonly accepted model used for OUTs is totally incorrect.
The models need only a couple corrections: variables for the proportion of time where the use effect can be used and for the proportion of time where you can actually cast.

Namely, if we let...

tu = on use time
tc = cooldown time
pu = time casting while under use effect / tu
pc = actual time casting / tc
Then for an on-use effect with benefit ∆xu while under its effects, the long run benefit ∆x is...

∆x = ∆xu*pu*tu/(pc*tc)
In essence, your casting uptime with the use effect over your casting uptime while the item is on CD.
#1098SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kavan
Thanks for those reports Chii. I'm finding similar conclusions about arcane in 2.3. The buff to Arcane Meditation about evens out with nerf to MSD and TLC at T5 gear level and I'm seeing the same performance in 2.3 if not slightly higher than in 2.2. I did change the meta to CSD though and went with a ABAMx3+Sc rotation (similar to ABx3+AM+Sc except you don't suffer from latency effects on AB debuff, has about the same characteristics, slightly better performance and scaling). The only decrease in performance I've seen was on AOE fights where TLC damage dropped from 10% to 5%. Here's a report from raid yesterday if anyone is interested: Wow Web Stats
#1099SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Balcazaar
I've been seeing similar results to Kavan. My guild is midway through the T6 instances, so we're all mostly still in T5. It seems like it's still viable to stay arcane at that gear level. The biggest hit I've seen is TLC's contribution in AOE fights going from 10-12% to 5-6% (still worth keeping equipped, I think).

On a side note, every mage should go into ZA and spellsteal the haste buff off the Firebreathers(I think that's the name). AM was casting so quickly I was having trouble chaining them together and Pyro is finally spammable. Good fun.
#1100SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Chii
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Thanks for those reports Chii. I'm finding similar conclusions about arcane in 2.3. The buff to Arcane Meditation about evens out with nerf to MSD and TLC at T5 gear level and I'm seeing the same performance in 2.3 if not slightly higher than in 2.2. I did change the meta to CSD though and went with a ABAMx3+Sc rotation (similar to ABx3+AM+Sc except you don't suffer from latency effects on AB debuff, has about the same characteristics, slightly better performance and scaling). The only decrease in performance I've seen was on AOE fights where TLC damage dropped from 10% to 5%. Here's a report from raid yesterday if anyone is interested: Wow Web Stats
Kavan, thanks for providing your WWS stats.

Can you clarify for me the arcane spell rotation ABAMx3+Sc rotation? Does that mean AB, AMx3 + Sc or does it mean AB x 3, AM x 3 +Sc? It's not clear to me because I saw that AB made up most of your damage and wanted to understand exactly how you were using AB. I'm also curious to see how your numbers would be if you spammed AM for your entire raid run. Do you think it would be less than or greater than your current arcane spell rotation.

Thx in advance
#1101SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kavan
Originally Posted by Chii View Post
Kavan, thanks for providing your WWS stats.

Can you clarify for me the arcane spell rotation ABAMx3+Sc rotation? Does that mean AB, AMx3 + Sc or does it mean AB x 3, AM x 3 +Sc? It's not clear to me because I saw that AB made up most of your damage and wanted to understand exactly how you were using AB. I'm also curious to see how your numbers would be if you spammed AM for your entire raid run. Do you think it would be less than or greater than your current arcane spell rotation.

Thx in advance
I'm referring to AB-AM-AB-AM-AB-AM-Sc with AM on clearcast (which also restarts the cycle), that is the low dps cycle. On AP and with leftover mana I'm using AB spam. ABx3 if it behaved as expected, each time reducing cast time, dominates AM in performance. Using ABx3+AM+Sc the timings on AB will be 1.5s, 2.5s, 2.1s. If you'll manually try to wait for debuff to register I've found you lose more time than just chain casting. So with ABAMx3+Sc you're gaining 0.66s on AB timing, but you lose some dps because of higher proportion of AM in the cycle. Similar with mana, AM increases the mana cost, but AB-AM coupling about doubles your out of FSR time, compensating for increased cost.
#1102SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Keyne
Originally Posted by andastra View Post
The "theoretical value" used in mage theorycrafting is not its maximum value. The XXX.XX dps shown in all computations for trinkets like Icon of the Silver Crescent is the value it would have if you used it immediately after every cooldown. It also assumes that fight length is a multiple of cooldown length. Timing things like molten fury, combustion, flame caps, heroism, destruction pots, etc. to coincide with using the trinket would beat the value given in the calculations. It is NOT a maximum value.

Please reread my post an extra time or two. Read slowly. I know that I am almost always unnecessarily wordy (which creates more disagreements with what I say than my posts deserve), but I think you are not fully understanding what I said.

Your description of the user-friendly model for OUTs is accurate. Your description of how you can improve upon the value that this model predicts is correct. What I was trying to say is that theoretical values absolutely ARE maximum values IFF the model is sufficiently descriptive. Obviously, this PARTICULAR model is not maximal because it is not sufficiently descriptive. If it WAS sufficiently descriptive (i.e. it took all the things you talked about into account), then it really WOULD output the theoretical value of the OUT, and this value would be the one that you could not possibly improve upon.

Sorry, again, for my wordiness, but everything I just said can be found (I hope) in my original post, just in different words. Reread it.
#1103SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
Disclaimer: This post is based on top-of-the-head observation. I.E. I could easily be proven wrong on this.

The reason that spell haste and spell hit ratings are so valuable is because of the nature of the DPS formula:

DPS = Hit% x Spell Damage*
Net Cast Time**

It should be obvious, when looking at this formula, that a 1% increase to Hit or a 1% decrease in Net Cast Time will always yield a 1% increase in DPS. Because Hit% is hard capped at 99% and Net Cast Time is theoretically asymptotally approaching 0, a 1% increase in the two major inputs into Spell Damage is strictly less than 1%. (Hint: order of operations)

I feel like I am not saying something that I wanted to say when I started writing this post, and generally I try not to post incomplete thoughts, but what I have here should be sufficient on its own) if for nothing else, to generate discussion).
What you say can be more formally expressed using the expected DPS function.

If we let...

E = h*M*B
T = t/(1+z)
D = E/T

E = expected damage/cast
T = expected casting time
D = expected DPS
M = average normal hit
B = effect of crits
h = hit chance
z = haste (decimal)
With this, we can determine the marginal relative benefit (the percentage increase in DPS): this is given by ∆D/D. One can derive that, for a change in hit chance ∆h or change in haste ∆z...

∆D/D = ∆h/h
∆D/D = ∆z/(1+z)
h is strictly less than 1, so +1% hit is always more than a 1% DPS increase. (1+z) is greater than or equal to 1, so 1% haste is never more than a 1% DPS increase.
#1104SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
I'm very interested in how 33/28 would fare post 2.3. I've never played a 33/28 spec before, but I do have close to 40% crit as deep fire with Molten Armor & fully raid buffed. I've read people claiming that with a high crit %, 33/28 will overtake deep fire.

Does anyone have wwstats parses of 33/28 in 2.3 for reference? I'm particularly interested in its potential as it remains one of the specs that I've never explored with.
#1105SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ReignConfused
33/28 does value crit very highly....
Because it doesn't scale nearly as well as Fireball.

I don't know if it's crit that's valued highly in it or that damage isn't.

Hit certainly is.... hope you have 202 hit
#1106SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Hate using anecdotal evidence, can't get my WWS working again, but got 2nd on damage elements/wrath/shadow preist/destruction but no heroism with 3 decurses on archimonde. 33/28/0 build. Had a 10,500 pyro crit too

Sorry i couldn't get a WWS though
#1107SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Yep 33/28 scales better with crit (yet 1 spell damage is still slightly better than 1 crit rating *and* slightly cheaper too with the gear makeup I was looking at it). How badly it scales with damage though depends on how much crit you have - with enough crit it would actually scale better than 10/48/3 even with spell damage. The real thing to check is how much crit is actually needed for it - my wild guess is that if you calculate you will get some unrealistic amount of crit required, such that reaching it would require you to gimp your DPS anyway.
Hit is still too powerful, and you can see Kaimani is running with uncapped hit and some damage/crit gems in places he could put pure damage gems to do more DPS regardless of spec. If he maxes his hit and takes 1 damage > 1 crit he won't reach the high 40s even with a moonkin and ret paladin. Not to mention afaik sextant<icon which means an extra 40 crit rating that shouldn't be there regardless of spec.
Again it shouldn't be hard to just put your stats in the spreadsheet and compare 33/28 to 10/48/3 with your gear, and find the value of damage vs crit to show yourself if it stands true for your gear as well that 1 damage > 1 crit even if you spec 33/28 and that hit is still >all. Heck just the lack of hit can explain the good performance on trash as trash doesn't require any hit so obviously people that gear for other stats will do more DPS regardless wether their spec is optimal or not.
Bottom line is that while with certain gear setups 33/28 could possibly turn out as a stronger spec, make sure the reason it came out on top (if it actually did) is not sub-optimal gear choices that actually reduce your DPS with both specs. Last time I checked for my gear compared to someone else who actually geared for higher crit and was specced 33/28, his 33/28 would be much closer to his 10/48/3 (with 10/48/3 still being slightly on top), but both my 10/48/3 and my 33/28 would beat both his 10/48/3 and 33/28, meaning no matter what spec combination we had, I would come out on top due to better gear choices. So careful when claiming your 33/28 outDPSs your 10/48/3 - especially when you test on trash where hit doesn't come into play.

As for semantics, theoretical is definitely not defined as maximum (unless my english is really THAT bad), it is definied as what the theory says it is. The common accepted theory for "on-use" trinkets is damageXduration/cooldown, which when played well is in fact the minimum value of it. The maximum would definitely be 100% uptime, although it would be hard to even create a fight that will intentionally get to that maximum. damageXduration/cooldown is quite close to reality, though obviously not totally accurate, and in reality the value will be greater if you don't mess up your gameplay - how much greater goes anywhere from none to 100% uptime depending on the fight.
#1108SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Keyne
My last attempt at explaining "theoretical value" as it appears in this forum (I didn't choose this term, someone else did) as a an expression of maximum value. When I said this was by definition, maybe what I should have said is that this term is by default a synonym for maximum value when you consider the very purpose of econometrics. I suppose it could also be understood to be a minimum value, if that were the context of the discussion, but on an EJ forum, where the goal is to maximize dps, pretty much all conclusions are going to be ones in the vein of "what is the most I can get out of XXXX" where XXXX is a spec/rotation/item/or strategy. That XXXX (which is aka theoretical value or whatever you want to call it) is always going to be a maximum, because otherwise, why would anyone care about it? You never hear Manly talk about runed living rubies, because runed crimson spinals hold the maximum value out of all the possible gems to equip. In this sense, "theoretical value", when you see it on this forum, is essentially always going to be a report of maximum possible value because values that are not the endpoints of the range are largely uninteresting.

Postscript - For the record, I don't think im out of line when I say that this three variable, oversimplification of OUTs is stupid and the product of laziness. Clearly there are some highly intelligent people on this forum that can (and likely already have) come up with a model that is so much more descriptive of OUT behavior that it makes the three variable one look like a kindergardener wrote it. I'm generally not a fan of the placement of pure opinion in economic forums, but I would actually be quite happy if i never saw the three variable formula in print again. Its so incomplete that its a joke.
#1109SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
While I've never tried 33/28 as my spec in the past, that is largely because I don't have the gear and Arcane spec was simply superior. Now that the fireball nerf is removed, 33/28 suddenly looks attractive to me. There are also some factors which I feel will make 33/28 stronger in 2.3 as compared to past patches.

1) The obvious removal of fireball co-efficient tax.
2) More haste gears, which could make it possible to squeeze in 1 more fireball during AP.
3) Combining Flamecap, trinket CD...etc will also allow AP/PoM combo puts out more dps than 2.5% over 3 minutes.
4) Chaotic Skyfire Diamond adding more crit damage than it claimed, thus allowing a crit heavy 33/28 build to benefit more.
5) Not directly related, but I find molten fury not as valuable now since rogue & dps warrior are making the last 19% boss HP go down so much faster, thus reducing the DPS time I get out of the last 19%.
#1110SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
The World of Warcraft Armory

I still think a gearsetup like that would be fun to try, especially with a hybrid-build.
#1111SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
5) Not directly related, but I find molten fury not as valuable now since rogue & dps warrior are making the last 19% boss HP go down so much faster, thus reducing the DPS time I get out of the last 19%.
Last 20.99% should we want to quibble
#1112SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Bloodlust + trinkets + combustion + flamecaps/destro + < 20.99% = Extremely good DPS nonetheless. Only boss I ever see die to fast in that part is probably Akama which is loltarded.
#1113SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
Last 20.99% should we want to quibble
Erm, not trying to nitpick but I think Molten Fury only takes effect on target below 20% hp, so 20% hp itself is not covered. There is also something I'm not so sure about. I remember that the damage of a spell on a given target is calculated when the projectile leaves the hand. An example is: Spell stealing the dampen magic buff from illidari council after the projectile has left her hands will still result in myself getting the full damage even though my spell steal was successful.

Does it also applies to molten fury targets? If my fireball leaves my hand at 20% mob hp or above, will it still gain the 20% damage bonus from Molten Fury when it hits the mob after its HP drops below 20%.
#1114SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Myrdinn
Just a quick question : is 33/28 better than 40/18/3 nowadays ? I never did the calc myself. I would be interested if someone has already checked that before I TC it myself.

33/28 give 12% +int, 8% damage, 6% crit, but 2/3 potency
40/18/3 has 3/3 potency, 15% +int, and 25% damage bonus from int (~150dmg)
I will also give a shot to Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, if elem prec is not needed

Without deep TC, I would say 40/18/3 is better if you lack +hit, then 33/28

Last edited by Myrdinn : 11/16/07 at 8:32 AM.
#1115SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
Well JasonX, it's been shown in the past that "1%" health (as reported by the UI and hence any system that relies on that call) is actually 1.999% or less. I think it's actually a given here by now but I could dredge up a reference if need be.

I take that to a fairly logical conclusion and assume that all health is reported through calls as (Mob_Health) with a Floor function or truncation acted on it. I've never tested MF but I would suspect that given Blizzard's very strange methodology, it is either active on real 20% and less (unlikely in my opinion but exclusive would be even odder) or Db reported 20% or less (my bet, and hence 20.99% and less).

As to your fireball question though, I've never yet seen any damage multiplier for a bolt spell that was not calculated at the time of "damage" if you will. When it lands should be the issue, presuming the server is aware of any influences at that time. It's a little fuzzy because server-side issues (mana cost and such) seem to resolve locally while damage seems to resolve at the server. Logical of course but I'll be honest, I don't know for sure.
#1116SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
This may be nitpicking and you actually meant it, but since you didn't write it, I'll add that mana costs, while figured on the client first, are also figured on the server... If you cast a spell and get mana burned at the same time so that you see yourself cast the spell before the mana burn but the server sees the mana burn before you cast the spell, your spell requiest will be sent (and your client will think it's going to go off) until the server tells you that you got mana burned and the spell failed.

Erm, not trying to nitpick but I think Molten Fury only takes effect on target below 20% hp, so 20% hp itself is not covered. There is also something I'm not so sure about. I remember that the damage of a spell on a given target is calculated when the projectile leaves the hand. An example is: Spell stealing the dampen magic buff from illidari council after the projectile has left her hands will still result in myself getting the full damage even though my spell steal was successful.
I've been noticing similar effects with a lot of stuff which I assumed were the simple cause of lag. Remember that when you see a projectile leave someone's hands it had usually already hit me (unless I'm really far and reacted really fast and wasn't having connection "issues" for the day (by issues I mean 300-400 instead of 200ms)). That's one of the reasons I've always been jeleous at mages able to iceblock/bubble out of an incoming AP/PoM/pyro, absorbing all damage (never seen it done, but heard people do this).

As for the "on-use" trinkets what I really wanted to point out is that it's really at least as good as the damageXduration/cooldown, while some people in this thread were claiming that on some fights you actually get less. All I wanted is to point out that without bad play there is no way to get (on average) less than that value. How you call that value really doesn't matter to me as long as we all understand what we're talking about. While you seem to agree it's at least as good as that formula and that the formula isn't accurate, other people weren't. On a side note, while this formula is very rough, in many many fights it's quite close, since most fights have a very high % of DPS time which means the "no-DPS" time is a small portion, and while it can increase the trinket's value from that "rough formula" it won't increase it *much*. Also most fights are quite long *and* have unpredictible length (9m50s or 10m20s? You can't really predict that) so the effect of fight length not being a multiple of the cooldown is also small unless you *know* the fight length very accurately, which isn't the case in most fights - even enrage fights since you always kill the boss before the enrage...
#1117SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Prom
rarrr

i tried fire last night after a long time.
the dps was nice. A lot better than I had expected.
It was also quite fun playing fire after having been arcane for quite some time.

However its obvious that destro locks will still outer-perform mages in most fights.
It's a shame really. It would be nice to see us on equal performance.

btw Manly how come you raid with only 2 warlocks ? I would expect at least 3.
#1118SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
1) The obvious removal of fireball co-efficient tax.
2) More haste gears, which could make it possible to squeeze in 1 more fireball during AP.
3) Combining Flamecap, trinket CD...etc will also allow AP/PoM combo puts out more dps than 2.5% over 3 minutes.
4) Chaotic Skyfire Diamond adding more crit damage than it claimed, thus allowing a crit heavy 33/28 build to benefit more.
5) Not directly related, but I find molten fury not as valuable now since rogue & dps warrior are making the last 19% boss HP go down so much faster, thus reducing the DPS time I get out of the last 19%.
1) Tax removal benefits full fire more than arca-fire hybrid due to Emp. Fireball talent

2) Assuming you start your AP with a POM-Pyro, that leaves you with 13.5sec of AP time. Conventionally you'd only get 4 fireballs in (12sec) leaving a GCD to spare with one Fire Blast perhaps. In order to fit 5 in, you need to get FBall cast down to 2.7 which unless I'm mistaken is 10% haste (or if I'm doing it wrong 11%), circa 157 haste rating (or 172). Given you need -that- much haste, I'd like to examine where exactly you plan on getting the resultant 202 hit rating needed to cap. It has been noted that haste gear is problematic in allocation terms: Low socket count, errant stats (ZA chest has spirit) and lacking hit/crit combine to make it rather patchy.

As an ex-33.28.0 I can assure you, Crit AP-POM-Pyro, crit Fire Blast, 2xFball and Fireblast on AP is a beautiful thing for sure, but hitting the first two buttons on curator all that time ago and seeing two "Resist" did not make my day.

3) That is correct that combining the afforementioned makes for more than 2.5% AP but then again the same can be said for combining those with Combustion, which is on the same CD, and in Molten Fury range can make AP-POM look like a walk in the park.

4) CSD does indeed add more to arca-fire hybrid. The 12Crit on it also is more of a benefit.

5) As another poster noted, Execute is rather small in it's effect. The possible loss of one DPS (due to death) is a lot more pronounced in the >20% phase I should think; though I can't back that claim up.
#1119SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Molten fury deserves more credit than some people are giving it here. Quite often...especially when you're learning an encounter...multiple people are dead by the time you reach the 20% mark. I tend to have my shaman save bloodlust for the 20% mark just to squeeze more fireballs in.
#1120SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sinborn
When I do an AP burn, I try to put the PoM pyro at the end, to negate the GCD it causes.

edit: Not negate, but remove the GCD from AP uptime
#1121SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
When I do an AP burn, I try to put the PoM pyro at the end, to negate the GCD it causes.

edit: Not negate, but remove the GCD from AP uptime
You're risking your Pyro hitting the target without having AP up if you use it at the end. As said above...all damage is calculated at the time of impact...not cast. So any buffs that wear off while the fireball or pyro is in flight will not add damage to the spell. You would have to use it at 3 seconds left...which would give you a GCD during the AP cycle anyway.
#1122SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
There are really too many talents you lose and talents you gain when switching from 10/48/3 to 33/28, with at least 1 talent in each spec having its effectiveness depend greatly on your gear (emp fireball on spell damage and spell power on crit chance). Both specs also have factors that cannot be ignored such as molten fury, AP PoM pyro and combustion (from easiest to hardest to model). Also while most itemization remains the same between the specs afaik (with 1 damage > 1 crit rating regardless), some items that would offer something like 1.2 crit per 1 spell damage lost will be better for 33/28 but equal/worse for 10/48/3, and the exact values again depend on your gear.

Bottom line is those specs are too close and have too many different talents to just be compared with napkin math. The only way to really compare is model the whole DPS rotation, figure out a DPS number with your 10/48/3, figure out a DPS number with 33/28, and then if 10/48/3 wins see how 33/28 changes your item value, "regear" (on the spreadsheet) to optimize 33/28, and compare again.


I want to point something that was said earlier about "DPS time" of specs: The "DPS time" is a very very misleading value. Say if 1 spec does 1500 DPS and has a DPS time of 7 minutes and another spec does 1000 DPS and has a DPS time of 15 minutes, it's really not possible to tell wether the 1000 DPS spec is better than the 1500 DPS or not on fights that are long enough. This is because 1500 DPS spec on 7 minutes doesn't do 1500 DPS on 7 minutes and then 0 DPS for the rest - it's not even close to 0 or wand DPS. Remember your regen and mana potions and evocation still work when you're oom so while after 7 minutes you won't be doing 1500 DPS, it doesn't mean you'll do less than 1000.
When you say a spec does "1500 DPS for 7 minutes" you actually give very little information about how it performs after the 7 minutes are over. The 1500 DPS for 7 minutes spec could possibly do more DPS over any fight duration than the 1000 DPS for 15 minutes spec.

Bottom line is the "time till oom" figure tells you very little about how good a spec is, since when the value of this figure is, say, double, you actually have no clue if it's really twice as good. In reality, since most of the mana actually comes from regen/cooldown abilities and not from a fixed starting mana, increasing the "time till oom" by a LOT (say double it) will not result in anything even remotely close to double the damage done over a fight of that double length.
To make a simple example, with any kind of regen, a 2000 DPS for 5 minutes spec will do more damage on a 10 minute fight than a 1000 DPS for 10 minutes spec. In reality it's not that clear which spec is better which is why you really shouldn't be looking at the "time till oom" when comparing specs, but rather at the total damage done on a fight of a given length.

Information like spec A does 1500 average DPS on a 7 minute fight and 1400 average DPS on a 10 minute fight while spec B does 1600 average DPS on a 7 minute fight and 1300 average DPS on a 10 minute fight is actually a lot more useful information when comparing the specs. Yes it's harder to look at it like that, but at least you're not the misleading figure of "time till oom".
#1123SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sinborn
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
You're risking your Pyro hitting the target without having AP up if you use it at the end. As said above...all damage is calculated at the time of impact...not cast. So any buffs that wear off while the fireball or pyro is in flight will not add damage to the spell. You would have to use it at 3 seconds left...which would give you a GCD during the AP cycle anyway.
Well, my AP burn as arcane was AP-troll zerking-AMx3-PoM pyro. The troll zerking takes about 0.5 sec off each of the first 2 AMs. Sometimes the MSD would make an appearance, but if it didn't I could always get the pom pyro with AP applied.
#1124SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
As to your fireball question though, I've never yet seen any damage multiplier for a bolt spell that was not calculated at the time of "damage" if you will. When it lands should be the issue, presuming the server is aware of any influences at that time. It's a little fuzzy because server-side issues (mana cost and such) seem to resolve locally while damage seems to resolve at the server. Logical of course but I'll be honest, I don't know for sure.
If damage was calculated upon impact, then shatter combos wouldn't exist. Damage has always been calculated when a bolt leaves your hand, or if you prefer, once you pay mana (with the exception of channelled spells).

I understand that logically damage should be calculated at the time of impact. I can understand however that doing so could give some 'annoying' lag to see dps done, and possibly the reason they coded it that way.

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
2) Assuming you start your AP with a POM-Pyro, that leaves you with 13.5sec of AP time. Conventionally you'd only get 4 fireballs in (12sec) leaving a GCD to spare with one Fire Blast perhaps. In order to fit 5 in, you need to get FBall cast down to 2.7 which unless I'm mistaken is 10% haste (or if I'm doing it wrong 11%), circa 157 haste rating (or 172). Given you need -that- much haste, I'd like to examine where exactly you plan on getting the resultant 202 hit rating needed to cap. It has been noted that haste gear is problematic in allocation terms: Low socket count, errant stats (ZA chest has spirit) and lacking hit/crit combine to make it rather patchy.
While this is purely tengential, if you need 2.7s fireballs then this is what you're looking at: 2.7 = 3 / (1 + x) resolve this and x will be your needed haste%.

Without going through the math, I'm pretty sure that's roughly 11% haste. 11% haste is doable with hit cap, but you better be prepared to have a draenai / elemental shaman. You can do it without (but expect the best-of-best gear all around), but that would require a quite absurd amount of hit gem, enough, in fact, to take most of your gem slots, since haste gear is notably sparse on sockets. In other words, it's not very realistic or optimal.

While this is a side comment, yes, combustion and molten fury in essence is nothing more than a nice to have. Personally I model both (individually) as a flat 2% dps increase, not much above it. Combustion is likely/possibly less than that. Theorycraft usually doesn't calculates appropriately lost ignites due to mob deaths. I don't expect theorycraft to be able to fix this 'oversight', but rather its simply an intangible that negatively impacts the projected dps. Things like used trinkets and cooldown stacking on execute range makes it hard to properly TC (particularly with lost ignites).

I don't think anyone can make a serious argument about molten fury/combustion being better than AP/POM. Sure, combustion is probably better than POM, but even its apples to oranges. But regardless, the math I have seen about 33/28, a spec that was originally created for scorch spam to abuse TLC before the first nerf (ie: when TBC just came out), it seemed to suggest fireballs would scale better than 10/48/3 once you hit the 70-75%+ crit rates. 75% crit rate just to equal 10/48/3 scaling. The spec was never made for fireball spamming in the first place. The spec can support AB spam with 2pc t5, but that came much after t5 was even available. In my mind I just don't even understand why people even dare look at it - it was never ever meant as a fireball spam spec. It can be optimum on a certain fight, like shahraz pre-nerf, but the cases it will should be excruciatingly rare because it doesn't excel at anything really.

Originally Posted by Prom View Post
btw Manly how come you raid with only 2 warlocks ? I would expect at least 3.
Well, we typically run with 1-2 warlocks. We try and avoid having only 1 warlock. The problem with 3 warlocks is that they are hard to maximize upon. What I mean by that is that you pretty much need 2 elemental shaman to support 3 mages and 3 warlocks. We do have 2 elemental shaman once in a blue moon - but its really not the norm. Typically we just stack more shamans/hunters/rogues rather than get the extra warlock. I do believe that mages still hold their own as fire spec without coe - I have been getting decent results. Looking at this week teron and rage, it seems my max dps without coe is 1700 dps. This number will probably go higher once I pick up a hex shrunken head and use a macro that stacks skull/icon or skull/hex. I seriously wasn't aware this was possible before I was done with raiding this week - I tested with icon first and concluded they didn't stack. Regardless, with destro pots and hex and trinket stacking I think I can expect a max of 1750 dps with no coe. Sure, it won't compete with destro warlocks that have a shaman/s.priest and particularly if they can use COD, but there's nothing I can do about this. But it's still very acceptable dps.

I think the new spell queue really helped a lot mage dps. At least that's what I came to conclude. I know that now in EJ basically the 3 mages have fairly much the exact same dps in every fight.

Last edited by manly : 11/16/07 at 1:12 PM.
#1125SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
hrm, i'm not so sure about that Manly...but I'll test it tonight. Stand at max range and pop a trinket. Cast 2 fireballs so that 1 hits while the trinket is up...and one where the trinket wears off while the fireball is in flight.

I see what you're saying about the shatter mage with the icelance+frostbolt both getting the crit...but why would combustion add +crit to a fireball that's in flight when you use it after you cast the fireball? Is it possible that the shatter combo is actually a result of server latency since they hit so close together that it thinks the target is still frozen?
#1126SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
I don't know how you guys came to conclude damage was calculated on impact or that latency was possibly messing up the results. This behavior existed pre-tbc. It has never changed. It always worked that way as far as I am aware of.

And yes I assure you I tested and observed many many times since I had my ZHC that you will notice that your fireball leaving your hand with ZHC up will get the ZHC bonus if ZHC is off when it lands. It really is the exact same mechanic with shatter. nova->frostbolt->lance. Frostbolt and lance get shatter bonus because when you cast both of them the nova is on the mob, because of the travel time of frostbolt, the mob will still be frozen when you cast your lance.
#1127SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
I wasn't refering to damage calculations that are based on the caster, I was refering to damage calculations based on the TARGET. While it could use testing, I would guess that for example of CoE wears off while your fireball is in flight, your fireball will not be affected by CoE. And if you spellsteal soemthing that protects you from a spell while the spell is in flight towards you, it *should* protect you against the spell, assuming the spell didn't already hit you on the server but on the client it's still in flight due to latency. Again this could use testing but it makes perfects sense for it to work like that.

I think we all know that buffs that are on the caster take affect when the spell leaves your hands... At least for spell damage (is it verified if it's true for crit/hit too? Because I wouldn't assume there is consistency here as the calculation of those doesn't work the same as spell damage bonus in general, as it depends on your target too and not just your character. Same could go for molten fury).
#1128SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Antoine
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, we typically run with 1-2 warlocks. We try and avoid having only 1 warlock. The problem with 3 warlocks is that they are hard to maximize upon. What I mean by that is that you pretty much need 2 elemental shaman to support 3 mages and 3 warlocks. We do have 2 elemental shaman once in a blue moon - but its really not the norm. Typically we just stack more shamans/hunters/rogues rather than get the extra warlock. I do believe that mages still hold their own as fire spec without coe - I have been getting decent results. Looking at this week teron and rage, it seems my max dps without coe is 1700 dps.
Why do you run 2 warlocks 3 mages instead of 3 warlocks 2 mages?
#1129SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Purely a matter of attendance.
#1130SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
I am 100% sure that damage is calculated when the spell leaves your hand. Come on guys, this is basic mage stuff, you should all be abusing this to get an extra crit out of combustion already.
#1131SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
I never actually knew you could exploit combustion to get an extra crit out of it. I simply assumed it was calculated at the time of hit since combustion gained a charge even when it wasn't on you at the time the fireball left your hand.
#1132SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JamesVZ
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
And if you spellsteal soemthing that protects you from a spell while the spell is in flight towards you, it *should* protect you against the spell, assuming the spell didn't already hit you on the server but on the client it's still in flight due to latency.
This is fairly easy to test as a protection warrior, since Spell Reflect works basically the same way. And no, if the spell is in mid-flight it will land if you pop spell reflect. I've seen my spell reflect wear off and have the cooldown refreshed by the time a spell hit me while running from mobs, and it was reflected back since I hit it before the mob casted. I've also seen the spells land in much the same situation when I hit it mid-flight.

Beyond that, it doesn't make sense to have two rolls for what happens to the spell (one on cast finish, one on impact) when you can do effectively the same with just the one.
#1133SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
And if you spellsteal soemthing that protects you from a spell while the spell is in flight towards you, it *should* protect you against the spell, assuming the spell didn't already hit you on the server but on the client it's still in flight due to latency.
This is absolutely false - as anyone who has ever tanked Council can attest. If you spellsteal the dampen magic buff after a spell is already in the air, you'll die.
#1134SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
But he casts dampen every minute and the buff lasts 2 min It shouldn't happen. Although it used to be bugged and BOP would remove dampen, which caused us a number of wipes on our first kill.
#1135SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Tempestra
There's a difference between "damage" calculation and invulnerability effects. I don't think it's consistent.

Granted, I could just be remembering things badly, but I don't ever recall throwing up an ice block and taking damage, regardless of whether the "spell had left the caster's hand." Have any of you?
#1136SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ztorm
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Molten fury deserves more credit than some people are giving it here. Quite often...especially when you're learning an encounter...multiple people are dead by the time you reach the 20% mark. I tend to have my shaman save bloodlust for the 20% mark just to squeeze more fireballs in.
Why would you save bloodlust for the last 20%? Most hyjal/BT encounters test your raid survivability, so inevitably there are going to be deaths. Unless there's a phase with a specific DPS requirement (ie: phase 3 reliquary), it's better to pop it early when your entire raid is up and all cooldowns are available.

EDIT: Heh, I think Sancus was referring the initial pull
#1137SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Originally Posted by Tempestra View Post
There's a difference between "damage" calculation and invulnerability effects. I don't think it's consistent.

Granted, I could just be remembering things badly, but I don't ever recall throwing up an ice block and taking damage, regardless of whether the "spell had left the caster's hand." Have any of you?
Same applies to vanish. Damage calculations is entirely different from immunities.
#1138SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by manly View Post
But he casts dampen every minute and the buff lasts 2 min It shouldn't happen. Although it used to be bugged and BOP would remove dampen, which caused us a number of wipes on our first kill.
Doesn't normally happen, happened yesterday once on the pull due to a spellsteal resist(I wasn't tanking, though). Not a regular cause of wipes or anything, and yeah we fought through that bug too :p

Originally Posted by Ztorm
Why would you save bloodlust for the last 20%? Most hyjal/BT encounters test your raid survivability, so inevitably there are going to be deaths. Unless there's a phase with a specific DPS requirement (ie: phase 3 reliquary), it's better to pop it early when your entire raid is up and all cooldowns are available.
As long as *your* group is up, and consists of mostly mages, it doesn't really matter who else is up or isn't(at least in terms of the benefit Bloodlust is providing), and popping Bloodlust with Molten Fury is a pretty significant dps difference from popping it without, 20% damage is a bigger multiplier than any other cooldowns I can think of. I think popping bloodlust with Molten Fury is pretty reasonable, unless there is some dps requirement at a different % that is more important.

Or the target will die before Bloodlust is over, but then you should just pop it at 25% or 30% instead.
#1139SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0alezrik
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
This is absolutely false - as anyone who has ever tanked Council can attest. If you spellsteal the dampen magic buff after a spell is already in the air, you'll die.

Krosh is the same way

06:49'17.323 Alezrik performs Spellsteal
06:49'17.714 Krosh Firehand's Greater Fireball hits Alezrik for 9450 Fire damage
06:49'18.167 Alezrik gains Spell Shield
#1140SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Cryic
When to break 4pc T5

Looking for a formula to put the value on the 4 piece bonus of T5 gear for a deep fire build. The proc is (4) Set: Your spell critical strikes grant you up to 70 spell damage for 6 sec.

From my observetaions, the proc happens when the spell lands and crits, so for fireball spam you would always get 2 spells at the increased damage, since the bonus is applied when the fireball leaves your hands.

Assuming a 35% crit rate on fireball (with 0 haste gear on), the t5 bonus is then worth?:

(70 + 70) * .35 = +49 spell damage on gear for fireball spam, but this assuming 0 applications of the buff are overwritten by back to back crits.

Things then get murky when factoring in scorching to put the debuff up etc.

A good example is our recent Rage Winterchill kill, had 63 fireballs and 16 scorches cast.

Trying to get a good handle on when to break t5. Thanks!
#1141SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kaimani
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Yep 33/28 scales better with crit (yet 1 spell damage is still slightly better than 1 crit rating *and* slightly cheaper too with the gear makeup I was looking at it). How badly it scales with damage though depends on how much crit you have - with enough crit it would actually scale better than 10/48/3 even with spell damage. The real thing to check is how much crit is actually needed for it - my wild guess is that if you calculate you will get some unrealistic amount of crit required, such that reaching it would require you to gimp your DPS anyway.
Hit is still too powerful, and you can see Kaimani is running with uncapped hit and some damage/crit gems in places he could put pure damage gems to do more DPS regardless of spec. If he maxes his hit and takes 1 damage > 1 crit he won't reach the high 40s even with a moonkin and ret paladin. Not to mention afaik sextant<icon which means an extra 40 crit rating that shouldn't be there regardless of spec.
Again it shouldn't be hard to just put your stats in the spreadsheet and compare 33/28 to 10/48/3 with your gear, and find the value of damage vs crit to show yourself if it stands true for your gear as well that 1 damage > 1 crit even if you spec 33/28 and that hit is still >all. Heck just the lack of hit can explain the good performance on trash as trash doesn't require any hit so obviously people that gear for other stats will do more DPS regardless wether their spec is optimal or not.
Bottom line is that while with certain gear setups 33/28 could possibly turn out as a stronger spec, make sure the reason it came out on top (if it actually did) is not sub-optimal gear choices that actually reduce your DPS with both specs. Last time I checked for my gear compared to someone else who actually geared for higher crit and was specced 33/28, his 33/28 would be much closer to his 10/48/3 (with 10/48/3 still being slightly on top), but both my 10/48/3 and my 33/28 would beat both his 10/48/3 and 33/28, meaning no matter what spec combination we had, I would come out on top due to better gear choices. So careful when claiming your 33/28 outDPSs your 10/48/3 - especially when you test on trash where hit doesn't come into play.
Just a couple comments...

For one, I don't test my dps on trash.

Two, the sextant is a lot better than people give it credit for assuming the procs aren't utterly wasted (such as procing right as some mechanic forces you to stop attacking). In the multitude of bosses I've used it on and checked the # of procs from our WWS reports, it has about a 25% uptime, yielding roughly 47.5 +dmg over time. Obviously good or bad luck will skew that number quite a bit, but that's a general ballpark, and the first proc is usually within seconds of the fight starting, so I usually pop AP with it. Meanwhile, the icon's on-use gives you about 25.8+dmg if its used every cooldown, but since it can be used at-will at good times that number will probably skew upwards. So you have to ask, which is better? 40 crit rating and ~21.7dmg, or a flat 43 dmg? At least for 33/28 I think the sextant is preferable given those figures.

As for my gear not being hit capped, I'll be aquiring the archimonde sword and the T6 gloves in the not so distant future, which would actually push me well over the deep fire hit cap when I'm coupled with an elemental shaman, so my choice of gear/gems is really not that unfounded. I do concede that 12 +dmg gems are simply better than the damage/crit equivalents though from a mathematical standpoint, but the fraction is slim enough that I don't lose sleep over it.

I'm not here to tell everyone that 33/28 is the wave of the future and you should all switch. I'm just saying that the difference between it and deep fire is negligible at best in Hyjal/BT gear, especially when you're with an ele shaman, and personally I find AP to be a hell of a lot more useful than molten fury. There are a number of fights where doing your damage up front is more desirable than blowing your wad at the end (azgalor, kazrogal, archimonde, bloodboil, reliquary, teron...). I think it just comes down to personal preference when the theorycrafted difference is imperceptible.
#1142SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Ztorm View Post
Why would you save bloodlust for the last 20%? Most hyjal/BT encounters test your raid survivability, so inevitably there are going to be deaths. Unless there's a phase with a specific DPS requirement (ie: phase 3 reliquary), it's better to pop it early when your entire raid is up and all cooldowns are available.

EDIT: Heh, I think Sancus was referring the initial pull
It's called swapping people into groups to get the bloodlust when people die. I always swap people on the fly...especially dps into groups with shaman. With molten fury active under 20%...bloodlust during this period results in an overall dps increase assuming you have at least 4 dps classes getting the bloodlust. A disadvantage of this would be if the shadow priest & warlock putting up CoE both die before 20%. But it's still 2-5% (if the warlock had mal) higher dps while bloodlust is up for the mages.

There are of course some exceptions to this...if the fights long enough for 2 bloodlusts...if people are going to die no matter what (Teron)...if the shaman will go down soon (teron before the shaman turns into a ghost).



Assuming I was simply wrong about +dmg being calculated at impact...do we know that crit is calculated at the time of cast completion? I would assume so but I still dont' feel comfortable with shatter and combustion.

What vontre is saying is that you can cast combustion and get 4 crits when the buff is up instead of 3 if the first fireball crits. When the first fireball lands...you go to 2 stacks. But does this first fireball gain any crit from having combustion cast while in flight?
#1143SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
So basically people claiming to iceblock off of incoming PoM pyros are full of it? (becuase I never even bothered trying in arena with my ping and thus didn't test it in a duel either and just believed I wasn't getting BSed).

*resorting the list of people I listen to*
#1144SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
So basically people claiming to iceblock off of incoming PoM pyros are full of it? (becuase I never even bothered trying in arena with my ping and thus didn't test it in a duel either and just believed I wasn't getting BSed).

*resorting the list of people I listen to*
No, this works just fine, immunity shields and damage bonuses/reductions do not use the same mechanic.
#1145SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Ok, let me explain.

Watch your crit count carefully. Combustion does not gain charges, or lose invisible "crit count" charges, until your spell hits the target. It's programmed this way because your spell has to actually hit a target to give charges. Otherwise you could just spam flamestrike rank 1 on the ground and get to 10 combustion charges guaranteed.

Anyway, regardless of other mechanics, all the damage calculations of the spell are done when the spell leaves your hands and mana is consumed. Hit, crit, resist, damage, all of it. The damage is not DEALT until the spell lands, however. So if you have combustion stacked to 5, and have already crit twice, you should fireblast immediately after your next fireball. Both the fireball and the fire blast will gain the 50% crit bonus from combustion.
#1146SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
But the ignites won't add up. Its a known bug.
#1147SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Ah...I see what you're saying now. So when you cast that first fireball and use combustion...and then it crits...this is only using your normal crit. It still consumes a charge even though you didn't get the benefit of 10% crit when the damage was calculated.
#1148SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Cardynal
Originally Posted by manly View Post
But the ignites won't add up. Its a known bug.
Then does Vontre's spreadsheet correctly model the fireballx2 fireblastx1 rotation? I had forgotten about that bug...but i thought there was some effort to improve the mechanic a while back?

EDIT

So I went into last night's WWS...just to see that it is still a bug.


The correct calculation if fireblast hits after fireball

04:11'38.059 Cardynal's Fireball crits Shadowmoon Champion for 4820 Fire damage
04:11'39.215 Cardynal's Fire Blast crits Shadowmoon Champion for 2757 Fire damage
04:11'40.137 Cardynal's Fireball dots Shadowmoon Champion for 27 Fire damage
04:11'42.200 Cardynal's Ignite dots Shadowmoon Champion for 1976 Fire damage
04:11'42.200 Cardynal's Fireball dots Shadowmoon Champion for 27 Fire damage
04:11'44.012 Cardynal's Ignite dots Shadowmoon Champion for 1976 Fire damage


The incorrect calculation if fireblast hits right before fireball

04:30'06.793 Cardynal's Fire Blast crits Shadowmoon Houndmaster for 2851 Fire damage
04:30'07.075 Cardynal's Fireball crits Shadowmoon Houndmaster for 4825 Fire damage
04:30'08.965 Cardynal's Fireball dots Shadowmoon Houndmaster for 30 Fire damage
04:30'09.778 Cardynal's Ignite dots Shadowmoon Houndmaster for 965 Fire damage

I suppose it's possible the damage was dispursed through 3 ignites...but the target was dead after the first one. Either way the ignite tick 2 seconds after the fireball doesn't include the ignite from the fireblast. But if it ticked 3 times...teh damage wouldnt' be correct

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/16/07 at 5:54 PM.
#1149SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ztorm
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
As long as *your* group is up, and consists of mostly mages, it doesn't really matter who else is up or isn't(at least in terms of the benefit Bloodlust is providing), and popping Bloodlust with Molten Fury is a pretty significant dps difference from popping it without, 20% damage is a bigger multiplier than any other cooldowns I can think of. I think popping bloodlust with Molten Fury is pretty reasonable, unless there is some dps requirement at a different % that is more important.

Or the target will die before Bloodlust is over, but then you should just pop it at 25% or 30% instead.
Good points. I have always favored a more conservative early bloodlust when deaths are not an issue. It didn't matter too much when everyone was arcane, but I guess the DPS benefit from a later bloodlust outweighs the risks of an early deaths. You are right Cardynal in that swapping other DPS into bloodlust groups can recover a lot of the lost DPS from an unexpected death. But since we generally run with 4 shamans, so all the DPS can usually get a bloodlust .
#1150SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Ah...I see what you're saying now. So when you cast that first fireball and use combustion...and then it crits...this is only using your normal crit. It still consumes a charge even though you didn't get the benefit of 10% crit when the damage was calculated.
You are correct, but no that isn't what Vontre meant. The spell damage is calculated at the time the spell 'leaves your hand'. This means a good old combo of combustion->flamestrike->blastwave will yield some rather 'odd' results. For example:

combustion -> flamestrike (+10%) -> blastwave (+100%)
flamestrike does get +10% crit to all the targets it hits. For sake of simplicity let's say your flamestrike hits 10 targets, 2 of which are crits. When you cast blastwave, you have 100% critrate on your targets. They will all crit. If the damage was calculated at the time of landing, then logically combustion shouldn't allow for all 10 targets to get +100% crit rate.

combustion-> flamestrike (hit 5 target, +10%) -> flamestrike (+60%) -> blastwave (+100%)
this is a variant to better illustrate the same bug, but in an even more odd way. The first flamestrike will gain +10% critrate to its targets. But we INTENTIONALLY only hit half the mobs, so as to be sure not to get 3 crits. Then comes the weird part. If you flamestrike again, this time with 60% extra crit (ie: 90%+ total critrate), then most of your targets will crit. But the odd part is that if you follow it up with a blastwave, you will ALSO have your blastwave get 100% crit rate. It is debatable that this is another bug on top of the 'bug'/mechanic discussed above, but the impact of having damage dealt calculated upon the spell being done casting rather than when it lands has many impacts on the results you see.


EDIT: I didn't want to deal with this, but this is the reason I never recommended anyone bothering with 2x fireball/fireblast rotations. I've heard a bunch of differing reports from patch to patch as to whether that bug ever got fixed. To the best of my knowledge it is still very much alive. A fireball->fireblast won't add the ignite damage, but rather, if I recall correctly, only keep the ignite damage from the fireblast and 'lose' the fireball ignite (I know it sounds like nonsense, but thats how it works last I heard a credible source doing tests on it). I've stopped caring since I've got my 4pc, which has been quite a while, so I never bothered to spend 2 min of my time to double check how this works.
#1151SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
The blastweave chained with the flamestrike getting the crit probably has something to do with the fact that "order of operations" in the game isn't compeltely straight-forward. Just like if you look at WWS/combat log there are just some things that you know cannot happen in that order and should've happened in reverse according to common sense, and while most of the time you could excuse it as "lag", sometimes it looks like there shouldn't be any way 1 event happened before the other.
Just like 2 mages can sheep eachother in a duel and both sheep will go off, or you can even kill someone and have him kill you without anyone using damage over time spells - if the killing blow is done by both sides in close enough intervals, unless I was seeing things wrong as I didn't make repeated tests about it, both will die, even though logically it should be impossible, just like the sheeping.
#1152SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Combustion takes a short half a second to compute consumed charges - which is why mages with low crit chance should make a macro to /stopcasting /cast Fire blast /stopcasting /cast Combustion (at least pre-patch), at the tail of a fireball, so neither crits, and the Combustion essentially starts at 3 stacks. This allows it to refresh quicker, and if they do crit, ideally they'd have crit with combustion anyways so you save time cooling your Combustion down faster. This also works with Flamestrike or Blast wave (macro above except instead of fire blast use blast wave). This allows you to aoe with the spell at the 0% bonus crit rate, and assuming you don't get 3 crits, you'll immediatly be stacked up at 6-10 charges of combustion.

Any mage regardless of his crit should try to fire blast with his assumedly last fireball, i believe it's more beneficial than hoping it doesn't crit and wasting it on fire blast in most cases.

Btw, in regards to napkin math AP Fireball and getting that last fireball: Assuming you wish to do 6x fireball 1x PoM pyro (which does get the benefit at the time of the cast, the naysayers who said otherwise should be shot). You realistically need to get the first 6 fireballs off 14.80 seconds into it (varies by lag, this is hopefully a conservative estimate). Which means a fireball every ~2.4667, which using the 2.4667=3/(1+x) formula, x is ~21.6% spell haste. Which is ~340 spell haste, for the entire length of the 5(6) fireballs. Assuming you pop skull of gul'dan, you need ~165 passive spell haste outside of skull. Good luck.

P.S. If you are mage tanking and can't live one full blast at the start of the encounter, you don't have enough hp/shielding on you when you pull.
#1153SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Searix your post is slightly dense to understand and I don't mean dense as in dumb, I mean a lot of information with not much expletive: I don't clearly get what you're proposing in the first paragraph and why: Firstly, I don't think a macro which sequences anything with a GCD and -afterwards- sequences a non-GCD spell will work: It'll simply cast fireblast and return an error with the request of Combustion. Secondly, unless I got it wrong (which I suspect I have) you suggest switching combustion on or at the same time as the previous ball and current blast hit so as to tag +2charges to it? Do you have data backing that this won't consume Combustion charges? For the fireball that left before, I can within reason see why it shouldn't consume 1/3 combustion, but I'm quite sceptical about the fireblast you mention in your macro.

Secondly, assuming this does work, it's an awful lot of work to cause the combustion's 3 crits to happen a tiny bit earlier, what's the point? We already know that Combustion works better and gives more value to mages with lower crit, so devising a mechanic that will force it to accelerate it's self is only in a tiny way beneficial as it'll get the Cool-down to start a few seconds earlier (as Comb CD countdown starts when it's run out).
#1154SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
For the fireball that left before, I can within reason see why it shouldn't consume 1/3 combustion
It does though, shoot fireball and click combustion while it's in the air, if it crits it takes 1/3 of combustion, however I'm not sure it get's the 10% extra crit. I always feel cheated when this happens.
#1155SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
I'm almost certain the same happens, though I'm willing to accept Searix's version given proof. Usually I chill for a quarter seccond or so untill the ball hits before hitting combustion; having to down a manastone (for serpent coil braid) and click a trinket makes it a click and a key most of the time, but if in doubt, i'll fireblast to instigate at least a GCD worth of time before Combustion on.
#1156SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
It does though, shoot fireball and click combustion while it's in the air, if it crits it takes 1/3 of combustion, however I'm not sure it get's the 10% extra crit. I always feel cheated when this happens.
Pretty sure it does.

Optimaly combustion should be clicked in air when you cast a fireball, and you should not fireblast nor scorch until you think a third fireball will crit.
#1157SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kanearcane
Arcane is tops if you have the T5 2piece bonus.

I went fire after 2.3, and immediately went back to arcane after one raid.

Something that i haven't seen mentioned(could be blind) is for the burst damage call, "ALL OUT"...if you have managed your mana or have evoc up, arcane blast out dps's everything with the T5 2 piece bonus while in SSC and TK.
#1158SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Grai
Originally Posted by kanearcane View Post
Arcane is tops if you have the T5 2piece bonus.

I went fire after 2.3, and immediately went back to arcane after one raid.

Something that i haven't seen mentioned(could be blind) is for the burst damage call, "ALL OUT"...if you have managed your mana or have evoc up, arcane blast out dps's everything with the T5 2 piece bonus while in SSC and TK.
Not to sound like a jerk, but a guy with three posts coming into a thread and posting a outright contradiction to all the painstaking math and theorycrafting in this thread without backing it up is not someone who is going to be taken seriously.

Unless you'd like to backup your claim with some substantial theorycrafting, then I suggest you reread the highlights of this thread. In addition, I would suggest that being fire for one raid is not enough to get into the groove of how to maximize your DPS.
#1159SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Let me clarify a few points:

I'm in college for an engineer major, definately not english

Macro i meant to post is /combustion /fire blast, and it brings a few dps boosting benefits:
-Your combustion refreshes faster
-If you sync your trinkets/pots with Combustion (which you should), you can guarentee getting the full benefit through all of your combustions, if you don't, and charge up from 1, there's a chance of a resist, or a non crit string etc. that you end up hitting your last 1-2 fireballs without your trinket/destruction pot
-More dependable combustion, ignoring the incinerate talent, assuming you don't crit your first 2 (which often happens if you use the macro, as the fireball you cast in mid-air and the fire blast don't benefit from the combustion), you start with 3 charges and no crits

Btw pint, not macroing your trinket/cools and clicking them can and often does outweigh the benefit of even using them at all.

Also, if you want evidence of the "in-air" spell not getting benefit of combustion if activated while in the air/cast, an easy test is to cast flamestrike on a group of mobs and immediatly hit combustion. What happens a good portion of the time (depending on your crit chance) is that you get 1-2 crits, and your Combustion stacks up to 10.

Edit: I'm not sure if using Combustion after the fire blast works, it might, but i'm pretty certain that if you macro combustion into fire blast, that the fire blast won't get the combustion charge but will consume one
#1160SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frah
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
It does though, shoot fireball and click combustion while it's in the air, if it crits it takes 1/3 of combustion, however I'm not sure it get's the 10% extra crit. I always feel cheated when this happens.
There is an easy solution and thats to pop combustion after a scorch and after you activate your trinkets. You can also wait a fraction of a second after the scorch and do combustion then trinkets if you prefer. It is less of a wait since scorch = 0 flight time. This also reduces the chance of getting a mass of fireballs in a row without crits forcing you to refresh scorch while still having combustion (or at least reduces the chance).
#1161SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Xei
Unless I am missing something, frostbite appears to have a substantially lower proc rate.

I was getting ~2.5% chance to proc off max rank frostbolt whilst farming fire/air elementals (level 70/71).

PM convo with the useless GM - I haven't posted in WoW suggestion forum or anything like that yet, just checking I haven't missed something obvious.

Max rank frostbolts.
~900 casts (large sample size).
Level 70/71 mobs that are not immune.
Attached Images
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#1162SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Xei View Post
Unless I am missing something, frostbite appears to have a substantially lower proc rate.

I was getting ~2.5% chance to proc off max rank frostbolt whilst farming fire/air elementals (level 70/71).

PM convo with the useless GM - I haven't posted in WoW suggestion forum or anything like that yet, just checking I haven't missed something obvious.

Max rank frostbolts.
~900 casts (large sample size).
Level 70/71 mobs that are not immune.
Could this be related to the what i could have sworn was the "frosbite breaking sound" occuring often with my frostbolt casts? Meaning maybe frostbite's occuring the same second frostbolt hits, consuming it instantly?
#1163SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Pintofbrew
I have a confession:

This business with keeping CDs until combustion is up... I'm not entirely sure I get the point;

Let's look at the data: Icon, has a 2m CD, thus we model it as 43+ [(20/120)*155] which is 78. If we model it, however, as "on every 3m" it becomes a mere +60 dmg trink. Taking into account that for a 20sec duration trink, we're only going to get a maximum of 18sec bonus from it (given 0 haste and 0 latency) it drops down to a pathetic +58. I know this is not an optimal model and I know it's theoretical and inacurate, it does however show a deffinite decline given increased down-time as an illustration.

Then let's look at Combustion. (Note: I'm not examining combustion in Molten Fury range. Given close proximity to 20% I agree that delaying trink CD is optimal because the MF benefit outweighs the "down time" disadvantage. I'm reffering to the 3m rotation of Combustion). Average fire mage crit rate is over 35%. So technically, the 6 fireballs we'd cast under Icon's power, in all likelihood, would have 2 crits in them whether or not we combusted. Given combustion, the chance we get at least three (possibly more if combustion burns off quickly) is higher.

Is there theorycraft to prove that the gain from waiting 50% longer cooldown on a -use- trinket in order to get a "generally higher crit" cycle under Combustion honestly optimal rather than mashing the icon whenever it's cooled, even including a scorch at the end just to maximize the last 2sec of it's power?

Searix: Much clearer now, as for trink-macroing, I have /use 13 on my combustion macro, but I'd rather not script-in an if-gate with [Alt] saying additionally "use: Mana emerald, Mana Jade, Mana citrine, Mana blahblahblah" because then I'd still need to find a work-around for when I want to combust, icon and eat the lvl 23 mana stone, as well as when I want to simply combust before a trash pull just for the sake of it (a function I have already). Too complex, too annoying and too shoddy. Combine with the sorry state that Serpent Coil Braid sets-off Icon's CD. What I do in fact, is hit Combustion/trink macro with index finger (T), fraction of a second later click "use mana stone rotation/last stone" macro and simultaneously thumb-press (C) which is my fireball. It might be slower than one-buttoning but honestly, it's less hassle than making a complex mile-long macro which will run into the 250 letter limit and be buggy when I want to do part of it and not the rest of it. Losing .3sec I doubt will out-weigh using them at all. Three different fingers, three different actions: One of which HAS to have an earlier time-stamp than the other two: hardly much delay over two buttons.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/18/07 at 7:56 AM.
#1164SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I have a confession:

This business with keeping CDs until combustion is up... I'm not entirely sure I get the point;

Let's look at the data: Icon, has a 2m CD, thus we model it as 43+ [(20/120)*155] which is 78. If we model it, however, as "on every 3m" it becomes a mere +60 dmg trink. Taking into account that for a 20sec duration trink, we're only going to get a maximum of 18sec bonus from it (given 0 haste and 0 latency) it drops down to a pathetic +58. I know this is not an optimal model and I know it's theoretical and inacurate, it does however show a deffinite decline given increased down-time as an illustration.

Then let's look at Combustion. (Note: I'm not examining combustion in Molten Fury range. Given close proximity to 20% I agree that delaying trink CD is optimal because the MF benefit outweighs the "down time" disadvantage. I'm reffering to the 3m rotation of Combustion). Average fire mage crit rate is over 35%. So technically, the 6 fireballs we'd cast under Icon's power, in all likelihood, would have 2 crits in them whether or not we combusted. Given combustion, the chance we get at least three (possibly more if combustion burns off quickly) is higher.

Is there theorycraft to prove that the gain from waiting 50% longer cooldown on a -use- trinket in order to get a "generally higher crit" cycle under Combustion honestly optimal rather than mashing the icon whenever it's cooled, even including a scorch at the end just to maximize the last 2sec of it's power?

Searix: Much clearer now, as for trink-macroing, I have /use 13 on my combustion macro, but I'd rather not script-in an if-gate with [Alt] saying additionally "use: Mana emerald, Mana Jade, Mana citrine, Mana blahblahblah" because then I'd still need to find a work-around for when I want to combust, icon and eat the lvl 23 mana stone, as well as when I want to simply combust before a trash pull just for the sake of it (a function I have already). Too complex, too annoying and too shoddy. Combine with the sorry state that Serpent Coil Braid sets-off Icon's CD. What I do in fact, is hit Combustion/trink macro with index finger (T), fraction of a second later click "use mana stone rotation/last stone" macro and simultaneously thumb-press (C) which is my fireball. It might be slower than one-buttoning but honestly, it's less hassle than making a complex mile-long macro which will run into the 250 letter limit and be buggy when I want to do part of it and not the rest of it. Losing .3sec I doubt will out-weigh using them at all. Three different fingers, three different actions: One of which HAS to have an earlier time-stamp than the other two: hardly much delay over two buttons.
You shouldn't be waiting on trinket cooldowns, as you noted waiting and delaying it by a substantial amount kills the dps gain. What you should do is either pair it with the first combustion, then whenever either comes up, or aim for waiting a few seconds and re-pairing it on the 3rd combustion. (Not sure which is more dps, saving your trinkets for combustion or saving those 10 seconds and just popping them).

As for my combustion rotations, i've used the following macros for a while and they've served me just fine.

1)
/stopcasting
/cast combustion
/stopcasting
/cast Fire Blast

2)
/use 14
/stopcasting
/use Mana Agate
/use Mana Emerald
/use Mana etc.
/stopcasting
/use Destruction Potion
/stopcasting
/cast Fireball.

Trinkets:
Serpent-Braid;
Activatable of choosing

Pop 1 at the tail of a fireball, pop 2 on the heels of that global cooldown. This is in addition to a plain pop mana gems macro (not used in normal pve boss cycle though, more for pvp when i dont have braid on)

This results in the desired effects: Combustion is activated whenever you want (If you want to do it before combat or before sheep), and no dps time is lost hitting your cooldowns.

Also... braid + activatable does work in a macro and always has worked, as long as you pop the activatable first.
#1165SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Zipher
Originally Posted by kanearcane View Post
Arcane is tops if you have the T5 2piece bonus.

I went fire after 2.3, and immediately went back to arcane after one raid.

Something that i haven't seen mentioned(could be blind) is for the burst damage call, "ALL OUT"...if you have managed your mana or have evoc up, arcane blast out dps's everything with the T5 2 piece bonus while in SSC and TK.
To try and be a little helpful to you, you can still burn your excess mana with Arcane Blast even if you have 10/47/3+1 spec. Molten Fury affects arcane spells too.
#1166SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Could this be related to the what i could have sworn was the "frosbite breaking sound" occuring often with my frostbolt casts? Meaning maybe frostbite's occuring the same second frostbolt hits, consuming it instantly?
If that were correct shouldn't his crit percentage be much higher then that? He had a 28% crit rate from the data he gave to the GM, if the frostbolt that caused the frostbite was also consuming it shouldn't he be getting shatters on those frostbolts increasing his crit rate substantially?
#1167SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Zipher View Post
To try and be a little helpful to you, you can still burn your excess mana with Arcane Blast even if you have 10/47/3+1 spec. Molten Fury affects arcane spells too.
While this is correct, the amount of AB you'd have to do to surpass the loss from AB ramp time and make a useful gain over fireball-spam during MF time is substantial. Perhaps in 13.45.3 it might be worth it but let's face it: It's a lot of hassle to gain small DPS gains which are not affected either by Bloodlust (which should be saved for MF range) or by Flamecap, don't gain haste benefit are not interrupt-resistant and have 30y range instead of 41. And cost a horrendous amount of mana.

Even if you've worked your cycle to end OOM, I still don't see why you should: What if 30sec before the end of the fight three DPS die for some freak reason? Or some DPS disco's? No biggie, you simply have 12sec more DPS time... Which you won't be able to do if you worked it out for OOM@0%health.

Searix: I appreciate that a macro that does everything is possible and straightforward; I prefer, however, that I have the option of partial-activation. Hence, to feel comfortable I'd have to build in [modifier=alt] and [modifier=shift] clauses for certain aspects of the macro which then becomes too long-winded and complex for no good reason. Rather than have a button for Trink, one for mana stone, one for Combustion and one for all-three I don't see how losing a quarter second per combustion is such a problem. It's not a case of "either 1-click, or three clicks" it's a case of 3 separate fingers actuating 3 separate buttons almost seamlessly quickly with negligible delay.

Scripting in fireball to the combustion macro is something that I'll do when I take off SCB trink though, why that didn't occur to me before is a mystery, thanks.
#1168SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0zeonec
Originally Posted by Frah View Post
There is an easy solution and thats to pop combustion after a scorch and after you activate your trinkets. You can also wait a fraction of a second after the scorch and do combustion then trinkets if you prefer. It is less of a wait since scorch = 0 flight time. This also reduces the chance of getting a mass of fireballs in a row without crits forcing you to refresh scorch while still having combustion (or at least reduces the chance).
Even using scorch I get a combustion "charge" building up if i activate combustion right after the scorch hit! And like Vhad says i too feel "cheated" when it happens.
Since this shouldn't be happening with a spell with 0 cast time i guess it has to do with the latency as well. I do not presume to know how exactly how this works client/server side wise but just to illustrate how i think it might work:

server sends: scorch attempt succesful (crit)
client side: I pop combustion
client recieves: scorch attempt succesful(crit)
client side: -- 1/3 combustion
client side: ++ combustion charge

This has had me sometimes doing an AB instead of scorch right before popping combustion or waiting a bit after any firespell hit before popping it. I don't care for either very much!
#1169SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
While I think it's pretty obvious without calculations to say that turning the icon from 2 min to (more than) 3 min is not worth it for combustion, due to their odd durations/cooldowns and nature of fights (that make you not nescessarily want to mash each ability "on-cooldown"), you may end up with something like the trinket coming up right before combustion or vise-versa.
What would actually be interesting (and useful) is to find a way to figure out, more or less, how much time should I have left on my combustion when my icon comes up in order for me to get more DPS by waiting? Obviously with short time left you should wait and with high time left you shouldn't, but modelling how much is "high" and how much is "low" would be interesting, even if done roughly. Something like "if you have more than 5-10 seconds left don't wait, otherwise wait" would be very useful (as between 5 to 10 seconds the difference between waiting and not waiting would probably be very small anyway in that example).
#1170SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by zeonec View Post
Even using scorch I get a combustion "charge" building up if i activate combustion right after the scorch hit! And like Vhad says i too feel "cheated" when it happens.
Since this shouldn't be happening with a spell with 0 cast time i guess it has to do with the latency as well. I do not presume to know how exactly how this works client/server side wise but just to illustrate how i think it might work:

server sends: scorch attempt succesful (crit)
client side: I pop combustion
client recieves: scorch attempt succesful(crit)
client side: -- 1/3 combustion
client side: ++ combustion charge

This has had me sometimes doing an AB instead of scorch right before popping combustion or waiting a bit after any firespell hit before popping it. I don't care for either very much!

There might be a slight chance there's something iffy with scorch:

Crusade trinket works on a similar basis of "1 spell hit = 1 charge" but for 1xscorch you gain two charges of the crusade effect.

Perhaps this is a scorch-specific problem: The game is counting Scorch and Improved Scorch as two separate spells that happen at the same time.

Also note, a scorch crit will incraese Crusade by three, though this clearly has no effect on Combustion.
#1171SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
That's because it's 3 different spells, Fire Vulnerability, Ignite and the spell it self. Does fireball give 2 charges too because of the dot?
#1172SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Keyne
OUTs

Delaying using trinkets (and consumables for that matter) is only suboptimal if the remaining fight duration is such that you will get to use them more than once. If you somehow knew for certain that there was only one minute, fifty-nine seconds left in a fight, you are only going to get one activation anyways, so it doesn't matter when you use it. The only time it matters when you use it is when there is 2 minutes or more left in the encounter...

Edit: ... or if you know something is going to happen that warps your damage enough to justify the delay (curator evocate, bloodlust, etc.)
#1173SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
galzohar
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
Edit: ... or if you know something is going to happen that warps your damage enough to justify the delay (curator evocate, bloodlust, etc.)
which, as I said, is dependant on both how much time you actually need to wait and how good is the buff for which you're waiting for.
For example (assuming you don't know when the fight is going to end in this case and are not going oom to make it simple) if you have 1 minute left before heroism cooldown comes back up, if you wait you lose 1/2 a use, and gain back 45% of a use via the haste. Overall not worth it actually. If you know the fight is going to end before you get to use it again or the 1 minute until heroism is also 1 minute until 20%, it's worth waiting. However if it's up to you when to use the heroism it gets more complicated, but assuming it's worth saving the heroism for 20% (as I assume the sub 20% damage bonus and heroism bonus are both much greater than the trinket bonus), the trinket is worth saving as well in this case as it's multiplied by 1.2 and 1.45 resulting in more than 1/2 a use to make up for the lost 1/2 a use. The benefit from saving it here isn't great, though.

As you can see there are a lot of stuff that can affect wether it's worth saving or not, and I'd like to see some generic way to handle it

Last edited by galzohar : 11/18/07 at 8:03 PM.
#1174SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Amarilia
Originally Posted by Xei View Post
Unless I am missing something, frostbite appears to have a substantially lower proc rate.
Your findings confirm what I experienced myself. I've hardly had any frostbite procs on my frostbolts lately, far too few to go unnoticed.

Will prolly be hotfixed soon I guess, it's a pretty serious bug especially in pvp.
#1175SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Alvira
Arcane is still viable as long as you have two piece T5. This is what I am finding so far. The buff to arcane meditation means that you have more mana to spam AB. And if you are not quite in a position to get 4 piece T6 yet, then in fights where you get to spam AB a lot, you will still come out pretty well in dmg meters.

Deep arcane's AOE with AP applied is still extremely powerful as well. I think it would take a very well played fire spec with all buffs and destructive potion and such to beat out deep arcane's AOE.

I went with a rotation of 3xAB, 2xFB. To be honest, this is a much easier to keep up rotation than the previous 3xAB, AM, scorch. And actually, I find that I could use AB much more often. So the fireball rotation only comes in very occasionally. So, my sense is that if you are not quite at the stage of having Illidan on farm and still progressing, then deep arcane is competitive to deep fire.

There will be some fights were deep fire is better, and others where deep arcane wins out.
#1176SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 pewsey
Hi Alvira,

You're commenting on exactly what I'm noticing right now. I was 40/0/21 in 2.2, and switched back to 10/47/3+1 in 2.3. My single target DPS is much better (from looking at the WWS parses), but my AOE is substantially lower.

I was competitive with the other mages in AOE previously, now I'm about 66% of their AOE.

Having said that, I'm not convinced that building a spec particularly around AOE is that much value provided we have enough combined AOE in the raid to operate.
#1177SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post

Deep arcane's AOE with AP applied is still extremely powerful as well. I think it would take a very well played fire spec with all buffs and destructive potion and such to beat out deep arcane's AOE.

Why would you ever want to use AP with AoE?

You understand that all AoE spells are affected by a damage cap, right?

It means that the damage you can apply to mobs is limited to X amount and that amount is not increased by using AP or by popping trinkets or by anything except for haste for any AoE with a casting time or by crit rate since the damage cap is based on a spread of hits and crits are allowed to exceed the cap. The cap at your damage level is roughly 8-10 mobs so using AP just means that you are doing no additional damage for that cooldown if there are more then 8-10 mobs in the group.

Deep Arcane does have the best AoE but that is due to Spellpower and Arcane Impact, since one gives you bigger Arcane crits and the other makes those crits more common.

Stop wasting your AP on your AoE and save it for the bosses.
#1178SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 pewsey
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Why would you ever want to use AP with AoE?

Stop wasting your AP on your AoE and save it for the bosses.
What do you think of using AP + AoE on Kael's summoned weapons ?
#1179SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by pewsey View Post
What do you think of using AP + AoE on Kael's summoned weapons ?

My comments are more associated with the AoE needed for Hyjal and....Morogrim is the other fight that always pops in my head when I think of AoE. I completely forgot about Kael and AoEing the weapons.

Kael is probably the only time that you would want to think about using AP with AoE. Although I personally think that the AP would be put to better use killing either the Axe or Thaladred after the weapons die. The AoE is extremely mana draining already and adding another 30% cost onto that seems a bit excessive. If the bow was able to be stunned in the middle of the AoE pack and the axe was being perfectly tanked just inside of AE range then I would probably pop AP but unless everything is in the pile I would probably want to save it for what comes right after the AoE is done.
#1180SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Xei
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Could this be related to the what i could have sworn was the "frosbite breaking sound" occuring often with my frostbolt casts? Meaning maybe frostbite's occuring the same second frostbolt hits, consuming it instantly?
I did notice during that farming session that sometimes the mob would appear on my screen to stop for a split second (as though it was trapped) but then continue on moving towards me. I just put it down to Australian latency (~500ms).

I might throw a post on the WoW boards and see if anyone else has noticed it as well. I might get a rogue to put on a skinnnig knife and stab me 900 times and see if Frost Armour is displaying a similar proc rate - though I did notice in an arena game versus two rogues that it proc'd often enough to kill them both after they ganked and raped my Hunter partner :p
#1181SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
My comments are more associated with the AoE needed for Hyjal and....Morogrim is the other fight that always pops in my head when I think of AoE. I completely forgot about Kael and AoEing the weapons.

Kael is probably the only time that you would want to think about using AP with AoE. Although I personally think that the AP would be put to better use killing either the Axe or Thaladred after the weapons die. The AoE is extremely mana draining already and adding another 30% cost onto that seems a bit excessive. If the bow was able to be stunned in the middle of the AoE pack and the axe was being perfectly tanked just inside of AE range then I would probably pop AP but unless everything is in the pile I would probably want to save it for what comes right after the AoE is done.
Well, I was arcane for Kael and Hyjal and honestly, AP-AE spam worked really very well for me.

We did a kill Bow then AE the rest for weapons and by wanding to full just before the weapons popped I had no issues sustaining mana through the full AE portion with a pot and gem and using AP. That also cheerfully had me well on top of damage dealt during that important phase. The Advisors I never really felt were nearly as much of an issue and given that we had weapons down before they popped or as they popped, I can't ever think of a time where the advisors were not dead well before Kael was even back up.

Hyjal it isn't quite as useful but it certainly never hurt. I'd cap out on the heavy AE work if I APed it but we'd tend to CC a couple of mobs, focus a couple and then AE. We never did bring a paladin in a tanking role so this helped keep threat a bit stable I suppose. Regardless, I'd AP-AE perhaps not on cooldown but certainly situationally and for ~6 targets it was ideal.

It certainly isn't a massive perk but hell, it's a nice tool to have.
#1182SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
The thing is that non-MSD arcane specs with 2/5 T5 are the same, but fire/frost is better, making it less fruitful to spec AB. With 2/5 T5 doing AB rotations (with either AM+scorch or fireballs) you burn as much extra mana as before but don't really do any extra damage compared to 10/48/3 fireball damage (since the actual DPS is pretty close with my stats you may be a little different either way but it's really nothing significant considering the disadvantages). This also means having AB spam time is less useful as the extra DPS it does over fireball spamming is smaller...

Bottom line is, if you want to look at it in a simple way, that since AB specs with 2/5 T5 were already debateable wether they're better or worse than 10/48/3, with 10/48/3 getting a noticeable buff it pretty much eliminates it. Add T6 into the picture and you can completely forget about the arcane blast spell anyway.
#1183SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
I could not agree with northerner more. I have been raiding with alle builds since 2.3 and Arcane is a very good specc as long as you are t5 level equipped and wearing 2t5. This fact is supported not only by my subjective feeling but also by the simulators presented here. It is also a very good specc for Kael if you are used an AoE tactic or learning the encounter.
#1184SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
I'm pretty sure someone has done the math on this, where is the breakpoint between when Fireblast is a dps-gain contra a DPS-loss? As in 2xfireball-fireblast rotation instead of fireball-spamage.

Regarding 2p/t5 AB spec, I don't even see the justification of the mana-dump either. Yes you can dish out AB spam in a pretty darn fast mana-dump but at the same time I never have any problems dumping all my mana as a firemage, actually I oom quite often chainusing gems, pots, ele shaman or sp and using evoc.
#1185SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0marloz
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Why would you ever want to use AP with AoE?

You understand that all AoE spells are affected by a damage cap, right?

It means that the damage you can apply to mobs is limited to X amount and that amount is not increased by using AP or by popping trinkets or by anything except for haste for any AoE with a casting time or by crit rate since the damage cap is based on a spread of hits and crits are allowed to exceed the cap.
Source? If I remember correctly the cap is only applied if the amount of targets exceeds 10.

Area of Effect - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
#1186SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
I'm pretty sure someone has done the math on this, where is the breakpoint between when Fireblast is a dps-gain contra a DPS-loss? As in 2xfireball-fireblast rotation instead of fireball-spamage.
Roughly when fire blast does less than half the fireball's damage.
#1187SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
This is also a tad on the outside of Mage but I'm also wondering on the benefits of bloodlust on a mage and even a warlock contra melee. Our GM DPS warrior has asked for all BL to be chainused on our main melee group which in most fights are top DPS. Now before our Teron kill I thought the idea to be somewhat selfish since I could usually keep up with our melee rather fine but after seeing myself only hitting 1500-1600 dps max on Teron and seeing two of our rogues over 2k with one hitting 2.2k my view drastically changed. I of course only had 1 bl whilst melee had 2-3, haste potions and what not. Is the synergy of increased swings/speeds so much better for melee than it is for us casters? At least when I'm not littered with proc-items that is.
#1188SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Being littered with proc items won't make nearly as much difference on BL as you think. The problem I suspect you're encountering is that the rogues are on the warglaive treatment and that's your problem right there: Their proc doesn't have a CD and with haste it goes berserk.

I can't recall if a 45sec CD is inc or has been implemented yet; Either way, the only really safe way to tell is to experiment over a week with giving no BL to melee and all BL to casters, and compare parses for that.
#1189SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Leialyn
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Why would you ever want to use AP with AoE?

You understand that all AoE spells are affected by a damage cap, right?

It means that the damage you can apply to mobs is limited to X amount and that amount is not increased by using AP or by popping trinkets or by anything except for haste for any AoE with a casting time or by crit rate since the damage cap is based on a spread of hits and crits are allowed to exceed the cap. The cap at your damage level is roughly 8-10 mobs so using AP just means that you are doing no additional damage for that cooldown if there are more then 8-10 mobs in the group.
Sorry, but this is nonsense ... the AoE Damage Cap is applied if there are more than 12 mobs getting hit by an aoe spell at once. And Hyjal Waves only consist of 12 Mobs, so you can't exceed the cap if you kill all waves properly.

And even IF there are more than 12 mobs, then the damage you would do on 12 mobs is summed up and divided by the number of mobs getting hit by the aoe. So popping trinkets or using Arcane Power WILL increase the damage. AP is 30% and percent are percent, no matter what happens! If you would do 800 AE damage on a single mob before the cap ... and you have lets say the double amount of mobs, 24 mobs... then you do 400 on each mob. If you use Arcane Power, then its 30% more... no matter where you put those 30%: ( (800 * 1.3) * 12 ) / 24 is the same as ( (800 * 12) / 24 ) * 1.3 = 520.

And your hint, to save AP for bosses ... I cannot agree on this. If your only goal is to be top on dps meters on morogrim for example, then you get more damage from bombing one murloc pack with AP AoE (if you can survive it ) than using it within those 15 seconds single nuking on the boss. Surely it depends on the number of aoers but it should still be better. If you have a Shadowpriest in your grp, then its no problem.

Last edited by Leialyn : 11/19/07 at 8:22 AM.
#1190SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Being littered with proc items won't make nearly as much difference on BL as you think. The problem I suspect you're encountering is that the rogues are on the warglaive treatment and that's your problem right there: Their proc doesn't have a CD and with haste it goes berserk.

I can't recall if a 45sec CD is inc or has been implemented yet; Either way, the only really safe way to tell is to experiment over a week with giving no BL to melee and all BL to casters, and compare parses for that.
Our melee's doesnt have warglaives since we have only been in BT 4 nights or so and only have Teron down. But it did seem to have a bigger effect on melee (eg Dragonspine trophy etc) than it did on casters. But ye I think i'll try to test this more extensivly in the future.
#1191SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
the AoE Damage Cap is applied if there are more than 12 mobs getting hit by an aoe spell at once
That's not how it works at all. The cap has nothing to do with the number of mobs you are hitting. The cap is a set damage amount - each AE spell can only do so much damage, and no more. If you had enough spell damage gear, you could hit the cap hitting *one* mob. (Obviously would require thousands and thousands of + to spell damage).

Whether or not Arcane Power allows you to go over the cap is something I haven't tested, but the cap itself isn't related to the number of mobs. Sadly enough, the better your gear, the easier it is for you to hit the cap.
#1192SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Leialyn
Melees mostly have more procs than casters and maybe melees profit more on teron because caster spells can get interrupted (by clouds) and melee attacks can't. Or does Concentration Aura add to the talent anti interrupt bonus making it >= 100% ? Back in 2.2 with missile spamming and chain procs on msd and atoi and two heroisms I was one time able to outdamage the rogues on teron, but nowadays I doubt a mage can achieve that, especially not against warglaive rogues.

And for other bosses there's mostly one group (casters or melees) that gets more bonus from BL/Hero, on Supremus and Illidan P2 its ranged who have advantage, on other bosses where casters can get interrupted or have other stuff to do (counterspell, etc) its melees who profit most.
#1193SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
That's not how it works at all. The cap has nothing to do with the number of mobs you are hitting. The cap is a set damage amount - each AE spell can only do so much damage, and no more. If you had enough spell damage gear, you could hit the cap hitting *one* mob. (Obviously would require thousands and thousands of + to spell damage).

Whether or not Arcane Power allows you to go over the cap is something I haven't tested, but the cap itself isn't related to the number of mobs. Sadly enough, the better your gear, the easier it is for you to hit the cap.
No that's never how it was made nor intended. The cap was introduced to prevent mages AOE farming a too large number of mobs, aka Faxmonkeys stupider magetricks that showed how to solo whole scourge invasioncamps (yay revered in 3 hours <3 ). The cap was 10 mobs I thought (where 12 came from I have no idea) which simply capped off the dmg done when the AOE would hit over 10 mobs.
#1194SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Interrupt resist effects do not stack, they are multiplicative. So 70% from talents and concentration aura does not give 100% it gives 79% interrupt resist. This was a big thing back when shamans where whining about a weird talent they had that gave 20% additional interrupt resist and that silly neck from heroic blood furnace, they argued they should be having 100% interrupt resist yet were still getting pushback. Multiplicative nature of the roll is why.

Edit: Both the neck and the talent were later changed to -20% silence duration (will not stack with additional effects of this type).
#1195SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Leialyn
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Interrupt resist effects do not stack, they are multiplicative. So 70% from talents and concentration aura does not give 100% it gives 79% interrupt resist.
Ok. One more argument for giving melees Hero/BL on Teron, RoS, etc ...

@Maledict: Humn... ok, another example of how Blizzards screws the game by making stuff a fixed value and not scaling (Same as bonus threat on warrior spells, etc).
But in the thread on the official forums, Zaldinar states, that Curse of Elements/Shadows does maybe not count towards the cap. So maybe the damage with the cap is calculated BEFORE buffs and debuffs are taken into account and then AP would increase AoE Damage.

I myself was bombing trash waves in in Hyjal doing about 1000-1100 noncrits with AP AE on more than 7 mobs, and that would exceed the damage cap of 6730 for arcane explosion.

Last edited by Leialyn : 11/19/07 at 8:52 AM.
#1196SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Hence why I have told our mages to bring a long 2p t4 for ROS next time to see.
#1197SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
Ok. One more argument for giving melees Hero/BL on Teron, RoS, etc ...

@Maledict: Humn... ok, another example of how Blizzards screws the game by making stuff a fixed value and not scaling (Same as bonus threat on warrior spells, etc).
But in the thread on the official forums, Zaldinar states, that Curse of Elements/Shadows does maybe not count towards the cap. So maybe the damage with the cap is calculated BEFORE buffs and debuffs are taken into account and then AP would increase AoE Damage.

I myself was bombing trash waves in in Hyjal doing about 1000-1100 noncrits with AP AE on more than 7 mobs, and that would exceed the damage cap of 6730 for arcane explosion.
While I don't agree with maledict (I was under the impression the aoe damage cap was a divisor to stop aoeing too many targets) I'll have to poke you about "blizz screwing the game". It doesn't take a genius to see Faxmonkey's Stupider Mage Tricks where he aoes 91 mobs in one go solo, using slow mechanics clever positioning and huge skill. Having the capacity to AOE an unlimited amount of targets is plain stupid and I for one was happy that this was implememted.

Though the concept that maledict proposes that AOE cap has nothing to do with number of targets I think is wrong: if you believe that, feel free to go Stratholme before engaging barron, or in fact after Herod in SM, wait for the hordes of mobs to swamp your screen, hit one AE and see if it kills them or not: Their sheer volume of them divides your damage and any qualms you had as to whether or not AOE dmg cap exists and is it related to number of mobs are put down.
#1198SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Tryst
I think the problem with interrupt resistance and pushback resistance is one of terminology. I myself have not had pushback on RoS phase 2 with a paladin in my group and the 70% pushback resistance to shadow bolt, nor have the mages I group with a paladin for this phase on fireball. The neck from Blood Furnace and the shaman talent worked against spell interrupts, such as counterspell, spell lock, pummel, et. al. Earth Shield and Healing Focus combine to make 100% pushback resistance and that's 70+30. If it's 79% and not 100%, then my gf is the luckiest shaman ever. The same can be tested with paladin Concentration Aura and Spiritual Focus. Just do a big aoe pull and put on conc aura and cast without interruption.
#1199SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 Maledict
I think people are getting confused with the idea behind the cap and the mechanics behind it.

The idea behind the cap is to stop people AEing too many mobs at once. Blizzard don't want mages able to hit 40 mobs at once.

The mechanics behind it were simple (and the reason the 10 mob number comes up). Each spell gets a maximum damage cap, based on the theoretical amount Blizzard wants it to hit on 10 mobs. If you hit more than 10, then your damage starts to go down because you are still capped to that fixed damage amount.
However, the cap is nothing to do with the number of mobs you are hitting - 10 was simply the number Blizzard used to determine the caps. As you get more and more spell damage gear, the damage of your AE goes up, and so you start to hit the cap at 9 mobs, or 8 mobs, or whatever. This is where the question of Arcane power / Curse of elements comes in - I don't think anyone has ever tested whether or not these allow you to exceed the cap, i.e. whether the cap is calculated off your base damage or not.

Pintobrew, the example you give for stratholme doesn't really make much sense, as I don't see how it can prove the issue either way. The easiest way to test this is to find the number of mobs where your current AE hits the cap, then add one more mob to the mix. The damage dealt should go down across all mobs so as to keep the same total damage done.

There was at least one thread on EJ about this when it was introduced, I'll have a look round and see if I can find it.

So 70% from talents and concentration aura does not give 100% it gives 79% interrupt resist
If this is true then I'm the luckiest player alive, as I've never had a fireball interrupted if I have a paladin in my group with Aura of Concentration on. They do stack in an additive fashion.

Last edited by Maledict : 11/19/07 at 9:30 AM.
#1200SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Perhaps I am mistaken on the interrupt stacking, it's been a while since the shaman talent and neck were changed to a different function and perhaps I remember them wrongly.

Maledict: The wording of your first post confused me. While your latter post clears it better I'm still not sure I understand a few aspects.

Say AE base spell deals 120 damage. Call it x10 for the arbitrary number blizz came up, does that mean the damage cap of AE is 1200? What if, vs 1 mob, my AE hits for 200 due to gear, is my cap still 1200? (ie. I can fully damage up to 6 mobs without experiencing damage size reduction)

Or is it a case of 120(base)+80(gear)=200, 200x10=2000 = dmg cap per cast?

As for the example, it was under the (false) assumption you stated that damage cap limits spell-damage size in damage-per-target but not in number-of-targets. A missinterpretation on my behalf, I took your "cap not related to number of targets" wrongly.
#1201SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
Yes Pintobrew, the last testing I read on it concluded that was *exactly* how it works. As you gear up, you hit the damage cap earlier and earlier. It could probably do with re-testing though, as it's been a long time since Blizzard introduced the changes, and many patches have gone by with some fairly fundamental mechanics changes in them.

The only number I can remember from the initial testing was that Cone of Cold at maximum rank was capped at around 5600 damage. Easiest way to do it would be to do SM with Herod and see what you get on the adepts with your maximum rank spells.
#1202SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Leialyn
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I'll have to poke you about "blizz screwing the game". It doesn't take a genius to see Faxmonkey's Stupider Mage Tricks where he aoes 91 mobs in one go solo, using slow mechanics clever positioning and huge skill. Having the capacity to AOE an unlimited amount of targets is plain stupid and I for one was happy that this was implememted.
I don't criticize the Cap itself, I criticize the fact, that the cap is a fixed amount and does not scale with spelldamage (As Maledict stated "As you gear up, you hit the damage cap earlier and earlier.")

There are a lot of things in WoW that do not scale with equipment (like the threat bonus on warrior spells that I mentioned) .. or if you take all caster classes, the basic concept of caster had almost no equipment scaling in it until they introduced spelldamage. You can see this best at the base stats: How much do Melees profit from mark of the wild and blessing of kings? And how much do caster classes do?

Thats what I mean with "blizz screwing the game".
#1203SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
marloz
Rounced is correct, AP does not increase the damage further than the hard-cap. AE cap is 6730.

14 targets no AP:
481 hit 875 crit

11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 874 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 874 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Prisoner for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Insurgent for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Insurgent for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Insurgent for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Convict for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Inmate for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Prisoner for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 14:58:48.031  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Inmate for 481 Arcane damage.
14 targets with AP:
481 hit 875 crit

11/19 15:09:12.343  You gain Arcane Power.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Captive for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Prisoner for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Convict for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Inmate for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Inmate for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Prisoner for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Inmate for 874 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Captive for 874 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Prisoner for 874 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.343  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Captive for 481 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.359  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Prisoner for 875 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.359  Your Arcane Explosion crits Defias Prisoner for 874 Arcane damage.
11/19 15:09:12.359  Your Arcane Explosion hits Defias Inmate for 481 Arcane damage.
Single target hit: 706 (AP: 903)

This is with 1189 spelldamage (1340 with Arcane Mind) which means AP only benefits AE if there is less than 7~ targets. This will of course depend on your spelldamage.

Last edited by marloz : 11/19/07 at 10:26 AM.
#1204SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
No JoW from Frostbolt?

Has anyone had a Frostbolt proc Judgement of Wisdom since 2.3 hit?

The total Rage WC => Archimonde => Reliquary clear yielded 2 JoW procs for me (frost), 0 for our second frost mage.
Our fire mages had 66 and 91 JoW procs. Our water elementals had 49 procs together.
The log is mine, so not all other mages were on every encounter.

One of my procs was on Essence of Suffering from an Ice Lance crit.
The other was from a wand hit on Teron Gorefiend (yay for 1 Evocation tick with 2/5 T6).


Anyone else seeing something fishy? I'd love to file a bug report, but WoW EU forums don't have that option.
#1205SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Grai
Originally Posted by marloz View Post
Rounced is correct, AP does not increase the damage further than the hard-cap. AE cap is 6730.
So does this then suggest that if there is more then a certain number of targets (aprox 8 if I had to guess) that Blizzard would be the best bet for damage (assuming no spellfire, therefor high frost damage) over Flamestrike? Something similar for AE but I didn't napkin math it out.

Another concept, how does this apply to warlocks Seed of Corruption. With it detonating for aprox 1200, they hit this cap very quickly (5-6 targets). Should we then be encouraging RoF over seed for large AoE groups in Hyjal?
#1206SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 Maledict
When Marlox says AE, he means Arcane Explosion. Each area effect spell has it's own damage cap, so there's no real advantage in one spell over the other.

It could do with further testing though - things like :

i) does Curse of shadows affect the end result? (or misery)
ii) does the doT from flamestrike get affected by it?

Last edited by Maledict : 11/19/07 at 12:29 PM.
#1207SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Roywin: There's definitely something amiss with Frostbolt: It's not proccing Frostbite nearly as much as it should either. On Morogrim last night (only fight we get JoW) I didn't notice a single proc off it for my bolts either. We better get to the bottom of it quick, a hot-fix should be implemented.
#1208SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0universe
serious question

Was wondering which helm did more dps. I have max hit already without having the VR Helm. At the moment i have close to 40% crit and with my hit gear on 165 hit. Currently i am using the Aldor helm with the CSD in it. Seeing if anyone could tell me if using aldor helm with the CSD in it would be more beneficial to me as a 10/48/3 mage then the VR helm. Any suggestions would be appreciated thanks
#1209SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Can't see your armory but with maxed hit and 40% crit at T4 gear level (or even some T5) you cannot be gemmed properly, as in your spell damage must be lower than it could be (at the cost of crit, getting a net DPS increase).
Then again maybe I'm just wrong and you have full T6+ except headpiece but for some reason I'm guessing that's not the case.
#1210SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0universe
i have a 36% crit but i always have an elemental shammy with me so i have close to a 40% crit in raids. You never answered my question i need help with the 2 helms and knowing which will give me the most dps under the circumstances
#1211SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by universe View Post
i have a 36% crit but i always have an elemental shammy with me so i have close to a 40% crit in raids. You never answered my question i need help with the 2 helms and knowing which will give me the most dps under the circumstances
This isn't an 'answer my question' thread. That would be here. You could also look into Vontre's mage spreadsheet which will help you answer this one very specific question.
#1212SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
As an example for the weapons I can only show this. I'd note that the non-AP part is a little off, likely because we'd paint with CoS/Misery as we went.

With AP:
10/9 20:30:41.671 Your Arcane Explosion hits Devastation for 1130 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:41.671 Your Arcane Explosion hits Infinity Blades for 1133 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:41.671 Your Arcane Explosion hits Phaseshift Bulwark for 1135 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:41.671 Your Arcane Explosion crits Warp Slicer for 1957 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:41.677 Your Arcane Explosion hits Cosmic Infuser for 1143 Arcane damage.
Without AP:
10/9 20:30:53.642 Your Arcane Explosion hits Devastation for 963 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:53.642 Your Arcane Explosion hits Infinity Blades for 926 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:53.642 Your Arcane Explosion crits Phaseshift Bulwark for 1615 Arcane damage.
10/9 20:30:53.642 Your Arcane Explosion hits Warp Slicer for 955 Arcane damage.
(Sorry, mace doesn't live long.)

Now, for Hyjal packs it's a bit different. I generally tried to skirt the damage cap by only APing small packs.

APed:
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1853 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1852 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 1059 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1853 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 1058 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1852 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:26.722 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 1058 Arcane damage.

but

10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 927 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 927 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 926 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 926 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 926 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 926 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 927 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:28.360 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 927 Arcane damage.

and

10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion hits Crypt Fiend for 926 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion hits Abomination for 972 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 926 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion crits Crypt Fiend for 1621 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion hits Crypt Fiend for 927 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1621 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1621 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:41:41.966 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 927 Arcane damage.

These show pretty clearly the damage cap in effect even with relatively small target numbers.

Non-AP for a psuedo-control:
10/17 18:27:23.496 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 814 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.496 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1423 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.509 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 799 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.509 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1407 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.509 Your Arcane Explosion crits Ghoul for 1399 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.509 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 835 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.509 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 793 Arcane damage.
10/17 18:27:23.509 Your Arcane Explosion hits Ghoul for 818 Arcane damage.

Make of it what you will.
#1213SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Queuetip
Frostbolt JOW proc

Regarding JOW proc from frostbolt, here is a WWS report from last Thursday.

WWS Report

This was for random trash, Leo, and Vashj attempts
Alprazolam is Fire
Both myself and Aeriscats are Frost

Something is definitely up. The shadowfiends got more procs than us
#1214SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Wierd that a damage cap is applied before crit is considered. It does seem that AP benefits 8 mobs...raising the limit before crit to around 7400.
#1215SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
marloz
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
As an example for the weapons I can only show this. I'd note that the non-AP part is a little off, likely because we'd paint with CoS/Misery as we went.

<snip>

Make of it what you will.
That's weird. You do 7416 total damage to 8 targets which exceeds the cap by 686 dmg. I know, the chance is small, but - was CoS up on all targets? Because 10% of 6730 damage is 7403, pretty close to your end result.

Except for that, I don't see any other reason why your AE should hit for more than 6730.

Cardynal: I've tried AE'ing 8 targets with AP and even on use +dmg trinket, and under no circumstances it exceeded 6730 total damage in hits.

Last edited by marloz : 11/19/07 at 5:13 PM.
#1216SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Wierd that a damage cap is applied before crit is considered. It does seem that AP benefits 8 mobs...raising the limit before crit to around 7400.
No, that's not how this works. The limit is *nothing* to do with the number of mobs you are hitting.

The limit simply states : "Arcane Explosion can never do more than 6730 damage". So if you have 100,000 spell damage or so, even on one target it would hit the cap and do 6730 damage.

So, Arcane power will increase your AE if you are only AE'ing a small number of mobs, or you don't have much spell damage gear. So for Kael AE'ing the weapons, Arcane Power will be useful because you're normally only hitting 5 or so targets, and that's not enough to hit the cap. It would be better to call it a damage cap rather than a mob cap to be honest, because that's what it is.

From the results posted by Northener, it definitely seems to confirm the case the debuffs such as Curse of Shadows / Misery apply after the cap is reached.
#1217SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Inoko
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
From the results posted by Northener, it definitely seems to confirm the case the debuffs such as Curse of Shadows / Misery apply after the cap is reached.
Which makes sense from a mechanics point of view. The "rolls" would likely go like this.

1) AE is cast.
2) Targets are allocated.
3) Damage is capped.
4) Each target takes damage (here is where debuffs and crits are applied).

That's how I see it working, at least.

[Edit: Resists shunt damage over to other monsters, apparently, according to a few posts I saw, so I guess resist rolls go in 2) and remove the target from the "pool"? I'm not sure.]
#1218SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
Well, I know we carried a lot of warlocks (typically two spriests and three warlocks) and CoS and Misery could quite possibly be on some of the targets. In fact, I'd guarantee that one or the other would be on some. It is extremely unlikely though (damn near impossible) that all targets would have both and equally unthinkable that all targets would have CoS and not Misery.

I would only presume that CoS/Misery are added in on a per-target basis before the damage splitting occurs and do allow damage over the cap. I certainly don't think that it is AP doing so or that itself would be obvious from your own test.

EDIT: The oddity is the Abom that takes an odd damage amount on what otherwise is a capped AE. Perhaps CoS is merged and Misery added after. That would be strange mechanically but certainly makes sense of the log since the spriests would be sticking to the more annoying/higher HP targets for the most part.
#1219SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Cardynal
Yes I know how the cap works. You simply don't see it under so many mobs because you're not reaching it. I was trying to explain the difference between 10% increase done on some of the mobs (7403 dmg cap)

My thought is that the mechanic may work that under so many mobs, AP would work in some wierd mechanic where it only gives a 10% increase. I wouldnt' assume that CoS was on every single one of those mobs at the time they were hit....on every test he did where he used AP...and not on his control. The fact that the control (non-ap) has the 6730 limit and the others have a 7400 limit...both when hitting 8 mobs, and the same test done at 14 mobs show the 6730 cap, shows that the number does matter in some way.

We need to see logs showing consecutivly growing AP's and non-AP's increasing in size by 1 to 14 mobs.

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/19/07 at 5:40 PM.
#1220SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew
Having the capacity to AOE an unlimited amount of targets is plain stupid and I for one was happy that this was implememted.
I completely disagree with this. A number of classes have "stupid tricks" that they can perform that they should absolutely not be able to from a strict view of balance - warlocks at high gear levels can drain tank and solo absolutely retarded things, I know a Warlock who was working on soloing Onyxia by swapping aggro back and forth between him and his pet and drain tanking, and last I checked he got her to 50% by doing this before he got bored of the game and quit. He likely would've killed it, and certainly would with Sunwell gear. He easily tanked heroics and a number of 5-man mobs. Hunters can do ridiculous solo things in instances, including soloing mother shahraz trash because of Feign Death and pet tanking, too.

The bottom line is that aoeing 91 mobs was not very useful except in one idiotically designed and implemented temporary quest. It was just a neat trick. It was only profitable because Bliz put 91 melee mobs in one spot with no significant ranged capability. Nerfing aoe because you don't know how to design mobs is lame, and nerfing it in a way that makes it not scale with gear is not only lame, but makes them underpowered.
#1221SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
This could be tested really easy on the first wave of Rage Winterchill's and Anetheron's packs. Since the waves contain 10 mobs only, and a hunter usually takes one away to grab some npc's, this should easily provide enough evidence with minimal effort.

As for the Frostbolt not procing Frostbite and JoW, that seems like something with Improved Frostbolt got screwed up with the coefficient nerf was removed. And is Elemental Precision bugged still this patch for 6% frost hit?

It's also nice to see this thread going into different mechanics, and bugs now than the previous 10 pages of dribble discussion mechanics from pre-tbc.
#1222SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Inoko
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
This could be tested really easy on the first wave of Rage Winterchill's and Anetheron's packs. Since the waves contain 10 mobs only, and a hunter usually takes one away to grab some npc's, this should easily provide enough evidence with minimal effort.
It's hard to tell if you're referring to the cap existing at all, in which case it's been tested thoroughly: it does, or to the weird 10% increase that was displayed in one group of monsters with AP up, in which case, that doesn't really test it, anyways.
#1223SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Darkmantle
I think that the damage cap had more to do with being able to tune raid dungeons than anything else. Before the AoE on things like Nefarian, the amount your AoE put out was directly related to how tlghtly you pack the mobs. WIth the implementation of the cap you know 200k hp of aoe adds will take a specific number of AE's or the like and you can tune up or down to get your target raid composition. Faxmonkey doing his thing merely accelerated the process.
#1224SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Eusheka
Another oddity i noticed while frostspec the other week in Hyjal was Blizzard.

When AOE'ing trash with blizzard i noticed its damage changed as more or less mobs were in the area of effect, as expected.

What wasnt expected however was that it was acting in reverse.

4 mobs would give tic's of about 385 (Number might be off but for the purpose of this explanation its ok)
With 7 - 10 mobs, each mob would get hit for over 460 .. the cutoff point seemed to be about 14 mobs where the damage would not increase anymore.
#1225SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Pintofbrew
Sancus: The fact that other classes can do stupid abusive things does not mean that they should be able to, nor does it mean we should be able to. The way AoE damage cap does not scale with gear is clearly wrong and so while I will accept that the current cap is idiotic I don't see how you can endorse AoE not having a cap at all; Realistically, there should be no encounter where a player should need o surpass the cap (again, if the cap was better thought-out and scaled with gear instead of being frozen) and hence it does not hinder you.

What a warlock can do by exploiting level difference in old-world content, or in heroics exploiting path-scripting, or aggro-juggling is irrelevant; Having uncapped AOE simply begs to be exploited and as such has no place in ballanced games. Some retard is bound to come up with a stupid way to exact more worth than they should. The fact that the Naxx-opening event at the time was the only place where AoE was blatantly, dramatically over-abused is irrelevant: It was an exploit at the time and so was leveling via cauldron AOE-farming between 50-60.

I'm all for the AoE cap, but at current it seems to be too restrictive. I don't see where the harm is in making the cap scale, as everything else in the game does.

Hate Monkey: Ele Pre is most assuredly bugged. Over the whole of SSC minus Vashj and VR/Solarian i got 0.8% resist average on 124hit. Granted, trash wasn't always 73 level, but taking boss-only data increased miss to 1.4% which is 0.2% more than it should be given bugged hit rate, and 2.8 less than it should be given correctly functioning hit rate.

Unrelated Note: I specifically let my water elemental sit in 5 of VR's Arcane Orbs today as a fellow frostie said his didn't die to them and to my bewilderment it suffered approximately 0 damage. Note: Not half-damage, as I was told hunter pets do, Nil. Anyone else noticed such? Is it a VR-only story? I'm suspecting perhaps it's behaving "immune" to arcane as well as frost (what about fire?). I know it died to Lurker's Whirl, but I think that's melee. Perhaps it's simply some high % to resist aoe spells?

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/19/07 at 7:35 PM.
#1226SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Pintofbrew now that's interesting. I was thinking of trying frost raiding sometime soon, looks like it'll be sooner rather than later.
#1227SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0koetjeka
Unrelated Note: I specifically let my water elemental sit in 5 of VR's Arcane Orbs today as a fellow frostie said his didn't die to them and to my bewilderment it suffered approximately 0 damage. Note: Not half-damage, as I was told hunter pets do, Nil. Anyone else noticed such? Is it a VR-only story? I'm suspecting perhaps it's behaving "immune" to arcane as well as frost (what about fire?). I know it died to Lurker's Whirl, but I think that's melee. Perhaps it's simply some high % to resist aoe spells?
I'll test it with a frost mage friend of mine, will post results tomorrow
#1228SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kutai
I've noticed during Void Reaver that my Water Elemental did not take damage at all.
#1229SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Malevalon
I haven't done VR as Frost since 2.3, but I can tell you there is no specific immunity to Arcane, and I don't believe any generic resistance to AOE, for the Water Elemental. Here are a couple combat log lines from Kael'thas/SSC/Mag after the patch (copy/pasted from WWS):

Crimson Hand Centurion's Arcane Flurry hits Water Elemental for 1747 Arcane damage
...
Kael'thas Sunstrider's Arcane Disruption hits Water Elemental for 2098 Arcane damage
Kael'thas Sunstrider's Arcane Disruption hits Water Elemental for 2152 Arcane damage
[this happened many more times, with no partial resists on any entries]
...
Flame Strike's Melee hits Water Elemental for 32767 Fire damage
Flame Strike's Flame Strike dots Water Elemental for 3000 Fire damage
...
Coilfang Hate-Screamer's Sonic Scream hits Water Elemental for 4925 Arcane damage
...
Hellfire Channeler's Shadow Bolt Volley hits Water Elemental for 653 Shadow damage (1957 resisted)
[the only partial resist in the entire log]

At any rate, I'm back to a Fire spec. I was having a heck of a time keeping my Elly alive :-/
#1230SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Xei
My WE got raped in ZA by the Hexlords shadow bolt spam.
#1231SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pamine
The water ele never took dmg from VR's orbs. I always used him and let him stand there.
#1232SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vulkaire
It is just certain aoe's that don't hit pets that don't effect WE. For instance, Illidan's phase 2 fireballs and the storm from the Eagle boss in ZA. Most non frost based aoe's can and will kill it though.
#1233SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Originally Posted by Pamine View Post
The water ele never took dmg from VR's orbs. I always used him and let him stand there.
This is false, the WE used to take damage from the orbs but at some point during 2.2 (may have even been towards the end of 2.1) he became immune to them. It is only on this fight and the WE is certainly not immune to arcane.
#1234SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
I can testify to what Frenzi states: Before 2.2 the elemental would get le one-shot in VR and Gruul's. Can't say about 2.2; I was arcane at the time (RIP).

Does anyone have any data of the list of aoe-immunities? Is there any correlation to Hunters? Is there any Blue data?

Vontre: Not wanting to sound overly optimistic and I am aware our mages aren't nut-case min-maxers, but I posted 6.9% on Hydros (rotating 3xAB & scorch on water phase) while they made 7.4%. A much smaller margin than I expected. On Lurker, provided I left the pet on the platform (it couldn't shoot from the islands or the water) I came under the rogues and above the firemages. On Leotheras I did a rather embarrassing 10.4% of total dmg done, plus 0.8% for the pet (next best: Rogue@8.6% although firemages have to stop 6sec early for phase change due to travel/ignite tics). Most surprising of all though, was said VR on 8.8% with pet, second to a rogue at 9.1%. And I had plenty of moving to do; I was under the impression that with 0 motion/transitions melee could have a party on VR... Warrior shout haste pots and enh sham (no elixirs) vs my spriest only buff, CoE and brilliant mage oil. Go figure...

Once again, I'm not saying this to be cocky or showoff, I'm simply gob-smacked that frost is not only competitive but -so fiercely- competitive. I was expecting 50-50 to have to respec back to fire after an abysmal hydros performance, not to leave the firemages in the dirt.

For completeness, just in case, I'll state again that not all our fires are up to standard. However, I like to think the difference between "good" and "great" to be less than 10%. Hence my bewilderment at surpassing them for over 12-15%. PS: our locks are hopeless. The only good one is SL spec so he can tank Leo's demon.
#1235SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Well I remember a blue post about making encounters more pet friendly and the the changes to both Gruul and VR were implemented at about the same time as this. I can't remember exactly when though.

I am having trouble judging the performance of the different specs and classes at the moment as my old guild folded and a new guild was born with members from two separate guilds with the other guild being more progressed and gear levels between the members are quite disparate at the moment.

However from what I have seen Fire is beating frost marginally by 50-100 dps and locks are miles above any class on average, even the rogues. All of our mages are now fire, although I am interested to see what the new 21 pt talent in frost will be and whether it will have any PvE advantage.
#1236SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
I was quite smitten with Lhivera's suggestion of 21 talent on WOW US. It was a brilliantly well-rounded idea. In short (s)he suggested a mechanic that would cause a proc @~30% per frostbolt crit, that would last 5sec and cause the next fireblast, blast wave or ice lance to treat the target as though it was frozen. (S)he covered with data proving in PvE it's a 2.2% buff (thus very reasonable for 21), and in PvP it's a marginal increase as well. It makes a useful synergy for elemental spec and is good for leveling. Even down to "how am I going to use it when it procs after i've started to cast the next bolt?" had an answer: It lasts 5sec, so you'd cast the bolt after the proc normally and then lance.

I got all teary-eyed at such a well-rounded talent suggestion, I just hope the 10 or so pages on the forum got forwarded to the devs. Anything to get away from the dreaded Fbolt spam can't be bad afterall.

But I wouldn't hold my breath to be honest. I'm thoroughly prepaired for some idiotic invention.
#1237SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
I think what manly said will be correct though and it will be an activated talent like the other two 21 pointers and I am not holding my breath for something that will increase DPS.
#1238SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Iod
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I was quite smitten with Lhivera's suggestion of 21 talent on WOW US. It was a brilliantly well-rounded idea. In short (s)he suggested a mechanic that would cause a proc @~30% per frostbolt crit, that would last 5sec and cause the next fireblast, blast wave or ice lance to treat the target as though it was frozen. (S)he covered with data proving in PvE it's a 2.2% buff (thus very reasonable for 21), and in PvP it's a marginal increase as well. It makes a useful synergy for elemental spec and is good for leveling. Even down to "how am I going to use it when it procs after i've started to cast the next bolt?" had an answer: It lasts 5sec, so you'd cast the bolt after the proc normally and then lance.

I got all teary-eyed at such a well-rounded talent suggestion, I just hope the 10 or so pages on the forum got forwarded to the devs. Anything to get away from the dreaded Fbolt spam can't be bad afterall.
21 points is too few points in the tree, but I was thinking of something like a Trueshot Aura for Elemental Casters (Increases Frost, Fire, and Nature damage by xx for members within 30 yards of Mage). Might be overpowered, but at least it would provide *some* sort of synergy for groups. Lhivera's suggestion does sound mighty tempting, though.

I'll throw in my support to the observation that Water Elementals are immune to the Arcane Orbs. I still haven't found any other encounter that they exhibit this behavior, though.
#1239SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I was quite smitten with Lhivera's suggestion of 21 talent on WOW US. It was a brilliantly well-rounded idea. In short (s)he suggested a mechanic that would cause a proc @~30% per frostbolt crit, that would last 5sec and cause the next fireblast, blast wave or ice lance to treat the target as though it was frozen. (S)he covered with data proving in PvE it's a 2.2% buff (thus very reasonable for 21), and in PvP it's a marginal increase as well. It makes a useful synergy for elemental spec and is good for leveling. Even down to "how am I going to use it when it procs after i've started to cast the next bolt?" had an answer: It lasts 5sec, so you'd cast the bolt after the proc normally and then lance.

I got all teary-eyed at such a well-rounded talent suggestion, I just hope the 10 or so pages on the forum got forwarded to the devs. Anything to get away from the dreaded Fbolt spam can't be bad afterall.

But I wouldn't hold my breath to be honest. I'm thoroughly prepaired for some idiotic invention.
I'm not seeing how such a change could be considered a PvE dps boost. The blastwave portion we can discard right off the bat, as well as fireblast seeing you would have to move in from 36 yards to 20 yards (max in both cases) to even use it. This leaves you with the option of ice lancing. However, icelance has an aweful coefficient of 14%. So at high levels of gear it becomes a huge dps loss unless you invest 7 points to get full shatter, which really isn't a PvE talent. A T6 mage should have around 2100 base FB and 1150 lances hits against a frozen target.

Start off at a respectable 27% spell crit, WC and shatter for a crit rate of 87% on your lances.

1150*.13+1150*2*.87 = 2150 average (1433 dps)

While at the same time casting a frostbolt instead at (27+5+10) 42% crit

2100*.58+2100*2*.42 = 2982 average (1193 dps)

So at a 12.6% chance per frostbolt to increase your dps by 240, you're talking about a 30 dps gain when you'd hopefully be averaging 1400 dps in raid, about a 2% increase by these numbers and what Lhivera quoted. 2% for a 8 talent point investment is pretty shitty. And that's 2% now, just imagine how much worse that will be when you take eventual scaling into account.

Maybe if it applied to frostbolts as well, otherwise it just doesn't hold up.
#1240SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rustyshrapnel
For a love of the experimental process and in the name of holy EJ wonkitude, my water elemental bravely gave his life (repeatedly) for science. I told my guild leaders to ignore my damage meters and went to town.

Evian Death Wish Series (me exercising extremely poor water elemental control and seeing what the little bugger will stand) in TK/SSC:

Al'ar: takes all AE damage.
Solarian: takes all AE damage (the moonfire! WOOSH splat).
VR: no orb damage.
Kael: doesn't seem fussed by Thaladred except for the silence (no knockback), feared by Sanguinar, couldn't get him close enough to Capernian's arcane explosion without getting Conflagg'd, dies to Telonicus's bomb, takes dmg from Axe's whirlwind but seems unfazed by anything else the other weapons dish out, dies in Kael's flame strike like a little scrub, seems pretty unaffected by the netherbeams during Kael's gravity lapse.

Hydross: couldn't kill him; it's almost impossible to kill a WE on Hydross even when you actively try.
Lurker: if I parked him too close he died to Whirl (melee attack), otherwise he was indestructible.
Moro: One-shotted by Earthquake, otherwise takes no damage.
Leo: Hahahaha, rended! (splat) Also takes Chaos Blast dmg during demon phase.
FLK: Dies to Sharkkis's multishot, never caught a spitfire, immune to all Caribdis's effects (duh), affected by the wandering tornado (doesn't get tossed up but will stop casting).
Vashj: dies to multishot, dies to Static Charge, dies to Forked Lightning, immune to the green goo the spore bats poop out in phase 3 (poison).


All in all, aside from the really obvious "this will kill your elemental" stuff, Evian was fairly hardy. On an average night in TK or SSC I lose him once or twice on a boss (Morogrim for example) but proper timing usually takes care of that. Aside from VR's orbs there weren't any real surprises on what he could and couldn't survive. Also if anyone can kill their WE on Hydross I will salute you; that takes some serious frost mage sucking skills.

I have no Evian Death Wish info for BT/Hyjal yet because our guild just got keyed and I suspect my GL's wouldn't cotton to me trouncing my dps in those zones yet.
#1241SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
seems like this is going to be "Mage TC Wishlist after 2.4" (:
I thought about some more PvP oriented talent which resembles a tauren stomp or frost trap

Frost Ball
instant or 0.5 cast time
didn't think of mana cost
1 minute cooldown (or similar)
Engulfs target in a ball of ice, rendering him unable to act for 1 second.

The idea of this talent is to have an additional interrupt in PvP or an Oh shit! button for instances, when the mob charges towards the healer. Granted it does not benefit in raids, unless it gains an additional dmg benefit, which would most likely overpower the talent in PvP.

However what I would like to see most is an ability which benefits other classes as well, to give some raid support...but that does not fit into the 21-point-single-spell-paradigm
#1242SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I was quite smitten with Lhivera's suggestion of 21 talent on WOW US. It was a brilliantly well-rounded idea. In short (s)he suggested a mechanic that would cause a proc @~30% per frostbolt crit, that would last 5sec and cause the next fireblast, blast wave or ice lance to treat the target as though it was frozen. (S)he covered with data proving in PvE it's a 2.2% buff (thus very reasonable for 21), and in PvP it's a marginal increase as well. It makes a useful synergy for elemental spec and is good for leveling. Even down to "how am I going to use it when it procs after i've started to cast the next bolt?" had an answer: It lasts 5sec, so you'd cast the bolt after the proc normally and then lance.

I got all teary-eyed at such a well-rounded talent suggestion, I just hope the 10 or so pages on the forum got forwarded to the devs. Anything to get away from the dreaded Fbolt spam can't be bad afterall.

But I wouldn't hold my breath to be honest. I'm thoroughly prepaired for some idiotic invention.

I completely agree with you over that suggestion, it really was just about the most well-rounded and viable suggestions I had ever seen for the new Frost tree 21 pointer, although it has one fatal flaw that is easily corrected.

I responded a bunch of times in that thread with this point. The talent does nothing if the mage is not specced for Shatter and/or is under level 66. My suggestion was to take his and then add an extra 20% crit rate to the instant attack that consumes the buff. I also thought that it's inter-tree versatility was a bit light. I thought it would ideal if they gave it some use for the main cast spell of each tree.

My version of Lhivera's talent would be:

Cold-Hearted
30% chance on the critical strike of any Arcane Blast, Fireball or Frostbolt to gain Cold-Hearted. While under the effect of Cold-Hearted the next Instant cast spell will gain a 20% increased chance for a critical strike and the target of that spell will be treated as if they were frozen in regards to spells and effects. Duration is 6 seconds.
#1243SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
seems like this is going to be "Mage TC Wishlist after 2.4" (:
I thought about some more PvP oriented talent which resembles a tauren stomp or frost trap

Frost Ball
instant or 0.5 cast time
didn't think of mana cost
1 minute cooldown (or similar)
Engulfs target in a ball of ice, rendering him unable to act for 1 second.

The idea of this talent is to have an additional interrupt in PvP or an Oh shit! button for instances, when the mob charges towards the healer. Granted it does not benefit in raids, unless it gains an additional dmg benefit, which would most likely overpower the talent in PvP.

However what I would like to see most is an ability which benefits other classes as well, to give some raid support...but that does not fit into the 21-point-single-spell-paradigm


The talent needs to be more pve oriented, or it completely negates the point of making IB trainable in the first place (too many mages are frost for pvp).

The only thing I think they ever needed to do to balance frost for pve was work in the frozen mechanic to raid mobs. Clearly, you can't have frost mages proccing roots on boss mobs, that's overpowered. You also can't have all the frost mages able to 'freeze' the mob for shatter purposes, or they'd kill everyone in damage. But, they work up all this synergy in the frost talents for that mechanic, and then it's all void on boss mobs.

I like lhivera's idea for this reason, but it's a little bit off. If there was a talent that let us apply the freeze debuff, but not root it, so we could take some advantage to having shatter in pve, it would be all the boost frost ever needed.
Make it wear off as soon as a crit occurs and it would end up being a ~7% crit increase (15% frostbite proc chance) on single targets to all the frost mages in the raid. That would have made up most of the difference between fire and frost without WE survivability buffs and such. It might be overpowered now, but I just think it's ridiculous that half of the frost talents and mechanics are worthless in pve.

If I had my way, I do something like reduce arctic winds to 3 pts, at 1/2/3% for the miss and dmg components, and move it to piercing ice's spot. Move piercing ice down two tiers to frozen core's spot. Then, buff frozen core to also give a 5/10/15% chance to apply a 'frozen core' debuff to a mob that acts like freeze for shatter purposes for your spells, but does not slow/root and move it to arctic winds old spot.

Would only be a few % dmg increase, but would offer more synergy with our talents and allow you to ice lance situationally.
#1244SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
My version of Lhivera's talent would be:

Cold-Hearted
30% chance on the critical strike of any Arcane Blast, Fireball or Frostbolt to gain Cold-Hearted. While under the effect of Cold-Hearted the next Instant cast spell will gain a 20% increased chance for a critical strike and the target of that spell will be treated as if they were frozen in regards to spells and effects. Duration is 6 seconds.
It's an improvement, especially for leveling, but without shatter and instead building it in, it's now almost exactly the same dps as frost bolting would be instead. Great for PvP, great for leveling, still really bad for PvE. My personal choice would be Nature's Grace (.5 less cast time after spell crit for all spells) but that would probably be heavily overpowered.

Let's face it though, there are about 3 passive 21 point talents across all the tree's for all the classes. It's going to be a spell.
#1245SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
Originally Posted by Rustyshrapnel View Post
I have no Evian Death Wish info for BT/Hyjal yet because our guild just got keyed and I suspect my GL's wouldn't cotton to me trouncing my dps in those zones yet.
I don't know one way or the other for Kaz'Rogal as I've never been frost in Hyjal, but I do remember my water elemental blowing up a raid on Kazzak (whoops . . . XD).
#1246SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
It's an improvement, especially for leveling, but without shatter and instead building it in, it's now almost exactly the same dps as frost bolting would be instead.
don't see how. It's the same mechanics as the idea posted before, with a 20% crit increase even. So, at the minimum, it's the 2% increase you quoted before.

I disagree with your assessment of it's viability based on point investment. Yes, it's 5 pts for shatter and everything. Yea, it's only 2% increase on boss mobs (which is a decent amount) But, it's a much larger increase then 2% on all trash mobs/waves/adds too. It'd make taking shatter another situationally powerful ability in pve, unlike the crapfest it is now. Huge on trash/adds that are freezeable, and not completely worthless on boss mobs.

I mean, deep frost is already taking a bunch of the situational talents anyway. A 2% increase for talents you would have likely taken anyway is fine with me.
#1247SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Methdrone
I was quite impressed by my small amount of raiding last night as fire. I was only able to make one pull on illidan last night, but dps look good for fire. Pre 2.3 I was pulling around 800-900 dps with the same spec no meta, now i have CSD.

Wow Web Stats
#1248SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
don't see how. It's the same mechanics as the idea posted before, with a 20% crit increase even. So, at the minimum, it's the 2% increase you quoted before.

I disagree with your assessment of it's viability based on point investment. Yes, it's 5 pts for shatter and everything. Yea, it's only 2% increase on boss mobs (which is a decent amount) But, it's a much larger increase then 2% on all trash mobs/waves/adds too. It'd make taking shatter another situationally powerful ability in pve, unlike the crapfest it is now. Huge on trash/adds that are freezeable, and not completely worthless on boss mobs.

I mean, deep frost is already taking a bunch of the situational talents anyway. A 2% increase for talents you would have likely taken anyway is fine with me.
No, the 2% from above, is 2% with shatter. Rounced's version without shatter breaks even. As soon as a T6 mage picks up a single piece of gear from Sunwell it becomes worse.

Because scaling of icelance is negligible when compared to frostbolt they would need to add another rank of lance every time a new tier of content becomes available to maintain that play style. The talent would be broken right at the time it's inserted into the game.

As to frost being loaded with "situational talents" it isn't. This build gets you to to 41 points where only 2 of them are situational (3 if you could IB), arcane is worse, fire is only slightly better at 1 point (with pyroblast).

The way to make a talent like this work would be make shatter a pre-req for it. Then you would need to make the effect trigger off not only the primary nukes but off ANY spell. That would make shatter effective and triggered off AE spam. Then for it's mild boss uses (negating scaling) and generic AoE use it would be well worth investing the points to take in a raiding build.
#1249SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
No, the 2% from above, is 2% with shatter. Rounced's version without shatter breaks even. As soon as a T6 mage picks up a single piece of gear from Sunwell it becomes worse.
Lhivera did some TC math with my version and showed it to be a 3.2% increase in dps if the mage had 5 points in shatter. If the mage had 4T6 the bonus would be less but even without any points in shatter you will still have a dps boost by using the Ice Lance when you get a proc.

With 5/5 shatter the math looks like this

Originally Posted by Lhivera
Out of curiosity, though, let's see what the resulting DPS increase would be for a mage who did have shatter:

Your average Frostbolt, counting all the target debuffs, will be:
(623.5 + round((3 / 3.5 * 0.95 + 0.1) * 1200)) * (1 + (0.35 * 1.0)) * 0.99 * 1.06 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 = 2955.98

Damage per second of casting time is: 2955.98 / 2.5 = 1182.39

Your average Ice Lance, with +20% crit and shatter, has a 100% chance to crit:
(186.5 + round(1.5 / 3.5 / 3 * 1200)) * (1 + (1.0 * 1.0)) * 0.99 * 1.06 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 3 = 2729.86

Damage per second of casting time is: 2729.86 / 1.5 = 1819.91

9.5 * 2955.98 + 2729.86 = 30811.67 damage over:

9.5 * 2.5 + 1.5 = 25.25 seconds, or:

30811.67 / 25.25 = 1220.26 DPS

The DPS increase is about 3.2%.

That does feel more in line with a 21-point talent to me, really.
Frostbolt with 4T6 would rise to 1241.51dps which is still quite a bit less then the 1819.39dps that Ice Lance with 5/5 Shatter would do. Sure the overall dps increase is less when 4T6 gets brought into the mix but it is definitely present.


How about a mage specced Cold-Hearted but without Shatter?

Originally Posted by Lhivera
Problem is, without the +50% shatter bonus, the average damage delivered by the instant cast will not match the damage per second of casting time of the Frostbolt you could have cast, so it would remain non-viable.

Edit: the math on that, again using the example from page 1:

Your average Frostbolt, counting all the target debuffs, will be:
(623.5 + round((3 / 3.5 * 0.95 + 0.1) * 1200)) * (1 + (0.35 * 1.0)) * 0.99 * 1.06 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 = 2955.98

Damage per second of casting time is: 2955.98 / 2.5 = 1182.39

Your average Ice Lance, with +20% crit but no shatter, has a 50% chance to crit:
(186.5 + round(1.5 / 3.5 / 3 * 1200)) * (1 + (0.5 * 1.0)) * 0.99 * 1.06 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 3 = 2047.39

Damage per second of casting time is: 2047.39 / 1.5 = 1364.93

So, I stand corrected, you do gain a very small benefit that way. On the other hand, you're giving the mage who does have Shatter a 100% crit chance...but that's only going to push the DPS increase up a wee bit. Hm, it might actually be a reasonable change after all!
If you were to add 4T6 into the mix then the Frostbolt dps would rise to 1241.51 which is still less then Ice Lances 1364.93 and that is without any points spent in shatter. Which seems to imply that while the overall dps increase may not scale perfectly as gear increases (which is a common theme in wow anyway, just ask Murphid) it would still be a long time before it would no longer be viable to cast the Ice Lance on a proc. It would also depend on the set bonuses of the Tiers after 6 since 5% to Frostbolt certainly hurts the scaling of the talent concept a lot more then say the 4T5 bonus.
#1250SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
No, the 2% from above, is 2% with shatter. Rounced's version without shatter breaks even. As soon as a T6 mage picks up a single piece of gear from Sunwell it becomes worse.

Because scaling of icelance is negligible when compared to frostbolt they would need to add another rank of lance every time a new tier of content becomes available to maintain that play style. The talent would be broken right at the time it's inserted into the game.

As to frost being loaded with "situational talents" it isn't. This build gets you to to 41 points where only 2 of them are situational (3 if you could IB), arcane is worse, fire is only slightly better at 1 point (with pyroblast).

The way to make a talent like this work would be make shatter a pre-req for it. Then you would need to make the effect trigger off not only the primary nukes but off ANY spell. That would make shatter effective and triggered off AE spam. Then for it's mild boss uses (negating scaling) and generic AoE use it would be well worth investing the points to take in a raiding build.
You are inferring the wrong thing from my posts. I said 'I mean, deep frost is already taking a bunch of the situational talents anyway.' Yes, you can get all the damage talents without taking situational talents. I didn't say you were required to pick up situational talents to get the good ones, I said 'deep frost', meaning a frost spec, takes a lot of situational talents already. That is, take your 0/0/42 spec and use the rest of your points. What are you using them on? You can't get any good damage talents anymore, you've got a bunch of leftover points for situational talents. The classic 10/0/51 spec ends up having like 9 points to pick up whatever you deem useful in frost. An '8 pt investment' for another small dps increase, compared to using them for ZERO dps increase, means the opportunity cost is null.
#1251SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Valean
Not quite sure if this is the best place for this, but its worth a shot...

Four bosses in BT

This is just the report for me, from last night. When analyzing my performance, I see that my DPS, while acceptable, still lacks in comparison to the other casters, specifically the Warlocks and Mages. I know part of this is that my gear not up to par with most of the other casters, but I also cant help but think that i'm failing in some other aspect.

For the entire night, my miss % came up to 4.3%, and add that into a mitigated % of 6.6%, roughly 10% of my fireballs were not doing their full damage. On boss fights i run at about 150-160 +hit, on trash its about 130. I'm working on upgrading my gear, but it's been slow going so far. i stick with the usual spell rotation of 5 x scorch (im the only fire mage) and then fireball spam while keeping scorch up every 30 seconds or so.

Can anyone offer any advice? Is there something i'm missing. I hate feeling like i'm not holding my own weight.
#1252SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
There's a '[Mage] help me please' thread (title might be a little different, should be in the first page or two) for those kinds of questions. Nothing personal, but it's there for a reason, you'd be better off posting in that thread.
#1253SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Valean View Post
Not quite sure if this is the best place for this, but its worth a shot...

Four bosses in BT

This is just the report for me, from last night. When analyzing my performance, I see that my DPS, while acceptable, still lacks in comparison to the other casters, specifically the Warlocks and Mages. I know part of this is that my gear not up to par with most of the other casters, but I also cant help but think that i'm failing in some other aspect.

For the entire night, my miss % came up to 4.3%, and add that into a mitigated % of 6.6%, roughly 10% of my fireballs were not doing their full damage. On boss fights i run at about 150-160 +hit, on trash its about 130. I'm working on upgrading my gear, but it's been slow going so far. i stick with the usual spell rotation of 5 x scorch (im the only fire mage) and then fireball spam while keeping scorch up every 30 seconds or so.

Can anyone offer any advice? Is there something i'm missing. I hate feeling like i'm not holding my own weight.
It's not you, it's your raid leader who is making you look like you aren't pulling your own weight. From a quick look at the charts you seem to get the short stick in regards to groups.

Take a look at Teron Try 7

Vocal got back 50% more mana from VT then you did and he also had Mana Tide and was Bloodlusted. Bloodlust and Mana Tide means he got Wrath of Air. Ferocious Inspiration beats Aura of the Crusader as well. So I think your performance is more predicated on the groupings then on your personal performance.

Then there is Supremus. 3 warlocks and none of them threw up a CoE on a boss that actually has FR??? Basically the warlocks sacrificed 45% of your dps so they could look good on the meters. Ask them which curse does 400dps and when they stare back in blank amazement tell them to pick one of their number to stick CoE up on that fight.

This really does belong in the mage help thread but next time you question your performance don't forget to take the support classes and buffs/debuffs into account before thinking you are doing something wrong.
#1254SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Aldric
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
You are inferring the wrong thing from my posts. I said 'I mean, deep frost is already taking a bunch of the situational talents anyway.' Yes, you can get all the damage talents without taking situational talents. I didn't say you were required to pick up situational talents to get the good ones, I said 'deep frost', meaning a frost spec, takes a lot of situational talents already. That is, take your 0/0/42 spec and use the rest of your points. What are you using them on? You can't get any good damage talents anymore, you've got a bunch of leftover points for situational talents. The classic 10/0/51 spec ends up having like 9 points to pick up whatever you deem useful in frost. An '8 pt investment' for another small dps increase, compared to using them for ZERO dps increase, means the opportunity cost is null.
From a raid utility purpose I would take arcane impact (13/0/48) over investing points in shatter. It has been discussed many times in this thread (or the old one maybe) that shatter is not an effective AoE dps increase. AE will be your primary AoE spell, why not improve that first?

And thank you Rounced for posting Linerva's math on the talent. I'll have to look it over when I get out of this meeting at work. At first glance it looks like the top end damages are being used for the two spells instead of their damage ranges, which may or may not (I haven't looked) make a substantial difference.

Last edited by Aldric : 11/21/07 at 11:47 AM.
#1255SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
And ty Rounced for posting Linerva's math on the talent. I'll have to look it over when I get out of this meeting at work. At first glance it looks like the top end damages are being used for the two spells instead of their damage ranges, which may or may not (I haven't looked) make a substantial difference.

Well averages are averages aren't they so the damage range shouldn't make that substantial a difference.

WoW Forums -> My 21-point Frost talent w/arguments

That's the thread that all the math is coming from and the basis for the math is given in the first post.

I still think that it's the best idea for the new 21 point Frost talent but the other option that I kinda like would be a magical debuff that does exactly the same thing as CoE but doesn't stack with CoE. That way a Frost mage would be able to debuff the target for Frost and Fire damage and not have to rely on the warlocks. Also if the spell is cheap enough it would make a nice replacement for Detect Magic as a polymorph dispel protector.


Heh - I just thought of another concept for the 21 pointer that could work.

Ice in the Vein
Whenever a target has their movement speed affected by your chill effects, 50% of that value will be applied to casting times, attack speed and ranged attack speed.


Only issue is that it neither of those other options does anything to address the current monotony associated with much of Frost raiding, eg. frostbolt+frostbolt+frostbolt+++ ad nauseum. Fixing that is probably the best aspect of Lhivera's talent concept.
#1256SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
From a raid utility purpose I would take arcane impact (13/0/48) over investing points in shatter. It has been discussed many times in this thread (or the old one maybe) that shatter is not an effective AoE dps increase. AE will be your primary AoE spell, why not improve that first?
I never said I was getting shatter for AE purposes. You are diverting the discussion away from the theoretical situation IF the talent being proposed existed to the current mage situation. But, ok, I'll go with it.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft 13/0/44, 4 points left, what next? Imp blizzard? Chill? Those are both talents that would mainly be used in AE situations, and we took Arcane Impact as an AE talent. Frostbite is pvp/solo talent.

I was disagreeing with your statement about the talent point investment for a 2-3% dmg increase on boss mobs not being worth it. My point was that it's fine, because there is no other damage increasing talent available to pick over it, anyway. After getting every damage increasing talent possible, you end up with left over points. You are picking situational talents at some point, no matter what. Arcane Impact is only useful for AEing, it has no effect on a boss mob itself. I classify that as situational. It's not a 'must have' talent, it's a matter of personal preference imo. But, even with picking it, you still have 4 points to use on shatter if you wanted, which would definitely be worthwhile with Lhivera's proposed talent. 5 points if you go 4/5 Winter's chill, which some people do if they have multiple mages specced frost in their guild.
#1257SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Well averages are averages aren't they so the damage range shouldn't make that substantial a difference.

I still think that it's the best idea for the new 21 point Frost talent but the other option that I kinda like would be a magical debuff that does exactly the same thing as CoE but doesn't stack with CoE. That way a Frost mage would be able to debuff the target for Frost and Fire damage and not have to rely on the warlocks. Also if the spell is cheap enough it would make a nice replacement for Detect Magic as a polymorph dispel protector.
God, that would be awesome. Luckily for us, we have a destro warlock who puts up CoE a lot, for his own fire dmg spells. But, I can always tell if he's not there, as my dps starts sucking, and it's like pulling teeth getting another warlock to keep it up on trash or keeping 100% uptime on bosses. Hell, we had one stupid emo warlock who had improved CoS and would never throw it up on trash back when most of our mages were arcane, and we had 3-4 locks and 3-4 shadow priests on every raid. He got bitched out a ton and just went all emo about 'it's just trash!'. Meanwhile, we've got people complaining when our farm nights don't go smooth or take too long.. ¬_¬
#1258SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Aldric
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Well averages are averages aren't they so the damage range shouldn't make that substantial a difference.
Your average Frostbolt, counting all the target debuffs, will be:
(623.5 + round((3 / 3.5 * 0.95 + 0.1) * 1200)) * (1 + (0.35 * 1.0)) * 0.99 * 1.06 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 = 2955.98

Damage per second of casting time is: 2955.98 / 2.5 = 1182.39

Your average Ice Lance, with +20% crit but no shatter, has a 50% chance to crit:
(186.5 + round(1.5 / 3.5 / 3 * 1200)) * (1 + (0.5 * 1.0)) * 0.99 * 1.06 * 1.05 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 3 = 2047.39
So the actual averages for

Ice Lance: 174 Lihnerva: 186.5 delta: +12.5 effective damage delta: 87.5
Frostbolt: 620 Lihnerva: 623.5 delta: +3.5 effective damage delta: 3.83

Just from my initial first look at the calculations, you can see that the base numbers are incredibly far off, and they favor deeply ice lance. And thats just in the base, consider then that the ice lance calculations magnify that error by 300%, it's huge. Not to mention that 1200 damage is way off for a T6 mage. I don't even have full T6 and I have 1200 damage in my frost gear. Add to that flask, food, totem and oils and you're looking at a more realistic 1450 damage. Keep in mind that every point of plus damage is practically nothing for lance, and it's pretty huge for frostbolt.

Note: Turns out Lhinerva's numbers are right, shame on me for not knowing that the base damage on lance scaled with level

Last edited by Aldric : 11/20/07 at 8:18 PM.
#1259SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
So the actual averages for

Ice Lance: 174 Lihnerva: 186.5 delta: +12.5 effective damage delta: 87.5
Frostbolt: 620 Lihnerva: 623.5 delta: +3.5 effective damage delta: 3.83

Just from my initial first look at the calculations, you can see that the base numbers are incredibly far off, and they favor deeply ice lance. And thats just in the base, consider then that the ice lance calculations magnify that error by 300%, it's huge. Not to mention that 1200 damage is way off for a T6 mage. I don't even have full T6 and I have 1200 damage in my frost gear. Add to that flask, food, totem and oils and you're looking at a more realistic 1450 damage. Keep in mind that every point of plus damage is practically nothing for lance, and it's pretty huge for frostbolt.

Not sure what the damage deltas mean but those discrepancies I'll leave to Lhivera to explain or discount.


Why do you keep saying that Ice Lance gets practically nothing from +damage? On a Frozen target it scales just as well as any other instant cast spell. It gets 14.29% base and then when you triple that to account for a frozen target it then equals 42.86% which is the same as all other instant cast spells. Sure that scaling doesn't quite compare to Frostbolt due to Improved and Empowered talents but it isn't something to be scoffed at either.

Discounting the talents they both share, Frostbolt gets 36.57% +damage per second and Ice Lance gets 28.57% +damage per second on a Frozen target. I agree that Frostbolt scales better but I don't think that difference is enough to account for the notion that Ice Lance gets "practically nothing" and that every point of +damage is "pretty huge" for Frostbolt.
#1260SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
So the actual averages for

Ice Lance: 174 Lihnerva: 186.5 delta: +12.5 effective damage delta: 87.5
Frostbolt: 620 Lihnerva: 623.5 delta: +3.5 effective damage delta: 3.83

Just from my initial first look at the calculations, you can see that the base numbers are incredibly far off, and they favor deeply ice lance. And thats just in the base, consider then that the ice lance calculations magnify that error by 300%, it's huge. Not to mention that 1200 damage is way off for a T6 mage. I don't even have full T6 and I have 1200 damage in my frost gear. Add to that flask, food, totem and oils and you're looking at a more realistic 1450 damage. Keep in mind that every point of plus damage is practically nothing for lance, and it's pretty huge for frostbolt.
This is probably a result of Lhivera using actual level 70 untalented base damage ranges, and not the ranges you had when you trained the ability (which is what every site will list). You did know that spells slightly increase in damage as you level, right?
#1261SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
This is probably a result of Lhivera using actual level 70 untalented base damage ranges, and not the ranges you had when you trained the ability (which is what every site will list). You did know that spells slightly increase in damage as you level, right?
Huh, well, I'll be damned, learn something new every day. That pretty much completely invalidates all my assumptions on a talent like that. Good call Muphrid.
#1262SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
Huh, well, I'll be damned, learn something new every day. That pretty much completely invalidates all my assumptions on a talent like that. Good call Muphrid.
Welcome. It's worth noting that some talents modify the tooltip, but not others. Piercing Ice, for example, modifies Frost spell tooltips, but Arctic Winds does not. I've theorized, though not tested, that only abilities that increase damage of a spell line or tree (not a spell school) increase the listed damage on tooltips. Something I do notice, though, from wowhead...

Fire Power Rank 5
Increases the damage done by your Fire spells by 10%.


Spell Details

Duration n/a
School Fire
Mechanic n/a
Dispel type n/a
Cost None
Range 0 yards (Self)
Cast time Instant
Cooldown n/a
Effect #1 Apply Aura: Add % Modifier
Value: 10
Effect #2 Apply Aura: Add % Modifier (22)
Value: 10

Arctic Winds Rank 5
Increases all Frost damage you cause by 5% and reduces the chance melee and ranged attacks will hit you by 5%.


Spell Details

Duration n/a
School Physical
Mechanic n/a
Dispel type n/a
Cost None
Range 0 yards (Self)
Cast time Instant
Cooldown n/a
Effect #1 Apply Aura: Mod Attacker Melee Hit Chance
Value: -5
Effect #2 Apply Aura: Mod Attacker Ranged Hit Chance
Value: -5
Effect #3 Apply Aura: Mod Dmg % (16)
Value: 5

Piercing Ice Rank 3
Increases the damage done by your Frost spells by 6%.


Spell Details

Duration n/a
School Frost
Mechanic n/a
Dispel type n/a
Cost None
Range 0 yards (Self)
Cast time Instant
Cooldown n/a
Effect #1 Apply Aura: Add % Modifier
Value: 6
Effect #2 Apply Aura: Add % Modifier (22)
Value: 6
Both Piercing Ice and Fire Power have "Apply Aura: Add % Modifier (22)" as an effect. What I do not know is whether Fire Power increases the listed damage.

At any rate, though, once we know all the talents that affect listed damage, we can solve for real base damage, at least until someone is generous enough to compile an actual list of base damage values at level 70 (which, actually, is not a bad idea).
#1263SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
At any rate, though, once we know all the talents that affect listed damage, we can solve for real base damage, at least until someone is generous enough to compile an actual list of base damage values at level 70 (which, actually, is not a bad idea).
Sounds like a good addition to Vontre's new mega thread. I'll cross post it over there.
#1264SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Gentlemen we're missing the point: We shouldn't get tied up to the minutiae of numerical specifics when the whole concept is up in the air. Granted, Lhivera's talent doesn't scale well for Sunwell gear+ for purely PvE bosskill DPS.

However, Aldric, Talents are not designed to fulfill your raiding needs alone: The blastwave and fireblast effect is there because there's more to being a mage than lvl 70, and it's pointless to have a 21 talent that needs a 64 spell to function. Clearly from a TC perspective Ice Lance is the only one we're looking at.

Given the mechanic suggest "behaves as frozen" it doesn't take a rocket scientist to assume this works better with Shatter. What's the point of adding "and the spell gains +x%crit" when the previous talent does the same thing? You claim Shatter is a non-raid talent? Well it's a non-raid talent because 7 points for a crit CoC are of no use whatsoever and a CoC is about the only thing today that'll benefit from Shatter in a raid.

You can not claim a talent useless in any environment when the NEW talent suggested directly is influenced by it. You say raiding mages don't take Shatter? I agree, but given that Clearcasting aside theres about nothing else in the whole fire/arcane tree you could possibly give a damn about, with Lhivera's talent we gain the option of either Permafrosted Imp Blizz, or Shatter for Lhivera procs + Icelance to up the DPS a little.

The point Lhivera was trying to make by suggesting the talent was a decently-thought out idea to introduce at least SOME element of interest into what's patently the most boring spell spam rotation in the game. Numbers can be tweaked to increase or decrease efficiency more or less at will, but pulling out a magnifying glass and dismissing what's most likely the most original and well-rounded talent since the Trainable IB anouncement because you assume sunwell gear will render it useless is mean and irrelevant.

Iod: Unless I misunderstood the opening sentence of your post you state that 21 talents is too shallow for a 2% dps boost. If this is the case you clearly have not noticed the frost talent Piercing Ice at the third tier. If I am mistaken, forgive me and please elaborate as to what do you mean by "21 points is too few points in the tree".
#1265SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rugrud
just FYI if you haven't read it yet, there was actually a bug with frozen bite talent, as stated by Eyonix:
"Investigations proved fruitful. We were able to identify the bug affecting Frostbite. We're working on a solution and will make sure it's fixed as soon as possible (very likely the next patch, which isn't too far out)."

I hope they haven't discovered the ele precision bug while investigating this...
#1266SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
I wonder when the frost 21 beta will be anounced... Given next patch will (a) not be Sunwell, because if it's "not too far out" it seems unlikely and (b) be the last one before Sunwell, it seems reasonable it'll be the patch we get IB.
#1267SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Iod
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Iod: Unless I misunderstood the opening sentence of your post you state that 21 talents is too shallow for a 2% dps boost. If this is the case you clearly have not noticed the frost talent Piercing Ice at the third tier. If I am mistaken, forgive me and please elaborate as to what do you mean by "21 points is too few points in the tree".
I meant for my idea, as dumb as it was. I'd say Lhivera's suggestion would fit very well in the 21-point slot.
#1268SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
I certainly didn't mean to be mean spirited in my criticisms of Lhinerva's 21 point talent, I was just offering my viewpoint to counter what was pretty much just commented on as this talent is the bee's knees.

Whenever I see a postulated ability there are three areas you need to consider; PvP, PvE (raiding/grinding), and leveling.

Right now I think we can all agree that frost is the PvP tree and probably the leveling tree as well, PvE, close but not quite there.

The intent stated by Blizzard of removing the IB talent from the frost tree was to make other talent builds competitively viable in PvP. From this we can rule out the 21 point talent being overwhelmingly PvP oriented. Lhinerva's talent is ok in this area. However, I can see potential outcry over the likely combo of Nova->Frostbolt(shatter)/Lance Shatter->Buff Applies (due to latency)->Ice lance virtual shatter. That's a lot of damage, and I'm not sure Blizzard would want that in arenas.

From the leveling prospective you gain use of 1/3 of the talent at level 30 when you can pick up 21 point talent through the use of fire blast. And that is a pretty cool little leveling bonus. The only downside is that you pick up the 2nd portion of the talent at 51 when you can get blastwave, but that keeps you from progressing in the frost tree, whats the fun in that?

For grinding at 70 it's pretty sweet, I give it a A+ in that area. Raiding is the other part that we've been discussing and where I think the real crux of it being a viable talent lie. My feeling was that an 8 point investment for a 2% buff that won't catch the tree up to fire certainly isn't worth it.

My personal preference would be, as others have stated, to make a mage synergy talent just like ISB except for fire and frost attacks. Such a talent would be great for all 3 aspects of gameplay, wouldn't be terribly overpowered, and would make great bounds advancing mage raid dps as well as the viability of frost as a raiding tree.
#1269SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Sorry if I came across too defensive against your opinion Aldric, but as suggestions for the 21 have been so dramatically shoddy, unoriginal and boring over the past few weeks I felt you were being too critical of the suggestion.

As for your suggestion, combining ISB-like powers and "wouldn't be terribly overpowered" in the same sentence is a tough act. What is hands-down the single most scale-tastic talent in the whole game can be considered anything but "not terribly overpowered". As it stands, I feel mages have perhaps 2-4% margin worth of damage gain before they start to become excessively potent w.r.t. other DPS classes by blizzard's (and the hunter's/locks) perspective. Combining the recent announcement that "class ballanced is being looked at VERY closely" (source: WoW Forums -> Nerf Hunters Now!! ) the prospect of a powerful mechanic along the lines of ISB would become unlikely.

As for your suggestion of mage synergy, a frost-effect "increases X (crit/dmg/anything) from Y (possibly another mage source) for Z duration per proc" is an intelligent suggestion from a raiding perspective. Perhaps there's some way to work the benefit to become more useful for fire, but to come from frost, so we create a lock-like situation where we need 1x frost mage to buff the fire-mage's Molten Fury hits (just like destro's need one affli for malediction-CoS).
#1270SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
I still maintain everything I said. 21 points talents are new spells on a cooldown. It's almost a universal truth. With this said, I don't think anyone can or will come up with the proper talent. I am also sorry to say but a 2% frost dps increase would be too good in my view. Maybe my opinion would be different if EP wasn't bugged and if frost had to deal with supposedly unmitigeable innate resists.

The talent needs to not suck at low levels. It's one thing to give the talent synergy with ice lance, but given the fact its a TBC spell (ie: over lvl 60) doesn't makes much sense.
#1271SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post

From the leveling prospective you gain use of 1/3 of the talent at level 30 when you can pick up 21 point talent through the use of fire blast. And that is a pretty cool little leveling bonus. The only downside is that you pick up the 2nd portion of the talent at 51 when you can get blastwave, but that keeps you from progressing in the frost tree, whats the fun in that?

For grinding at 70 it's pretty sweet, I give it a A+ in that area. Raiding is the other part that we've been discussing and where I think the real crux of it being a viable talent lie. My feeling was that an 8 point investment for a 2% buff that won't catch the tree up to fire certainly isn't worth it.

My personal preference would be, as others have stated, to make a mage synergy talent just like ISB except for fire and frost attacks. Such a talent would be great for all 3 aspects of gameplay, wouldn't be terribly overpowered, and would make great bounds advancing mage raid dps as well as the viability of frost as a raiding tree.

Why blastwave? Lhivera's original concept had the buff being utilized by Ice Lance, Fireblast and Cone of Cold. Blastwave wasn't anywhere on the list.

I suggested having it apply to all instant cast spells (as trained - made instant by PoM wouldn't count) which would make it effective for Blastwave as well but that was my conceptualization of his idea, since I thought that would add more cross-tree utility to the talent.


If they want to add something to give cross-tree raiding utility for fire and frost then they should just make the talent into a Mage magic version of Curse of Elements and have the effect not stack with the Warlock CoE. Although I really wish they would just move CoE over to the mage class since we are the only ones who really require it on a consistant basis, either that or follow Manly's suggestion and combine CoS and CoE into a single curse.

3 mages last night (2 Fire and 1 Frost) and I think we had CoE up for maybe 2 fights......CoA/CoD made their normal appearance but no amount of QQing or was able to get CoE to make regular appearances.

"Everything I cast is getting pushed off..." was the explanation offered up.
#1272SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Duodecimal
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
Optimaly combustion should be clicked in air when you cast a fireball, and you should not fireblast nor scorch until you think a third fireball will crit.
I do not believe that this is an optimal tactic, unless I misunderstand when crits are deducted from the 3 charges on Combustion. I'm pretty sure that crit charges are deducted on hit and not on cast.

It is always better to Fireblast while a Fireball is in the air to get a 4th crit out of Combustion. If you trigger Combustion while a non-combusted Fireball is in the air, there's a good chance it'll crit even though it didn't get the first 10% combustion bonus.

What this means is that you're starting Combustion with 2 charges left and at least 45% crit chance on the next Fireball, instead of 3 crits left. This leaves you with a 10% lower chance (on average) of your final Combustion charge critting on either the Fireball or the cheat Fireblast.

This is why I also feel cheated when I get a crit on a fireball that was in the air when I triggered Combustion, as another poster mentioned.

As for any worries about the cheat Fireblast crit overwriting the Fireball ignite, it's always better to get Fireball + Fireblast + Fireblast Ignite than to get just Fireball + Fireball Ignite.

Last edited by Duodecimal : 11/21/07 at 2:49 PM.
#1273SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Speculation and suggesting ideas is dumb, always has been. Check this out.


WoW Forums -> Mage Improvements!


There are a few nice improvements we're making to the mage class in patch 2.3.2 (a small patch that will be on the public test realms soon) and we wanted to share them with you. First, we'll start out with two changes affecting all mages. Ice block will become a core ability, trainable by all mages at level 30. Additionally, conjure mana (rank 6) will restore 1800-3000 mana and will now have three charges, meaning you can use it three times before having to create a new one.

To be sure we're clear here, yes, the same cooldown will still apply between usages. :P

Cold snap will be moved to Ice block's position in the talent tree and its cooldown will be reduced. As a side note, it will no longer reset the cooldown on fire ward. Moving in to Cold snap's spot will be a brand new ability called Icy Veins. This new ability will decrease casting time for all spells by 20% and increases the chance that chilling effects freeze the target by 25%. It's an active ability, lasting 20 seconds and has a 3 minute cooldown.
#1274SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Nurru
I never would have believed those changes if you hadn't linked the post.
#1275SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Duodecimal
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Speculation and suggesting ideas is dumb, always has been. Check this out.


WoW Forums -> Mage Improvements!
Good lord ... might be time to move out of Clearcasting. 2/47/11 +1 somewhere ...
#1276SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Sweet shizzle, I can finally drop clearcasting and get something worthwhile.

2/48/11 will be clearly the pro build.
#1277SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
There are a few nice improvements we're making to the mage class in patch 2.3.2 (a small patch that will be on the public test realms soon) and we wanted to share them with you. First, we'll start out with two changes affecting all mages. Ice block will become a core ability, trainable by all mages at level 30. Additionally, conjure mana (rank 6) will restore 1800-3000 mana and will now have three charges, meaning you can use it three times before having to create a new one.

To be sure we're clear here, yes, the same cooldown will still apply between usages. :P

Cold snap will be moved to Ice block's position in the talent tree and its cooldown will be reduced. As a side note, it will no longer reset the cooldown on fire ward. Moving in to Cold snap's spot will be a brand new ability called Icy Veins. This new ability will decrease casting time for all spells by 20% and increases the chance that chilling effects freeze the target by 25%. It's an active ability, lasting 20 seconds and has a 3 minute cooldown.
Hmm. The new talent seems interesting. 2 second frost bolts for 20 seconds. The secondary effect seems nice for pvp.

I love the mana charges. Thats a great improvement. Anyone want to tackle the dps simulations for frost with that talent added to the tree? Math seems to be a talent that dodged me.
#1278SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Max
Wow...that's a fairly nice buff for frost. Vontre, update the spreadsheet!
#1279SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
I dunno how big this will be for sustained dps, I already ignore combustion and AP in my spreadsheet >.>

I need to start working on that web app again.
#1280SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Nurru
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
Hmm. The new talent seems interesting. 2 second frost bolts for 20 seconds. The secondary effect seems nice for pvp.

I love the mana charges. Thats a great improvement. Anyone want to tackle the dps simulations for frost with that talent added to the tree? Math seems to be a talent that dodged me.
Shatter still is worthless for raid dps (so the 25% is negligible) and Fire gets the 20% haste as well. Probably won't change much unless I'm missing an important detail somewhere.
#1281SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
I would be amazed if that 11 point talent ended up working for fire to be honest.

I would assume it will be frost spells only. But if not fire seems to be the new pro build.
#1282SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
But that's the thing, its not really buffs for frost, but rather buffs for all specs. Arcane/fire gain iceblock and icy veins becomes the new de-facto standard staple pve/pvp talent for every spec.

Thing is, take any tree, if you max them out, you have 47+ points in the maxed tree at most. There are always left-over points. The 11-points fill an incredible niche for every build in that respect. It's clearly a lot more interesting than clearcasting. The only build that would want clearcasting is arcane, and arcane doesn't have to spend 10 points to get clearcasting, since he will pick up the talent regardless in order to get arcane potency.

Everyone wins.

EDIT: now we just need to get COE fixed and potentially merged with COS.
EDIT 2: Well, the only build that loses out with this change is the craptastic 33/28/0 and 40/18/3. Hopefully now people will finally stop using those terrible builds.
#1283SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Nurru
I would be amazed if that 11 point talent ended up working for fire to be honest.

I would assume it will be frost spells only. But if not fire seems to be the new pro build.
It specifically says "all spells" in his post.
#1284SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
The interesting question in all this will be knowing the dps impact of cold snapping icy veins.
#1285SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
Id say it would be a great 11 point talent, I am just not sure they want to make the seperation of fire and frost PVE effectiveness get that much more distant. Fire getting this talent would be a nice boost and maybe thats the plan from blizzard. Get all mages up a bit with the talent.

Maybe its just there to bring some completion to the frost mage pve dps.


We will see, heck the way blizzard is it may end up entirely different and be unusable.
#1286SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0aznxk3vi17
We'll need some extensive testing on these awesome changes.

For one thing, we don't know the cooldown on the new Cold Snap - I'm guessing it'll be 5 minutes. With two incredible PVE talents now for use on a Cold Snap, will Frost edge out Fire in shorter fights? Granted, popping Combustion with Icy Veins will allow for a great amount of dps, but again, with Cold Snap in the equation, any idea what the numbers might turn out?
#1287SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Why blastwave? Lhivera's original concept had the buff being utilized by Ice Lance, Fireblast and Cone of Cold. Blastwave wasn't anywhere on the list.
I read that out of one of Pintofbrew's posts, clearly a mistake on both our parts.

But, thankfully, speculation over, absolutely amazing changes. All that's really left is to find out of cold snap will clear the timer on Icy Veins... it could provide some very interesting results.
#1288SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
Originally Posted by manly View Post
The interesting question in all this will be knowing the dps impact of cold snapping icy veins.
Yeah, that is a thought, so not only double casting your WE but 2 shots at 20% speed increases.

Also, would it impact blizzard. Blizzard as an AOE spell is very lacking and having the channeled speed increased to tick faster might be just the answer in those limited burst aoe dps moments over trying to use AE. Blizzard just needs so much help without being able to crit or really amp up the damage. Its DPS is just not up to snuff.
#1289SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
From the simulator, because I built it so awesomely that I had it stacking icy veins against every timer under the sun with 15 minutes work:

Before Icy Veins:

Fire | fire1: 1593.74
Frost | frost1: 1543.21

Fire | fire1: 1640
Frost | frost1: 1590.26

Comparison done with hit cap, 1000 spell damage, 330 crit, CSD, Icon, Sextant.

I didn't consider cold snap affecting icy veins. I'll try to model that soon.
#1290SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Falorian
Icy Veins DPS Increase

Over the long term, Icy Veins should be a 2.22% dps increase (1 out of 9 20 second periods in 3 minutes, 20% increase).

2.22% = 1/9 * 20%

Pretty close to what you got Vontre. Cold Snap would add about one additional Icy Veins cast over a boss fight. For a nine minute fight, that is 1/27 * 20%, or an added .74%.

So, the new talent is about a 2.22% or 2.96% dps increase over a nine minute boss fight, depending on Cold Snap's effect.

(If my math is right on a day off).

Last edited by Falorian : 11/26/07 at 8:12 AM.
#1291SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0chase
I would assume the next logical question is what effect if any would Icy Veins have on the water elemental?

If it works for fire and can be cold snapped (don't see why not) this is a pretty well thought out design.
#1292SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Soul
I wonder if Icy Veins will be affected by Ice Floes too. That would be nice.
#1293SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Follow-up question:
will ice floes affect icy veins?
#1294SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
arch
Originally Posted by Sackobones View Post
I would be amazed if that 11 point talent ended up working for fire to be honest.

I would assume it will be frost spells only. But if not fire seems to be the new pro build.
It HAS to affect fire, else frost will surely surpass fire, and then you have one superior PvE tree with best survivability/dps. That alone is way too imbalance, plus, you'd have the best PvP tree in the same tree as well, but that's not really of any importance in this case.

Last edited by arch : 11/21/07 at 3:47 PM.
#1295SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0[DRF]Solmyr
Lhivera brought up an interesting point, will it be 20% reduced cast time, or 20% haste?
#1296SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Vhad
Am I the only one who thinks it's weird how arcane receives no love at all? Surely the mentioned 33 28, 40 18 3, 40 0 21 should be more viable than they are?

Last edited by Vhad : 11/21/07 at 4:10 PM.
#1297SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
The questions I have now:

- 20% casting time reduction = 25% haste. Is that really what he meant? Seems too good to be true. If it's 20% haste, it's a 16.67% casting time reduction. Either way, it's still very good.

- This talent is accessible to both Combustion and Arcane Power builds. Combustion seems a non-issue, but will AP and IV put each other on a short cooldown? Or can you use them together? If you can use them together, then Vhad -- there's your Arcane love, because that's some serious burst right there. Even if you can't, a build with the various deep Arcane DPS talents + IV sounds to me like it'll be competitive, but I'm waiting to work on numbers until some of these questions are cleared up.

- What is the new Cold Snap cooldown? Is it still affected by Ice Floes? The DPS implications of this for deep Frost are quite interesting, as we will be cold-snapping both IV and the WE.

- Do all mana gems have 3 charges, or only the new Rank 6 gem? If I can carry one Emerald and one Whateveritscalled and get six charges, that's pretty hot right there.
#1298SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Airea
EDIT: now we just need to get COE fixed and potentially merged with COS.
I was just going to put in the exact same suggestion with the addition of adding Nature as well.

How do most guilds handle CoE? The locks in my guild will only put it up if there's at least 2 fire/frost mages.

Oh, looks like 2.3.2 is going up today on the PTR.

WoW Forums -> 2.3.2 PTR Patch starting today (Nov 21st)
#1299SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Worthe
Might the lowered cooldown on cold snap also enable a frost mage to utilize their elemental more often?
0:00 Summon elemental
0:45 cold snap, summon again
3:45 elemental has cooled, summon
4:30+ cold snap(depending on the reduced cooldown), summon again

Perhaps I'm missing something, but for longer fights, it's a decent buff for a frost mage that can make effective use of their water elemental, right?

(WTB the addition of nature damage in one form of another in a unified curse to replace CoS and CoE. I'm switching to my elemental shaman for main.)

Last edited by Worthe : 11/21/07 at 4:22 PM.
#1300SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
COE is the worst curse because its the most narrow curse.

COR > COS > COE
COR gives 5-7% dps to all melee. This typically means, at least, the 1x MT, 2x rogue, 1x hunter, 1x enh shaman, 1x dps warrior, 1x offtank (war/feral). For us its usually 2-3x rogue and 2-4x hunter tho. And sometimes 3-5 warriors.

COS is good for warlocks and s.priests (and arcane mages that should respec asap). For us this typically means 2-3x warlock, 1-2x s.priest.

COE is good for mages. This means 2-3x mages.

The problem with COE is that it's too narrow. It would be a very very good buff if spell resistance were actually part of the game in any meaningful way in a pve context. But since it isn't, that makes it solely good for mages under realistic scenario. Merging COS and COE is something I recommend, but truth be told any fix that makes COE less narrow is just as good.
#1301SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
The modeler shows arcane/ice with ice floes/AP stacking would be 1575.45 dps. That is without Winter's Chill. So with Winter's Chill it could be upwards of 1700, which handily beats fire. Of course you still have problems with pushback and spell selection.
#1302SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Mysticfox
This change is looking really good for fire, with a 2/48/11 spec you can time the Icy Veins to be up everytime your Flame Cap is. Just imagine how much DPS you'd be able to put out popping everything at once. Once the boss hits 20% for Molten Fury you could pop everything... Drums of Battle, Heroism, Combustion, Icy Veins, Flame Cap, Destruction Potion, Skull, Icon (or Hex Shrunken Head). With all those effects up at the same time w/ Molten Fury we could see some very big burst numbers. 2500+ DPS anyone?
#1303SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
I would caution that this ability also seems too powerful, don't be surprised or disappointed if a nerf comes along.
#1304SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
That is going to be pretty nice for both fire and frost. I'm surprised they're increasing mage dps again so quickly.

However it also increases our consumed mana per second even further, making us further dependent on a Shadow Priest. The new mana gems should help with this, but it would be interesting to see if these changes will give an overall increase or decrease in mana longevity. The fact that you would be losing ClearCasting to pick up this new talent for fire will also be further detrimental to our mana consumption.

I am calculating around a 2% overall increase for fire as well...so I'm not going to complain too much =)
#1305SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Duodecimal
Bah, before all that "overpowered" stuff starts getting slung around, remember that we are Mages. Mages! We're ranged rogues. We're not overpowered until Rogues can't keep up with us, a non-hybrid DPS class. As far as utility goes, Rogues are about as utilitous (it's a word now, dammit) as mages in Raid encounters.
#1306SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Mysticfox View Post
This change is looking really good for fire, with a 2/48/11 spec you can time the Icy Veins to be up everytime your Flame Cap is. Just imagine how much DPS you'd be able to put out popping everything at once. Once the boss hits 20% for Molten Fury you could pop everything... Drums of Battle, Heroism, Combustion, Icy Veins, Flame Cap, Destruction Potion, Skull, Icon (or Hex Shrunken Head). With all those effects up at the same time w/ Molten Fury we could see some very big burst numbers. 2500+ DPS anyone?
Popping that much in top end gear would break 3kdps
#1307SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Originally Posted by Worthe View Post
Might the lowered cooldown on cold snap also enable a frost mage to utilize their elemental more often?
0:00 Summon elemental
0:45 cold snap, summon again
3:45 elemental has cooled, summon
4:30+ cold snap(depending on the reduced cooldown), summon again

Perhaps I'm missing something, but for longer fights, it's a decent buff for a frost mage that can make effective use of their water elemental, right?
Yes, the reduced cooldown on Cold Snap is what's really going to give Frost a boost compared to Fire and Arcane. Every mage can get 20 seconds of haste every 3 minutes. Arcane/Frost and Deep Frost can cold snap it on the new shorter cooldown. Deep Frost can cold snap it on an even shorter cooldown thanks to Ice Floes, and gets increased use out of the Water Elemental as well.
#1308SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
3k dps for a short duration has no real purpose when you realize that over a flattened timeline you still fall flat out behind destro locks. Destro locks can handily do 2.1 - 2.2k dps with just a resto shaman. I have never gotten 2k dps and rarely broke 1.9k dps.

Icy veins will help, but doesn't do anything to help us beat destro locks. They need to change a stupid amount of stuff to make us compete with destro locks in fact, probably too much to hope to get this fixed ever.
#1309SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Whiteknight
Originally Posted by manly View Post
COE is the worst curse because its the most narrow curse.
I've seen you comment on CoE a couple of times now pointing out that raiding mages very rarely get this curse. I also remember folk mentioning that spell penetration was a worthless stat because of CoE...

Just wondering, in light of the realization that CoE is often not worth putting up, is spell penetration for mages still so worthless? Or is it just really really bad and CoE has no bearing on it?

It seems to me that if you're struggling to put out 1.9k dps as a mage, compared to your warlocks putting out 2.2k, subtlety (for example) is something of a waste, and you might get more benefit changing one or two enchants here and there to pick up a small baseline of penetration.

Obviously I'm not a mage, and I'm not exactly up-to-date with the current theory crafting for this. It's more a personal curiosity.
#1310SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Manly, do you ever have CoE up? We run with 3-4 mages and always have CoE up.


And for these destro locks, are they using a buffing curse or dps curse?
#1311SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
I would caution that this ability also seems too powerful, don't be surprised or disappointed if a nerf comes along.
It's barely better than a Trolls Berserking racial, so doubt it will see any nerfs. Thought this does need a lot of testing from Trolls to provide an accurate amount of dps gain by speccing into it.
#1312SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
We have 3 locks in our raids and 4 mages. We only skipped COE when we all went arcane.
#1313SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Maraji
Originally Posted by Whiteknight
I've seen you comment on CoE a couple of times now pointing out that raiding mages very rarely get this curse. I also remember folk mentioning that spell penetration was a worthless stat because of CoE...

Just wondering, in light of the realization that CoE is often not worth putting up, is spell penetration for mages still so worthless? Or is it just really really bad and CoE has no bearing on it?

It seems to me that if you're struggling to put out 1.9k dps as a mage, compared to your warlocks putting out 2.2k, subtlety (for example) is something of a waste, and you might get more benefit changing one or two enchants here and there to pick up a small baseline of penetration.

Obviously I'm not a mage, and I'm not exactly up-to-date with the current theory crafting for this. It's more a personal curiosity.
I always assumed it was the 10% extra fire and frost damage from CoE that benefitted us, not so much the 88 less target resistance.

Curse of the Elements - Spells - World of Warcraft
#1314SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Manly, do you ever have CoE up? We run with 3-4 mages and always have CoE up.

And for these destro locks, are they using a buffing curse or dps curse?
Having COE depends on having 3 warlocks. We rarely do.
And no 2.1-2.2k dps is without dps curse. Just s.priest and resto shaman. If they had an elemental shaman and dps curse they would probably get 2.3k+. (and I'm understating things here, COD is 200 dps, elemental shaman would give them 3% more crit and 3% more hit, which is a huge boost to destro lock dps thanks to the best scaling in the game. It would probably be more like 2350+ dps).

EDIT: I'm talking sustained DPS using the calculations from WWS. Violation regularly 'rates' our warlocks as having 2.6-2.9k dps whereas for the same dps WWS ranks them as 2.1-2.2k.
Originally Posted by Whiteknight View Post
I've seen you comment on CoE a couple of times now pointing out that raiding mages very rarely get this curse. I also remember folk mentioning that spell penetration was a worthless stat because of CoE...

Just wondering, in light of the realization that CoE is often not worth putting up, is spell penetration for mages still so worthless? Or is it just really really bad and CoE has no bearing on it?

It seems to me that if you're struggling to put out 1.9k dps as a mage, compared to your warlocks putting out 2.2k, subtlety (for example) is something of a waste, and you might get more benefit changing one or two enchants here and there to pick up a small baseline of penetration.

Obviously I'm not a mage, and I'm not exactly up-to-date with the current theory crafting for this. It's more a personal curiosity.
Well, I don't use subtlety enchant on the cloak. To be honest all cloak enchants are almost universally uninteresting for mage dps. If I could get like 10 stamina I would probably take it over 20 spell penetration, or subtlety, or dodge or even shadow resist. I could debate on the relative worth of every enchant, but under realistic scenario its hardly more than just arguing for the sake of arguing - almost every TC mage will agree that the benefit is small enough to ignore.

I use 20 spell penetration on my cloak merely because it was most readily avaiable and can be used for supremus. It might just as well not be there and I would never notice.

With all this said, there is no conclusive evidence that bosses have mitigable resists. It is definitely true that if a boss ever has any resist 88 penetration from COE would be more than required. Thing is, every mage has 10 spell penetration because all specs have 2 points in arcane. It is arguable, and as I said, currently unknown, whether cloak enchant + 10 spell penetration from talents is enough to mitigate all the partials from bosses.

What we do know is that it seems COE has no impact on partial resists compared to having no coe but using 30 spell penetration.

My point was mostly that if the partial resists played an important role in a PVE context, then the worth of COE would be high enough to be valued as the 2nd best curse. The net impact of this would be that COS > COE > COR rather than the current case of COR > COS > COE

Last edited by manly : 11/21/07 at 6:04 PM.
#1315SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
Had a destro warlock today getting aggro on Kaz'rogal doing something absurd like 2900 dps for the duration untill he died at 30% and still was 2nd or 3rd on dmg done, only topped by another destro lock...
#1316SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Prom
bringing 2-3 warlocks to the raid means that they need to be willing to put up CoE.
Regardless, warlock DPS in HJ and BT is way too high. It would be nice if they could change our spell dmg coeffs. so that we gain more past 1000spell dmg for example.

Im curious to see where these changes lead us, however im sceptical that we shall see a substantial increase in dps.
#1317SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Whiteknight View Post
I've seen you comment on CoE a couple of times now pointing out that raiding mages very rarely get this curse. I also remember folk mentioning that spell penetration was a worthless stat because of CoE...

Just wondering, in light of the realization that CoE is often not worth putting up, is spell penetration for mages still so worthless? Or is it just really really bad and CoE has no bearing on it?
CoE/CoS are put up for the +10% (13% talented) damage increase of fire/frost or arcane/shadow spells. The 88 resistance reduction is completely useless on most raid mobs.

Karazhan Sentinels have ~150-200 ArcaRes, Rage Winterchill has ~200 FrostRes, Supremus has ~200 FireRes and Felhunters in Hyjal trash have some universal resistance.
No other level 70 raid mob I know of has any resistance that can be overcome by any means. None. At all.

Some time ago, mobs could have negative resistances causing extra damage on spell hits. Then they capped resistance at 0 (or at 8*level_difference or so for the unmitigatable 5% partial resists), making the curses mostly useless, and they added the +10% damage to compensate for it.

Mages usually pick a spell penetration enchant because the other alternatives even less useful, and pick the Arcane Subtlety talent for the threat reduction on Arcane Explosion.
#1318SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Beska
Is 2/48/11 being discussed as having the potential to out-dps the oh-so-classic 10/48/3?
#1319SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Koosha
Originally Posted by Beska View Post
Is 2/48/11 being discussed as having the potential to out-dps the oh-so-classic 10/48/3?
It easily will as long as you can keep your mana up without clearcast, which shouldn't be a problem at all.
#1320SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Whiteknight
I guess spell pen really is as worthless as ever. Oh well.


Instead of adjusting CoE/CoS, wouldn't just giving one of them to mages instead of warlocks fix the problem?
#1321SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Beska
Originally Posted by Whiteknight View Post
I guess spell pen really is as worthless as ever. Oh well.


Instead of adjusting CoE/CoS, wouldn't just giving one of them to mages instead of warlocks fix the problem?
Keeping up Fire Vulnerability and a curse at the same time oh god.
#1322SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Zure
Originally Posted by manly View Post
EDIT 2: Well, the only build that loses out with this change is the craptastic 33/28/0 and 40/18/3. Hopefully now people will finally stop using those terrible builds.
You know, with T6 crit rate, and a moonkin, elem shaman, ret paladin, 33/28 outperforms 10/48/3 in single target damage. The breakeven point is a little over 46%. The fact that Vontre doesn't model AP (combined with AP being a much bigger boost than Combustion), and that the last 20% of a mob's health tends to go down at a faster rate than the first 80% biases his model towards deep fire. There's absolutely no reason to bash it universally... it's a very niche spec.

Granted... once these change hit, it will not be able to catch up to fire + 11 frost. Still, it's worth noting.

****************

I think a very useful measure to have would be a rough average length of every fight for each tier of dungeon. We could use that to determine the approximate value of cooldown based abilities. I'll lay out an example: It would all be very rough, but if we had 2-3;3-4;4-5;4-5; 9-10 as average fight lengths, we could see that you might get to use a three minute cooldown once in the shortest fight, twice in the next three longest fights, and thrice to four times (just say 3.25) in the longest.

If this were the case, we could then divide 24.5 minutes by 10.25 uses of the cooldown and get an effective cooldown of 2:24. This means the cooldown is 25% more valuable than we would expect by just using uptime divided by cooldown.

Of course this number is highly imperfect as the number of dps, class composition, gear level, etc. all change the average kill time across guilds and even within guilds over time. But, and this is important, anything is better than what we have now, which is simply assuming the fight lasts for an infinite duration, since we know this is false.
#1323SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Whiteknight View Post
I guess spell pen really is as worthless as ever. Oh well.


Instead of adjusting CoE/CoS, wouldn't just giving one of them to mages instead of warlocks fix the problem?
Well, we have never ran with more than 3 mages, and we have never ran with less than 3 warlock/s.priest (in total). In other words its always better to have COS over COE. Anyway, COS means more shadow priest mana, which means more dps from shaman, s.priest and warlocks (I mean, in addition to the dps gain from COS itself). A fire mage would hardly feel a difference since fire mage has pretty much infinite mana. I could probably cut 30%-40% of my total available mana on any given fight and keep fireball spam. I use almost exclusively flamecaps and destro pots. I don't get anywhere near anything that could be associated with mana problems, until I need to AOE, in which case I will be fine but without a bunch of spare mana.

I doubt any guild can realistically want COE over COS. To even get to make that choice implies you have at least 2 warlocks. If you have 2 warlocks you have almost assuredly at least 1 shadow priest for shadow weaving. You might have a group composition with 3 lock/s.priest and 4 mages, in which case COE is probably better than COS, but I would have a hard time to imagine this case being common.
#1324SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kaimani
Originally Posted by Zure View Post
You know, with T6 crit rate, and a moonkin, elem shaman, ret paladin, 33/28 outperforms 10/48/3 in single target damage. The breakeven point is a little over 46%. The fact that Vontre doesn't model AP (combined with AP being a much bigger boost than Combustion), and that the last 20% of a mob's health tends to go down at a faster rate than the first 80% biases his model towards deep fire. There's absolutely no reason to bash it universally... it's a very niche spec.
I've had great success with 33/28 as well (although I can't seem to convince anyone that the difference between it and deep fire is minimal). Under ideal circumstances it's capable of keeping pace with deep fire. That said, this next patch will be the last nail in the coffin for arc/fire hybrids - nobody in their right mind will skip Icy Veins for any raid spec. Goodbye PoM Pyro.

Depending on how drastically the coldsnap cooldown reduction is (and whether it effects Icy Veins) I might have to entertain the possibility of going deep frost in the future. 2/48/11 seems like a no brainer, but this talent actually opens up a lot of possibilities.
#1325SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Antoine
Originally Posted by manly View Post
And no 2.1-2.2k dps is without dps curse. Just s.priest and resto shaman. If they had an elemental shaman and dps curse they would probably get 2.3k+. (and I'm understating things here, COD is 200 dps, elemental shaman would give them 3% more crit and 3% more hit, which is a huge boost to destro lock dps thanks to the best scaling in the game. It would probably be more like 2350+ dps).
Quick clarification: there's no way a Warlock in top-end gear (enough to do 2k dps) will have less than ~195 hit, so the crit is the only real gain from an elemental shaman.
#1326SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Just for the sake of comparison, how much DPS do your rogues do?
#1327SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
I agree with the general sentiment that warlocks/mages don't get any use from elemental shaman 3% hit (using top end gear). But you can always swap extraneous hit ratings into more haste/dmg. I don't know about tempest/warlock offhand vs zhardoom if you count tempest of chaos as giving a flat 0 hit. For mages it's nearly the same (tempest vs zhardoom).

Still, my main point was that 2.1k dps from warlocks with just resto shaman / s.priest and no dps curse is something a mage cannot hope to get. The only way I can get that dps would be chain bloodlust and/or chain drums. And even then, I need to be somewhat lucky on my crits.

For sake of comparison, it is very hard to say about rogue DPS, it seems to vary a lot from week to week. They had no feral this week - I am unsure about the dps implications of this. I've also read on our private forums that it seems they had quite a few less buffs than they normally do. But I think it is safe to say it generally ranges from 1800-2100 (2200?). Keep in mind that we never had a legendary drop either.

Last edited by manly : 11/21/07 at 7:26 PM.
#1328SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Suggestive
I equate the complaints about CoE to a rogue complaining about lack of an enhancement shaman for example. That doesn't mean something is wrong with unleashed rage, that's a problem your raid has to solve. Not having CoE because you only have 2 locks is a problem with your raid composition, not the debuff. You either want the ability to have all 3 curses up or you don't. Ditto with having 3 locks in the raid and one being dumb enough to toss up a CoD. I just find it really odd people complain like the spell actually has some serious problem attached to it.
#1329SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Flouyd
(sry english is only my 2nd language. I try my best)

Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
The modeler shows arcane/ice with ice floes/AP stacking would be 1575.45 dps. That is without Winter's Chill. So with Winter's Chill it could be upwards of 1700, which handily beats fire. Of course you still have problems with pushback and spell selection.
Does such an arc/frost build use xAB/3FB rotations or FB spam? And would a frost & arc/frost team beat a fire & fire team?
#1330SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Suggestive View Post
I equate the complaints about CoE to a rogue complaining about lack of an enhancement shaman for example. That doesn't mean something is wrong with unleashed rage, that's a problem your raid has to solve. Not having CoE because you only have 2 locks is a problem with your raid composition, not the debuff. You either want the ability to have all 3 curses up or you don't. Ditto with having 3 locks in the raid and one being dumb enough to toss up a CoD. I just find it really odd people complain like the spell actually has some serious problem attached to it.
As long as you agree with me that COR > COS > COE, you can agree that mages cannot hope to be competitive without having at least 3 warlocks in the raid. The problem isn't COE itself; the problem is that mages have absolutely no raid synergy, but yet, we don't have the DPS you would expect from classes that don't have any raid synergies.

There are many implications to this. Imagine for a second that shadow priest were the top caster dps class. The people would outcry and call for a nerf because the mana return and dps would make them universally too good to pass up. I don't know about you guys but I rarely see shadow priest topping meters on any guild that had t6 content on farm for months. I think everybody accepts it because in exchange for their 'poorer' DPS they give an insane group buff and misery/shadow weaving. I don't think anyone sane in their mind would not want 1-2 s.priest in their raid.

Now here is a list of raid synergies that mages have:
-fire vulnerability (+15% fire damage)
-winter's chill (+10% frost crit rate)

Is this really what would be deemed a compelling raid synergy ? Both of those buffs are solely good for mages alone.

We all know that warlocks give COR, COS, COE and ISB. If anything, if mages and warlocks had the same DPS, you would be better served, as far as raid synergy goes, by stacking more warlocks because they also buff their raid. If you have 2 warlocks and 2 mages in your raid, and you need to add 1 more of either of those class, you're always better served with a warlock. If anything, the 3rd warlock will give increased ISB uptime, which alone is worth the spot, but also increase the 2 mage dps by 10%. How can you pass on that? Oh and wait - theres more: If I asked the same question with 3 warlocks/3 mages and the next one to add, the warlock still wins. The 4th warlock increases ISB uptime, as well as being allowed to use COD/COA which will increase his personal DPS for 8-10%, making mages unable to compete with his DPS.

I am not asking for a DPS boost. I am just asking to make things equal. Heck, I am not even talking about the fact that I do gueninely believe that top end warlocks really do beat mages and there's nothing we can do about it. You will be extremely hard pressed to find me more than 5 parses of mages on WWS having more than 2k DPS on a non AOE, non gimmick fight. This is just how rare those cases are. On the other hand I can point you quite a few parses with warlocks in the 2.1-2.2k dps range. But see, I am not even trying to address this.

The problem is that COE is too narrow. In a realistic top end raiding environment COE is a mage-only buff. It has no other uses than for mages. Why does it takes an extra warlock in a raid to have mages be on par with the warlock COS ? If anything, I propose that COS and COE be merged into one curse. Possibly even add 10% nature damage, or even toss 10% holy damage if you really want to cover all bases. COE serves really no other purposes than just cluttering the available curses warlocks have for something arguably redundant. COE is extremely narrow and situational; to be worthwhile you need at least 3 warlocks in a raid and at least 2 fire/frost mages.
#1331SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Originally Posted by Zure View Post
Of course this number is highly imperfect as the number of dps, class composition, gear level, etc. all change the average kill time across guilds and even within guilds over time. But, and this is important, anything is better than what we have now, which is simply assuming the fight lasts for an infinite duration, since we know this is false.
Actually our calculations abandoned the infinite duration model months ago, most of my comparisons are based on 5 minutes with variance, which means a percentage of the cooldown time is granted to average out the high end and low end of cooldown uptime over encounters which average out to 5 minutes overall.
#1332SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Originally Posted by Flouyd View Post
(sry english is only my 2nd language. I try my best)



Does such an arc/frost build use xAB/3FB rotations or FB spam? And would a frost & arc/frost team beat a fire & fire team?
No, it was straight frostbolt spam. It is unlikely a frost & arc/frost team would beat a fire & fire team, on paper they are about the same but the soft factors are working against the frost mage.
#1333SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
In regards to CoE, dps, and all that jazz. Really, the essential mage balancing issue is that fire warlocks are completely undesireable, and CoR is too good. Mages would be completely fine (if they aren't already) if warlocks weren't still a fuck-broken class. Why does it always come back to warlocks? =p
#1334SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
German servers can now download the 2.3.2 Testclient and copy their chars.... have fun to try the new stuff out!
Servers are sceduled to go online later the night.
#1335SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
Hmm, another interesting change indeed. Icy Veins even seems like it will play nicely with actual encounters given that for most encounters a scorch times two (or whatever it takes with your raid makeup) followed by IV early should allow two uses always and most likely three with the last one during the 20% phase. Icon, Skull and HSH even nest neatly with it allowing use for two out of three with one use cleanly in the middle and combustion fits pretty perfectly if used immediately on entering the fight. Berserking even fits nicely! It certainly won't be a game-breaking dps boost but hey, a boost is a nice thing and any excuse to take seven more points into frost is not so bad either. Ironically the only downside I see is the loss of hit for arcane spells, although you almost never use them on 73+ targets of course.

Apparently all it took was me to retire for some fun changes to come along. (I kid, I kid!)
#1336SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Prom
ive said this time and time again.
Warlocks were always meant to be great as a debuffing class. Its only logical that rogues and mages should excel at dps since they dont bring much to the raid. Having warlocks to 1900+ dps, plus debuffing the boss, and having 10k+health unbuffed makes them seriously imbalanced. I dont know what blizzard is thinking and why they havent adressed this issue in months and months.
#1337SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Finkum
The new Icy Veins talent's placement begs the question of what first and second-tier talents you should pick up in the Frost tree (for a raid dps spec).

I'm guessing 2 points in Imp. frostbolt is a given, as Frost warding is so incredibly situational (does anyone ever use Ice Armor in a raid these days?). In the second tier, because you still do all your dps with fire spells, Permafrost, Frostbite and Ice shards all seem a bit redundant. Imp. nova is at least useful on any fight where AoE packs need to be rooted.

So, at least 5 points are pure filler (compare to 10/48/3, where arguably only the 3 points in Arcane Focus were purely filler points, and even then you could make a case that 2 points are still useful when you are AEing adds on top of a boss mob a la Hydross). It makes me wonder if a spec like 0/47/14 might not be a viable alternative: 2 points in Imp. Nova, 3 in Permafrost and 3 in Imp. Blizzard, to give maximum AoE control, although at the expense of pure dps.
#1338SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Suggestive
Originally Posted by manly View Post
As long as you agree with me that COR > COS > COE, you can agree that mages cannot hope to be competitive without having at least 3 warlocks in the raid. The problem isn't COE itself; the problem is that mages have absolutely no raid synergy, but yet, we don't have the DPS you would expect from classes that don't have any raid synergies.

There are many implications to this. Imagine for a second that shadow priest were the top caster dps class. The people would outcry and call for a nerf because the mana return and dps would make them universally too good to pass up. I don't know about you guys but I rarely see shadow priest topping meters on any guild that had t6 content on farm for months. I think everybody accepts it because in exchange for their 'poorer' DPS they give an insane group buff and misery/shadow weaving. I don't think anyone sane in their mind would not want 1-2 s.priest in their raid.

Now here is a list of raid synergies that mages have:
-fire vulnerability (+15% fire damage)
-winter's chill (+10% frost crit rate)

Is this really what would be deemed a compelling raid synergy ? Both of those buffs are solely good for mages alone.

We all know that warlocks give COR, COS, COE and ISB. If anything, if mages and warlocks had the same DPS, you would be better served, as far as raid synergy goes, by stacking more warlocks because they also buff their raid. If you have 2 warlocks and 2 mages in your raid, and you need to add 1 more of either of those class, you're always better served with a warlock. If anything, the 3rd warlock will give increased ISB uptime, which alone is worth the spot, but also increase the 2 mage dps by 10%. How can you pass on that? Oh and wait - theres more: If I asked the same question with 3 warlocks/3 mages and the next one to add, the warlock still wins. The 4th warlock increases ISB uptime, as well as being allowed to use COD/COA which will increase his personal DPS for 8-10%, making mages unable to compete with his DPS.

I am not asking for a DPS boost. I am just asking to make things equal. Heck, I am not even talking about the fact that I do gueninely believe that top end warlocks really do beat mages and there's nothing we can do about it. You will be extremely hard pressed to find me more than 5 parses of mages on WWS having more than 2k DPS on a non AOE, non gimmick fight. This is just how rare those cases are. On the other hand I can point you quite a few parses with warlocks in the 2.1-2.2k dps range. But see, I am not even trying to address this.

The problem is that COE is too narrow. In a realistic top end raiding environment COE is a mage-only buff. It has no other uses than for mages. Why does it takes an extra warlock in a raid to have mages be on par with the warlock COS ? If anything, I propose that COS and COE be merged into one curse. Possibly even add 10% nature damage, or even toss 10% holy damage if you really want to cover all bases. COE serves really no other purposes than just cluttering the available curses warlocks have for something arguably redundant. COE is extremely narrow and situational; to be worthwhile you need at least 3 warlocks in a raid and at least 2 fire/frost mages.
Hmm, i guess i get the gist of what you're saying. Fire locks actually being viable in some way would probably help, hell i recall being escatic about incinerate at first, but if i recall right there was a post somewhere with a blue pretty much saying no. Reversing that view would make mage/lock synergy a lot more appealing.

I'll just quickly say i disagree with increased benefits to stacking more than 3 warlocks. Unless the 4th warlock you add to the raid is a LOT better geared than the others in raid already, i.e more crit, he is actually going to drop ISB uptime. Even with a better crit rate, the increase to ISB uptime is pretty small. This will of course vary a bit with raid composition, but there is a very sharp DR on ISB.
#1339SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Alvira
Icy veins seems very powerful. Its only just a bit less powerful than arcane power (in terms of raid dpsing), and it probably won't cost as much as how AP does. Plus cold snap can refresh it. Frost is getting buffed big time next patch.
#1340SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roe
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
I would caution that this ability also seems too powerful, don't be surprised or disappointed if a nerf comes along.
They moved it lower in the tree, making it available to other mage spec's. It seems to imply they don't mind boosting mage numbers across the board a little. I have to think it's possible this idea has been at Blizzard for at least a little while, and probably some of the mage changes in 2.3 were polished/incorporated with this upcoming talent in mind.

I think it's exciting. Mages shouldn't be over powered though. I would never like to beat people in PvP then have them bitch the win is from the built in mechanic advantages (sort of like how I complain about warlocks :P ).
#1341SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Originally Posted by Finkum View Post
The new Icy Veins talent's placement begs the question of what first and second-tier talents you should pick up in the Frost tree (for a raid dps spec).
It seems likely to me, given the +25% chance to freeze chilled targets built into Icy Veins, that it will have 3/3 Frostbite as a prerequisite.
#1342SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Finkum
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
It seems likely to me, given the +25% chance to freeze chilled targets built into Icy Veins, that it will have 3/3 Frostbite as a prerequisite.
If this turns out to be the case, then that rather puts a crimp in my proposed 47/14 spec. It would also be annoying for raiding frost mages, as I gather that frostbite is more of a hindrance than a help there - randomly frozen mobs will of course aggro onto anyone in their melee range.

Taking a step back, it seems an odd decision on Blizzard's part to include a 11-pointer (i.e. very obtainable) talent that is a non-trivial dps buff to any mage spec and place it in a tree that is otherwise very school-specific (elemental precision aside). As I outlined earlier, the 10 points normally put in arcane are useful for any mage spec (although arcane focus is so so marginal), so it would make much more sense if they replaced the craptastic Arcane Fortitude with this new talent (suitably renamed), and put something more frost-centric in the frost tree.
#1343SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frah
wow! Looks like it could be a nice buff for some extra raid dps.

At the moment the top 3 gems with clearcasting will give about 9,000-10,000 mana over a 9-10 min fight (using the mage SSC trinket). With the same trinket and these new gems but without clearcast you will gain 9,000 mana

If you do not have big mana problems or run with a Spriest alot then dropping clearcast for this 20% cast speed talent could up your dps quite a bit.


Something like this spec where the frost nova and frostbolt are just fillers to get the IV. Also leaves you 3 points to put anywhere.
#1344SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Finkum
Some further quick napkin math regarding the new mana gems and Arcane Concentration:

Currently using the three top rank mana gems will return, on average, 3200 mana. The buffed multi-charge gem will return 7200 mana on average, for a net increase of 4000 mana.

Modelling Arcane Concentration as a straight up 10% increase to your net mana usage(by which I mean, the total amount of mana you have available over a fight, including evo/gem usage/s.priest etc.), any fight (without clearcasting) where you use less than 40k mana in total will result in you having more mana post 2.3.2, any fight where you use more will result in less. 40k mana is sufficient to spam 100 fireballs (or 5 minutes of back-to-back casting, unhasted), FWIW.
#1345SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lysara
Anyone noticed how the buffed Mana Gems can be a buff to our survivability as well?

One of the problems Mages always had was that since Mana Gems gave back so little mana, we were forced to use Mana Potions as well. Obviously this caused us to not be able to use Healthstones or Healthpots when we needed to (DoT from Leo's WW, falling roof at Magtheridon, exploding shield at Naj'entus).

But now the Mana Gems are essentially equal to a Super Mana Potion, and even exceed them with [Serpent-Coil Braid] (the Mana Gem buff actually makes the trinket more desirable as well, now that I think about it). Will this leave our Potion cooldown free for a Health Potion when we need it? And if we'll be using much less Mana Potions life for a raiding Mage will be cheaper as well.

All in all, I'm excited.
#1346SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Andersnordic
As for the latest changes. The only potential nuisance I can think of with 2/47/11 is for the mage tank on the Council fight. When you use your sub par stam gear you will lack a serious amount of hit not having 5/5 Arcane Focus and we will get more resists when spellstealing;p

Its a great buff in any case and well deserved.




CoE

I also totally agree on the idea of merging CoE + CoS. It would solve our biggest problem atm (Not allways having 3 locks).

We are having the same problem btw. CoE uptime the last few weeks has been less than 20% as we often have only 2 locks. We also have to "re-create" the consensus among the locks to keep CoE up. At the same time we have about 80% uptime of +13% CoS.

I am arcane atm. because of the above factor + that im 1 piece away from 4 set T6 (So I still have +20% AB dmg). I am awed by the fact that 90% of raiding mages have “blindly” embraced fire as the one and only raiding spec without fully understanding all implications though.

This brings me to the next issue however that only applies to 2.3;




If 2-3 arcane mages would make your guild clear BT/MH quicker than having 2-3 fire mages, wouldn't that make arcane superior to fire?

There is one issue that has been totally ignored when determining the consensus of the best raiding mage spec. As this issue is relative to if you have BT/MH on farm or not and that I'm a creature of logic ill share my view on this (As I clearly feel Arcane spec can be the ultimate mage build for guilds that clear BT/MH).

Obviously, fire can generate more dmg than arcane on some bosses (And you cant really argue against parses;p). That is if you have CoE uptime. If you have unstable CoE uptime or none at all you have to compare to the fact that you could have gotten up to 13% CoS for arcane. Also, it also boils down to which logic you are using to judge “what is superior”. Parses doesn't show how long your guild will spend clearing an instance...


MH

My definition of superior is what makes the weekly BT/MH grind use the least amount of time. As 70-80% of the content you are nuking in MH is related to Arcane Explosion an arcane mage would be superior to a fire mage simply by that fact alone (The added value of arcane spec AE decreasing the amount of time spent on waves substantially).

If you can clear MH faster with 2-3 arcane mages than with 2-3 fire mages, wouldn't that mean that bringing arcane mages would be the most logical thing to do? Wouldn't that make arcane spec superior to fire spec for MH?


BT

Supremus + Illidan who clearly favours arcane (The dps loss from these two bosses alone would be greater than the added dps gain you would get from the other bosses (Unless you have 100% CoE uptime, even if you did, it would be close)).

A fire mage could probably do better damage on Najentus + Teron (Fire would do slightly better, even though he would have pushback).

RoS as I see it favours Arcane as you can AB blast 100% during P1 + P3 (Yes, use the 2p T5:p) with AP right under the tank threat for P3. A fire mage is capped by tank threat as we know.

Fire would be better for Akama, Bloodboil, Mother and Council.


But from an overall assessment, considering you lose ALOT of dmg on Supremus + Illidan as fire + there are alot of packs you can AE, it wouldn't surprise me if 2-3 arcane mages would make a BT clear faster.



In any case, I really have mixed feelings about the fire vs arcane issue atm and I know alot of mages that feel the same way. Simply saying that arcane mages – “gogo respec!” is a relative truth with MANY modifications;p.

Because if your guild want to make the BT/MH grind as short as possible then arcane is still the way to go;p

In any case, If we knew we would have 100% CoE uptime it would be so much easier to fully embrace fire (As it would be more logical to spec it than it is today)

As for next patch though, thats a whole different story;p
#1347SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Runkett
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
As for the latest changes. The only potential nuisance I can think of with 2/47/11 is for the mage tank on the Council fight. When you use your sub par stam gear you will lack a serious amount of hit not having 5/5 Arcane Focus and we will get more resists when spell stealing;p
Its only the first steal that really matters, you have enough time to cast it about 27 times between when he re-buffs and your current buff runs out, so really its just an extra 6% chance (if you don't have more hit gear) to fail on the pull. Even still, with reasonable stam / shields / heals you can prob get away with taking one full hit.


Id like to think Arcane is viable still, as its my favorite spec to play, but even if it breaks even on dmg due to no CoE you still have the headaches of needing at least a spriest and probably a shaman too (often available, but you suck balls when their not). Some fights it may win on, but mostly you will end up wasting 20% of a raid slot.
#1348SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Andersnordic
Yea, its obvious that I was referring to the first pull, as the problem for the later spellsteals wouldn't matter. And since he can hit you for 12,950 to 15,050 arcane dmg, surviving the first bolt would be based on luck. When we use our max stam gear we will have a problem getting more than 6-8% spell hit without the arcane talent so we would have about 8-10% chance to get a spellsteal resist (4-6% if you have ele totem + heroic presence).

Why would you say they were wasting 20% of a raid slot per arcane mage when a MH/BT clear is 5% faster + with 2-3 arcane mages compared to 2-3 fire mages?

Can you please explain that?

Last edited by Andersnordic : 11/22/07 at 12:15 AM.
#1349SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Runkett
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
Why would you say they were wasting 20% of a raid slot per arcane mage when a MH/BT clear is 5% faster + with 2-3 arcane mages compared to 2-3 fire mages?

Can you please explain that?
Ok, so my 20% figure may not have been derived from complex cross referenced WWS reports... but I doubt your 5% speed increase is either. Even with the curse advantage, and the addional support classes required to keep casting, the arcane mages are unlikley to win overall, and adding a lock instead is always going to be a massive gain.

One of your primary reasons for arcane over frost/fire is the AoE work in Hyjal, which yes, arcane is good for, but blizzard (for example) does almost as well (can start much earlier), and provides additional control if you have points in it. The same frost spec will go on to do more damage on every boss except the first one (due to resists). Just because arcane aoe may be 5% higher, doesnt make the run 5% quicker - you lose any time you gain with slower boss kills or any other time you have to single target.
#1350SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
WoW Forums -> Mage Improvements!

Originally Posted by Eyonix
There are a few nice improvements we're making to the mage class in patch 2.3.2 (a small patch that will be on the public test realms soon) and we wanted to share them with you. First, we'll start out with two changes affecting all mages. Ice block will become a core ability, trainable by all mages at level 30. Additionally, conjure mana (rank 6) will restore 1800-3000 mana and will now have three charges, meaning you can use it three times before having to create a new one.

To be sure we're clear here, yes, the same cooldown will still apply between usages. :P

Cold snap will be moved to Ice block's position in the talent tree and its cooldown will be reduced. As a side note, it will no longer reset the cooldown on fire ward. Moving in to Cold snap's spot will be a brand new ability called Icy Veins. This new ability will decrease casting time for all spells by 20% and increases the chance that chilling effects freeze the target by 25%. It's an active ability, lasting 20 seconds and has a 3 minute cooldown.
Looks like the new highest dps raiding build is 47 points in Fire and 11 points in Frost, since none of the Arcane talents we currently take have any effect on dps, but this new talent will be 20% haste for 20 seconds every 3 minutes, which is pretty damn powerful combined with combustion, Skull of Gul'dan and Icon/Hex Head.
#1351SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
jusion
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I propose that COS and COE be merged into one curse. Possibly even add 10% nature damage, or even toss 10% holy damage if you really want to cover all bases. COE serves really no other purposes than just cluttering the available curses warlocks have for something arguably redundant. COE is extremely narrow and situational; to be worthwhile you need at least 3 warlocks in a raid and at least 2 fire/frost mages.
I would ask for a DPS boost and a CoE nerf. Rather than keeping your requirement for CoE, why not just buff overall mage DPS, while lowering the boost CoE gives. Instead of having a (completely made up numbers) 600 DPS difference between a mage with CoE and a mage without it, you would see more of a 100-200 DPS difference. So rather than keeping your insane reliance on CoE, CoE just confers a smaller DPS boost while unbuffed mage DPS is higher. Something like that.

CoR has a negative side effect, CoE/CoS do not. I would bet that is the logic keeping them from merging all of the magic DPS classes curses separate.

Correct me if I'm blatantly wrong about anything, this is just the solution I thought of when reading over your problems.

__________________

Last edited by jusion : 11/22/07 at 2:00 AM.
#1352SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by jusion View Post
I would ask for a DPS boost and a CoE nerf. Rather than keeping your requirement for CoE, why not just buff overall mage DPS, while lowering the boost CoE gives. Instead of having a (completely made up numbers) 600 DPS difference between a mage with CoE and a mage without it, you would see more of a 100-200 DPS difference. So rather than keeping your insane reliance on CoE, CoE just confers a smaller DPS boost while unbuffed mage DPS is higher. Something like that.

CoR has a negative side effect, CoE/CoS do not. I would bet that is the logic keeping them from merging all of the magic DPS classes curses separate.

Correct me if I'm blatantly wrong about anything, this is just the solution I thought of when reading over your problems.
Well, the idea is to make it such that mages get CoE as often as possible. I sure would love a DPS boost, because even with CoE on every single target, mage dps still falls badly behind warlocks. Anyway, merging CoE with CoS is one of the viable solution. Another solution can be adding nature damage to CoE, which is another popular suggestion.

I personally prefer CoE to just be merged into CoS so that we won't face issues with lack of CoE when there aren't enough warlocks in the raid.
#1353SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
We are getting a DPS boost in 2.3.2!

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#1354SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
CoR does have a downside but it is extremely minor for existing fights. That doesn't mean there will not be more fights down the road where it has multiplicative effects but for the existing raid content I cannot think of anything where it is not a straight buff, much in the vein of Amping a tank only more so.

By the way, I don't agree that with CoE Mage damage is falling badly behind Warlocks. It's actually pretty close and with IV will probably be on par really. I don't know that we are on par in total in terms of survivability, drain on raid resources, raid utility contribution, personal DPS and RDPS and so on but for simple marginal rdps we are still a decent choice if CoE will be up.

__________________
...
#1355SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Any of you guys running the numbers done any calculations on the new Icey veins ability?
#1356SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
Any of you guys running the numbers done any calculations on the new Icey veins ability?
Well, "worst case scenario" it's (20/180) * 20% haste, which is 2.2% haste or about 34.54 haste rating. Of course, its real value is another haste effect to stack with Bloodlust and our other activatable abilities, which would take considerably more complex math to figure out the value of, and it's also completely ridiculous for burst dps.

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#1357SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
Any of you guys running the numbers done any calculations on the new Icey veins ability?
I know that being a Troll, this is just like a 80% health Berserking activation, so can easily run those numbers, and find the dps gain, going to be by guestimation, a 3-5% dps gain, if not a little more when stacked with Bloodlust/Heroism.
#1358SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0mordrak
Cold Snap on a lowered cooldown gives frostmages a real dps boost in my mind. We don't know what exactly the cooldown will be, but this gives us the possibilty to take out the water-elemental more often.
Icy Veins as a 2-3% dps boost in addition is really nice.

A new mana-gem which gives us nearly 100% more mana than the mana emerald is in addition really huge. Nice buffs for frostmages I think.
#1359SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
I believe the Mana Gems are just getting buffed, not a new rank as the new news post on mmo-champion appears to say.

Can't confirm anything until the ptr comes up....let the waiting game continue!
#1360SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Darkchani
Its nice buffs for all mages, and unless coldsnap has a really short cooldown i would say a bigger buff for fire mages than frost mages... more mana from gems, survivability increase for non-frost mages thru iceblock (a clutch yes but such a nice clutch on illidan's dark barrage, archimonde's doomfire, IC's envenom-blizzard-flamestrike combos etc) and then to top things off, a nice dps increase with icy veins...

I look foward 2.3.2 and the stacking of bloodlust, icy veins, skull, icon/hex, molten fury, destro pot and flamecap =)



Details on the mana gem :
The new Mana Emerald is an upgrade of the Rank 5, not a new rank. Changed from 1136 - 1364 mana to 1800 - 3000 mana.
-according to mmo-champion, couldnt find the source

Last edited by Darkchani : 11/22/07 at 4:00 AM.
#1361SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Soul
We are sort two crucial elements of information as to what mage dps come 2.3.2 will be. First of all, is IV affected by Ice Floes. My feeling is that it isn't, but if it was, then that gives Frost Mages a leg up on Fire mages since they will have 20/144 uptime instead of 20/180 uptime for the IV buff without even considering Cold Snap and the duration of the fight.

And, the second question is, what is Cold Snap's new cooldown anyway? Somehow, I doubt it'll be 5 minutes, although that would be any Frost Mage's wet dream, but it will be less than 10 minutes now.
#1362SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
I'm kinda more excited about the mana-gems than icy veins, means I have to convince my guild to go back to morogrim for trinket as well. In the last two raidnights (learning and killing ROS + going hyjal, clearing and learning Kaz'rogal and getting that down) i spent 72 super mana pots and gems on every cooldown and evocation. Manapots go for 15g a stack on my shiteous server so I might actually see myself not going broke in the future!
#1363SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Mulgero
New cold snap(?): Thottbot World of Warcraft: Cold Snap 8min CD with ice floes 6min24sec I think.

Icy veins: Thottbot World of Warcraft: Icy Veins

Depending a bit of boss fight but this is going to be pretty noticeable frost spec damage increase in boss fights which are 7+ minutes. Fire builds can get icy veins easily by dropping clearcasting but will still if WE is going to stay alive deep frost is catching deep fire.
#1364SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
stuff
1- firespec with no coe beats arcane spec with 13% COS. Arcane spec is that bad.

2- arcane mages contribute 0% to faster hyjal clears because the waves of mobs come at fixed intervals.

__________________
<AntumbraWork> MANLY HAS GONE TOO FAR. HIS REIGN OF TERROR MUST END! ENGAGE THE DEATH TOUCH.
<AntumbraWork> flashing red lights and klaxons
<AntumbraWork> then kalgan slid down a firepole
<AntumbraWork> and sat down at the Emergency Death Touch Console
<AntumbraWork> he pressed the big red button labelled 'kill manly'
<AntumbraWork> right next to the big red button labelled 'nerf warlocks'
#1365SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by Darkchani View Post
Its nice buffs for all mages, and unless coldsnap has a really short cooldown i would say a bigger buff for fire mages than frost mages... more mana from gems, survivability increase for non-frost mages thru iceblock (a clutch yes but such a nice clutch on illidan's dark barrage, archimonde's doomfire, IC's envenom-blizzard-flamestrike combos etc) and then to top things off, a nice dps increase with icy veins...

I look foward 2.3.2 and the stacking of bloodlust, icy veins, skull, icon/hex, molten fury, destro pot and flamecap =)



Details on the mana gem :
The new Mana Emerald is an upgrade of the Rank 5, not a new rank. Changed from 1136 - 1364 mana to 1800 - 3000 mana.
-according to mmo-champion, couldnt find the source
Rank5 mana gem can also be re used 3 times.

Another question might be if Cold Snap resetts the cooldown of Icey Veins?

The calculations I have seen so far on this site states Fire and Frost to be about equal with a slight advantage towards fire. My big question is what numbers we will see after this mini-patch
#1366SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
I'm kinda more excited about the mana-gems than icy veins, means I have to convince my guild to go back to morogrim for trinket as well. In the last two raidnights (learning and killing ROS + going hyjal, clearing and learning Kaz'rogal and getting that down) i spent 72 super mana pots and gems on every cooldown and evocation. Manapots go for 15g a stack on my shiteous server so I might actually see myself not going broke in the future!
As a arcane mage I spend about 30 super mana pots per 4h raid. First time in Hyjal I kept spending that amount as a fire mage. However if your guild do the trash in a more mana efficient way you really dont use that many pots. We started of with simple doing AoE 24/7 wich ofcoursed cost alot of pots. But then we started single point dps Necromancers first, then banshees before starting AoE (if no banshees or necros we go with 3 single point dps targets). This worked great for our raid, the increase in control also gave us more time between trash waves and more time to rest.
#1367SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
1) If it only affects frost, frost will almost surely outdamage fire
2) If it affects all spells, things wont change much, fire will still have an advantage
3) If it affects all spells and Icy Floes and Cold Snap give Frost the option to put it out more often, then things get interesting. Both speccs should could out very close to each other.

For now, the thottbot test site agues for the second version, but then again we will not know until tesetservers are up and/or blizz finalizes the patch for launch.

Another thing: In the past, two spell damage Trinkets were able to be activated at the same time, but now they put a small CD on each other as we all know. Since BC introduced haste effects (and Serpent Coil can be used together with Hex Shrunken) mages are now once more able to increase theeir spelldamage two fold.
Icy Veigns with Arcane Power (and possibly a haste and a spell damage trinket) will make other classes cry for a nerf and I will not be surprised when Blizzard decides to have AP and IV cancel each other (like AP and the Priest spell) or have them put a CD on each other (as with simple trinkets).
#1368SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Andersnordic
Originally Posted by manly View Post
1- firespec with no coe beats arcane spec with 13% COS. Arcane spec is that bad.

2- arcane mages contribute 0% to faster hyjal clears because the waves of mobs come at fixed intervals.

1. Thats incorrect and inaccurate. If you have 4p T6 its true, but if you don't then arcane is very much competitive and even better on some bosses, as specified earlier (If you lack CoE but have CoS). The turning point is when you lose your 2p T5, which makes arcane inferior and not able to compete at all. However, with CoE I agree, fire would outdps arcane on most fights for a non 4p T6 mage as well. Keep in mind that you can AB spam for 70-80% on many fights.

2. Yes and no. There are intervals but they are not fixed as far as i know. Meaning that if you kill the last mob on the current wave, the next wave is automatically triggered.

__________________
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Last edited by Andersnordic : 11/22/07 at 6:59 AM.
#1369SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
I actually think that with Icey Veins that Troll mages will see the biggest benefit from this as Fire, while non trolls will see the best from Frost. 10-30% extra haste stacked with all the bells and whistles will produce a cast just over 90% haste, going towards 110% haste easily. I'm just waiting for the PTR realms to actually come up to verify my little theory crafting.

Dustwhisper, do you not run with a shadow priest in your group or what? Over the whole course of learning Hyjal/BT I don't think I've even expended that many mana pots.
#1370SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Dustwhisper, do you not run with a shadow priest in your group or what? Over the whole course of learning Hyjal/BT I don't think I've even expended that many mana pots.
We have one shadowpriest, it goes to our healers. Hopefully one of the other shadowpriests are back in action now. Doesn't matter though, as 10/48/3 mage with SP chaincasting gems/evocation I still had to use a manapot every 2 minutes on all fights in SSC/TK. Haven't tried hyjal with SP yet, doubt it'll change.
#1371SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Goggles
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
We have one shadowpriest, it goes to our healers. Hopefully one of the other shadowpriests are back in action now. Doesn't matter though, as 10/48/3 mage with SP chaincasting gems/evocation I still had to use a manapot every 2 minutes on all fights in SSC/TK. Haven't tried hyjal with SP yet, doubt it'll change.
Are you sure about this? The difference for me with and without a shadow priest is massive. If I don't have 1 I'm chain potting every fight and still going OOM before the end quite often. If I have got a shadow priest I only use mana pots on certain fights (Morogrim and Solarion chain chugging due to AoE, 1-2 Kael'thas, 0-1 Vashj).

__________________
Not actually a member of Refusion on Burning Blade.
#1372SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Eusheka
That all depends on how good your Spriest is gear and skill wise of course though.
I remember in SSC having to pot a lot too even with a shadowpriest, but as they got better gear and skilled i now dont have to pot at all pretty much.
#1373SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
Doesn't matter though, as 10/48/3 mage with SP chaincasting gems/evocation I still had to use a manapot every 2 minutes on all fights in SSC/TK. Haven't tried hyjal with SP yet, doubt it'll change.
It sounds like your shadow priests aren't putting out much damage - there's no way that 10/48/3 should have to chain pot. I don't pot at all on Illidan or Council with a shadow priest as 10/48/3, nor do I use mana gems. Evocation is sufficient. On all the other fights, I don't even use Evocation anymore because the dps loss of doing nothing isn't worth it.

Originally Posted by Soul
We are sort two crucial elements of information as to what mage dps come 2.3.2 will be. First of all, is IV affected by Ice Floes. My feeling is that it isn't, but if it was, then that gives Frost Mages a leg up on Fire mages since they will have 20/144 uptime instead of 20/180 uptime for the IV buff without even considering Cold Snap and the duration of the fight.
Not necessarily true - it might make them even, but you have to consider that at the base level, Icy Veins is worse for Frost than Fire for the simple reason that a large percentage of Frost's dps is the Water Elemental, and Icy Veins has no effect on the Water Elemental. It affects 100% of Fire's damage, on the other hand.

However, the Cold Snap buff may improve the Water Elemental's uptime and this might help Frost out some more, but Icy Veins itself is actually a better dps boost for Fire(ignoring Cold Snap).

__________________
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#1374SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Am I the only one who thinks it's weird how arcane receives no love at all? Surely the mentioned 33 28, 40 18 3, 40 0 21 should be more viable than they are?
No, but neither are you are the only one who did not see:

Trinket-AP-Icy Veins-Fball spam with POM-Pyro at the end.

while as manly rightly put it "craptastic" 33.28.0 and 40.18.3 are getting nothing out of this, the even worse 40.0.21 is in fact getting a substantial buff.

As for the gentlemen who are modeling the new IV spam, assuming Cold Snap adds one to the mix is a fallacy: Firstly, given a fight over 9m (granted, T6 content might not be, but SSC/TK certainly is) you can deffinitely get a useful two Cold Snaps in. Secondly, it was also announced that Cold Snap's CD would be reduced. Could it be we're looking at 10m into 5m perhaps? As far as I remember, three is nothing with less than 10m CD that isn't either 3m, 2m, or 1m, so 5m should be a reasonable bet. Given Ice Floes that'll go down to 4m, so we suddenly see that theres an awful load more elementals and Icy Veins in there...

Mysterious how Icy Veins has exactly 20sec duration and 2m cooldown... Exactly the same as Icon and Hex-shrunken. What remains to be seen is can 3/47/11 using IV surpass cold-snap spamming frost with multiple pets and more IV than they get?

Did anyone else notice how much more powerful Serpent-Coil Braid - Items - World of Warcraft became with the manastone changes? Given we're now eating 3x new 2400 average mana gems before we move on to the new piddly ones, the manareturn is much more signifficant. And it's on (drum roll) 2m CD! God speed Vontre and the other simulation-scripters, this is turning into a simulation nightmare but I'll be damned if it isn't the best news since Ice Lance.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 11/22/07 at 7:55 AM.
#1375SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
We have one shadowpriest, it goes to our healers. Hopefully one of the other shadowpriests are back in action now. Doesn't matter though, as 10/48/3 mage with SP chaincasting gems/evocation I still had to use a manapot every 2 minutes on all fights in SSC/TK. Haven't tried hyjal with SP yet, doubt it'll change.
I tried kael after nerf and didnt even use my evocation, only used about 2-3 pots and 2 gems for the entire fight. Have a SP in my group and Im 10/48/3.

Depending on how much you AoE duing the trash mobs you shouldnt have to use that many pots. I usally use about 2-3 pots during the 8 trash wawes and maybe 1-2 gems. I do have a SP in my group.

I tried both with mage armor and with molten armor and from my experience (haven't caluculated it) i gain alot more mana from the 3% extra crit refund then i do from Mage armor. Someone with a better math head that calculated this?

Also as I stated before I think some guilds do the misstake of simpley doing AoE for all the trash and not doing any single point dps. Ofcourse 20 minutes of AoE drains your mana pool.... How does your guild work the trash?

I have only done 4 raids in MH, it took us 3 raids to get to 3/5 bosses down. After killing Kaz'ragol the second time yesterday I cant really see how it costs you that many mana pots. The boss goes down pretty fast and since the CD of the mana pots wont tick down fast enough I would only be able to use a maximum of 2 pots per Kaz'ragol fight. If you are having mana problems this fight you should do your best to boost your shadow resistance

In my oponion it seems a bit strange that you give your Shadow priest to your healers, they shouldnt really need it. On Mount Hyjal trash AoE should get the SP, mages over warlocks cause of life tap.
#1376SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
It sounds like your shadow priests aren't putting out much damage - there's no way that 10/48/3 should have to chain pot. I don't pot at all on Illidan or Council with a shadow priest as 10/48/3, nor do I use mana gems. Evocation is sufficient. On all the other fights, I don't even use Evocation anymore because the dps loss of doing nothing isn't worth it..
Our SP regens something like 10-12k in the 4 minutes rage takes to die. Do you use fireblast in your rotation? I've even went OOM on lurker with SP, chainpotting, geming, evocating, only using fireballs.
#1377SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
macbeet
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Secondly, it was also announced that Cold Snap's CD would be reduced. Could it be we're looking at 10m into 5m perhaps? As far as I remember, three is nothing with less than 10m CD that isn't either 3m, 2m, or 1m, so 5m should be a reasonable bet. Given Ice Floes that'll go down to 4m, so we suddenly see that theres an awful load more elementals and Icy Veins in there...
Evocation is 8 minutes. Thottbot test data lists Cold Snap as 8 minutes as pointed out by Mulgero: Thottbot World of Warcraft: Cold Snap

With Icy Flows that will be 6:24 minutes... now I have not been to many fights in T6 content, but wont this let you use Cold Snap twice per fight, and hence give 1 additional WE and 1 additional Icy Veins over the previous cooldown?

edit: misslinked, i suck

Last edited by macbeet : 11/22/07 at 10:11 AM.
#1378SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Firstly, given a fight over 9m (granted, T6 content might not be, but SSC/TK certainly is) you can deffinitely get a useful two Cold Snaps in.
I specified that I was not reffering to T6 content and you ask me to confirm my statement given T6 content? Evocation has been 8m since release, while over the past two years every single new talent/mechanic/workaround has been implemented with the same ballancing around 1,2 and 3m CDs. My reasoning was pattern recognition, though speculation alone. Moving it to 8m has reasonable belieavability because it's a 20% decrease and that's a common modifier for blizzard alterations. Even though, Ice Floes lowering it to a fraction like 6:24 seems rather ungainly and silly.

Realistically it should stay (talented or not) longer than twice the best CD it resets. Otherwise we'll reach a state where every other CD you cold-snap which is plain silly.
#1379SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Goggles
I don't know how that's even possible. I just looked at a random 8.5 minute Lurker kill of ours. My shadow priest was not well geared (1 bit of T5, 2 bits of T4, rest Karazhan gear, not a tailor/engineer/enchanter etc) and didn't do very good dps by his standards. I got 12k mana over the entire fight from him, I used evocation once and 3 or 4 mana gems, no mana potions. I can guarantee I never had or looked like having mana issues as I'd have used a pot or 2 then. Was just using a normal scorch/fireball rotation (possibly didn't even use scorch that much if another mage owned the debuff). Only 2 things I can think of are that I a) used Mage Armour and b) didn't use fireblast. I can't see b) that significant a difference even if you're using it every cooldown. No idea about the difference in mana regen between Mage and Molten but again can't see it being massive. I use Mage because it's always seemed to me better but I've got no maths to back it up. I only use Molten on short DPS races.

EDIT: In reply to Dustwhisper
#1380SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
I always use molten armor, I only use fireblast when I know I won't go OOM or have a SP.. I have very very high dps uptime on most fights though. On lurker the only time I stop dpsing is between last guardian thing and when lurker pops back up and while waiting for adds to spawn. No way I can see people not going OOM, especially when not having a SP.
#1381SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0arch
Is fire blast still viable in the fire rotations? I thought 8 fireballs 1 scorch was the optimal rotation, mainly because of the fireball unnerf and the new casting system.
#1382SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by arch View Post
Is fire blast still viable in the fire rotations? I thought 8 fireballs 1 scorch was the optimal rotation, mainly because of the fireball unnerf and the new casting system.
Still good for the last stack of combustion where you cast a fireball and cast a fireblast while the fireball is in the air. Also very good when moving (wich you do most fights). On trash I use it as a killing blow spell, in other words when I know the mob will go down within 1.5 seconds i use fireblast instead of scorch.

To change topic:
Cant wait to see new calculations that compare frost to fire again, Im hopeing to start using frost in PVE soon but whant the numbers on my side

Edit: What do you guys think about Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (for icey veins after patch)

Last edited by Skinkelinken : 11/22/07 at 8:23 AM.
#1383SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Evocation has been 8m since release.
No it was reduced to an 8 minute CD from 10 minute pre - TBC IIRC
#1384SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
Still good for the last stack of combustion where you cast a fireball and cast a fireblast while the fireball is in the air.
Not really no, ignite has been FUBAR since it's implementation, but exactly this won't work well and hasn't since they nerfed the Naxx Era of Ignite. What will happen is the Fireblast crit to land last and proc the ignite, this ignite will override the one from the fireball, granted that crit too, and you lose a good chunk of dmg.
#1385SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Silke
Originally Posted by Lysara View Post
Anyone noticed how the buffed Mana Gems can be a buff to our survivability as well?

One of the problems Mages always had was that since Mana Gems gave back so little mana, we were forced to use Mana Potions as well. Obviously this caused us to not be able to use Healthstones or Healthpots when we needed to (DoT from Leo's WW, falling roof at Magtheridon, exploding shield at Naj'entus).

But now the Mana Gems are essentially equal to a Super Mana Potion, and even exceed them with [Serpent-Coil Braid] (the Mana Gem buff actually makes the trinket more desirable as well, now that I think about it). Will this leave our Potion cooldown free for a Health Potion when we need it? And if we'll be using much less Mana Potions life for a raiding Mage will be cheaper as well.

All in all, I'm excited.
While this is true, it can also be a boost to our DPS along the same line of thought. Remove Health Potion and replace that with Destruction Potion and you'll see where I'm going with this. I'm only working on T5 content and despite carrying several stacks of Destruction Pots around with me, I'm very hesitant to use them. I much prefer saving my cooldowns for a Health Pot or a Mana Pot as needed. However, with the changes to Mana Gems it will be much more "safe" to burn a Destruction Pot instead of holding onto the cooldown for a Mana / Health pot.
#1386SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Not really no, ignite has been FUBAR since it's implementation, but exactly this won't work well and hasn't since they nerfed the Naxx Era of Ignite. What will happen is the Fireblast crit to land last and proc the ignite, this ignite will override the one from the fireball, granted that crit too, and you lose a good chunk of dmg.
What I mean is that fireblast helps you make combustion last for 4 crits and not 3.

When you popped combustion and critted 2 times you basicly make sure to cast a fireblast before your fireball land to get a extra crit in.
#1387SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Silke View Post
While this is true, it can also be a boost to our DPS along the same line of thought. Remove Health Potion and replace that with Destruction Potion and you'll see where I'm going with this. I'm only working on T5 content and despite carrying several stacks of Destruction Pots around with me, I'm very hesitant to use them. I much prefer saving my cooldowns for a Health Pot or a Mana Pot as needed. However, with the changes to Mana Gems it will be much more "safe" to burn a Destruction Pot instead of holding onto the cooldown for a Mana / Health pot.
Yes this does open for destropots. Nowhere in Tier5 do you need a healthpotion really, think only place I ever used them was on Leotheras cause our healers cba healing ranged on that fight.
#1388SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
What I mean is that fireblast helps you make combustion last for 4 crits and not 3.

When you popped combustion and critted 2 times you basicly make sure to cast a fireblast before your fireball land to get a extra crit in.
That may be true but the man pointed-out that double-dipping nerfs your fireball's ignite. Is there really a benefit to wasting an additional GCD to gain a Fireblast crit at the expense of the Ignite portion of your Fireball's crit?
#1389SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
well you can technically or maybe I'm just extremely lucky, trippledip it with fireball->scorch->fireblast. Which i get on certain fights depending on latency/distance to mob.
#1390SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Leialyn
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
Edit: What do you guys think about Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (for icey veins after patch)
I thought about this as well, but I'm not so sure about the rest of the frost spells... maybe spec a bit into frostbolt for times where there are fire immunes (Illidan P2, Al'ar, etc).

Last edited by Leialyn : 11/22/07 at 10:41 AM.
#1391SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Zalbo
If your fireblast crit + ignite damage is greater than just the ignite damage from fireball, then it would, wouldn't it? E.G. a 6k fireball crit means fireblast would have to crit + ignite for over 2400 damage, which I think is fairly likely at such a gear level/raid debuffed mob.

Edit: I haven't been fire for a while to check on this, so someone who is fire could provide the actual numbers.
#1392SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Btw regarding 4part t6 item stacking. From looking over vontre's spreadsheet again and testing diff items without actually trying to max for hit or anything it seems to me like stacking 4part t6 with random epic the epics come out like this

Cowl of the illidary highlord = 4 dps over > Vestments of the seawitch = 1 dps over > leggings of channeled elements = 8 or so dps > hatefury mantle.

This is also without modelling the CSD which I guess would put cowl of the illidary highlords a lot more infront of vestments.

Might turn out differently if I actually try to stack gems right but this was mainly filling with +12 spelldmg gems and removing any other gear that had +hit on it just incase one combo put it over the hitcap compared to another.
#1393SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Amarek
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Not really no, ignite has been FUBAR since it's implementation, but exactly this won't work well and hasn't since they nerfed the Naxx Era of Ignite. What will happen is the Fireblast crit to land last and proc the ignite, this ignite will override the one from the fireball, granted that crit too, and you lose a good chunk of dmg.
This is not true. Ignite doesn't work like it did pre 2.0, but now it works exactly like the tooltip states. Every crit provides 40% of the crit-dmg as a dot, ticking 2 times for 20%.

If you crit again before your first ignite ticks, the damage get added. I even checked our last Kael-Try WWS.

Flamestrike: 1512 (crit)
Blastwave: 1684 (crit)
Dragon's Breath: 1824 (crit)

There was no ignite tick in between, and the first ignite tick after 2 seconds was for 1004, which is exactly the right amount (add everything and multiply by 0.2).
#1394SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Comparison of 2/48/11 and 10/47/3+1

Comparison of 2/48/11 and 10/47/3+1

This is a rough, back of the envelope, comparison.

Clearcasting effectively adds 10% to your mana pool. Roughly, in a 5 minute fight, you will spend 4500 more mana without Clearcasting than with; in a 10 minute fight, you will spend 9000 more.

The new mana gem protocol has 3 charges of average 2400 mana per charge. In a 5 minute fight, you will consume 2 gems, which give 2450 more mana than in 2.3; in a 10 minute fight, you will consume 4 gems, which give about 4400 more mana.

With 2/48/11, you will have a 2550 mana shortfall after 5 minutes and a 4600 mana shortfall after 10 minutes. The deficit rate is about 8.5 mana per second or 42.5 mana per 5seconds.

The question comes down to: "Do I have 42.5 m/5s to spare?"

Notes:

Switching to Mage Armor for the long fight gains 44m/5s (in my case) at the cost of 3% to crit. 3% to crit is definitely more than 2.2% damage increase, so is not a win.

Serpent Coil Braid changes the deficit to 6.3 m/s or 31.8 m/5s.

Our raid group has 2 active shadow priests, who, for some reason, are never in the same raid. We have one active shaman. This will be a really tough call.
#1395SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Amarek View Post
This is not true. Ignite doesn't work like it did pre 2.0, but now it works exactly like the tooltip states. Every crit provides 40% of the crit-dmg as a dot, ticking 2 times for 20%.

If you crit again before your first ignite ticks, the damage get added. I even checked our last Kael-Try WWS.

Flamestrike: 1512 (crit)
Blastwave: 1684 (crit)
Dragon's Breath: 1824 (crit)

There was no ignite tick in between, and the first ignite tick after 2 seconds was for 1004, which is exactly the right amount (add everything and multiply by 0.2).
This works most of the time. Occasionally, the crit will overwrite the other that occurred too closely in time. This has been repeatedly documented on the Mage forums and the Bug report forums (Blizzard's, of course). Blizzard has not acknowledged that the overwriting occurs, but the logs are pretty clear.
#1396SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by Leialyn View Post
I thought about this as well, but I'm not so sure about the rest of the frost spells... maybe spec a bit into frostbolt for times where there are fire immunes (Illidan P2, Al'ar, etc).
I do agree, buy my choice basicly came down to what I can have use for when casting fireballs, the typical fight so to say.

forst warding: gives some defense to you
imp frost nova: our raidleader and MT often asks for a nova to make it a bit easier for the tanks when we pile up mobs for aoe
permafrost: havent even looked at the frost tree for ages but dosent this also make your FN last longer? If not this is a very bad choice but if it does i picked it for the same reason as imp FN.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft might be a better choice though
#1397SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
Notes:

Switching to Mage Armor for the long fight gains 44m/5s (in my case) at the cost of 3% to crit. 3% to crit is definitely more than 2.2% damage increase, so is not a win.
3% crit is a ~2.5% damage increase (assuming fire spec, CSD, 35% crit with mage armour) if you do the maths.
So, the difference is down to 0.3%. Mind that you can gain more than the average value for IV if the fight is not a multiple of 3 minutes, and you can stack it with cooldown usage.

Also, you should be able to start channeling Evocation when IV is about to end to get more benefit from it by hasting a long spell.
#1398SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Sancus
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
Our SP regens something like 10-12k in the 4 minutes rage takes to die. Do you use fireblast in your rotation? I've even went OOM on lurker with SP, chainpotting, geming, evocating, only using fireballs.
I have 4pc T6 - using Fire Blast in my rotation reduces my dps - and there's also no good reason for me to be that close to a boss either. So no, I don't. 4 minute rage kills are really slow, too, that might be part of your problem :/ Slow overall dps hurts mana classes bad.

My Shadowpriest does 11k mana in 3 minutes also, btw (300mp5) Mana Tide @ 2600 mana helps too.

(Elenya - WWS)

Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
Switching to Mage Armor for the long fight gains 44m/5s (in my case) at the cost of 3% to crit. 3% to crit is definitely more than 2.2% damage increase, so is not a win..
Really? I guess your gear is pretty bad, but is this number raid buffed? I have 56.4mp5 from Mage Armor without raid buffs, and raid buffs add another ~50 spirit if you don't have Divine Spirit, and ~105 if you do.

Last edited by Sancus : 11/22/07 at 1:17 PM.
#1399SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Assuming Thottbot is correct...

Summary

- Icy Veins has a mana cost but is very cheap

- Icy Veins most likely provides 20% haste, not a 20% cast time reduction

- New Cold Snap cooldown increases IV and Water Elemental uptime by a small amount

- In fights ranging from 5 to 20 minutes, average DPS gain is:
--- Fire: 2.77%
--- Arcane: 3.05%
--- Arcane/Frost: 4.15%
--- Deep Frost: 4.80%

- The theoretical DPS gap between Fire and Deep Frost narrows by ~2% (assuming 2/47/11+1 builds; narrows by almost 5% compared with 10/47/3+1).


Icy Veins

Mana cost: 3% base mana. This should be about 67 mana at level 70. With Elemental Precision, 65 mana. With Elemental Precision and Frost Channeling, 55 mana.

Haste: So, is Icy Veins 20% casting time reduction, or 20% haste? Well, thottbot says it applies the following effect:

Apply Aura: Haste - Spells (127)
Value: 20

What do we know that applies a similar effect that could be tested now? Heroism, of course. Heroism applies:

Apply Aura: Haste (Melee, Ranged and Spell) %
Value: 30

So now the question becomes: does Heroism reduce casting speed by 30%, or does it apply 30% haste?

We can test this with the Water Elemental. The Water Elemental has a 2.5 second casting time, and is unaffected by latency. The speed with which it reports to my log is affected by latency, but the variance should be small enough with my < 100ms latency to tell us which is correct.

So I poked through my log from a couple nights ago to find an instance of the elemental gaining Heroism, and happily I found one on Kaz'rogal. Heroism was applied at 18:55:29.983. Waterbolts occurred at the following times following the Heroism cast:

18:55:31.146
18:55:33.348 Interval: 1.163
18:55:35.399 Interval: 2.202
18:55:37.388 Interval: 2.051
18:55:39.418 Interval: 1.989
18:55:41.401 Interval: 2.030
18:55:43.467 Interval: 1.983
18:55:45.408 Interval: 1.941
18:55:47.459 Interval: 2.051
18:55:49.436 Interval: 2.030

If Heroism is a 30% casting time reduction, we expect a casting time of:
2.5 * 0.7 = 1.75

If Heroism is 30% haste, we expect a casting time of:
2.5 / 1.3 = 1.923

My conclusion is that Heroism is 30% haste, and that despite the differently-worded description, Icy Veins is also likely to be 20% haste.


Ice Block

Ice Block appears to be entirely unchanged -- same duration, same cooldown.


Cold Snap

Cooldown is reduced to 8 minutes (can I call it or what?). With 2/2 Ice Floes, this reduces the cooldown to 6 minutes, 24 seconds. More Icy Veins, more Water Elementals.


Ice Floes

Does not affect Icy Veins.


Icy Veins and Water Elemental Uptime

Fire and Arcane simply use Icy Veins every 3 minutes.

Arcane/Frost uses Cold Snap for additional Icy Veins as long as there is more than 90 seconds remaining on the Icy Veins cooldown; otherwise, it waits and cold snaps afterwards.

Deep Frost never needs to delay Cold Snap by more than ~21 seconds in fights up to 20 minutes, so the calls are easy.

FIGHT LENGTH    Frost IV     Frost WE (Old)     Arc/Fr IV    Fire/Arc IV
    1 min        66.67%    100.00% (100.00%)      66.67%       33.33%
    2 min        33.33%     75.00% (75.00%)       33.33%       16.67%
    3 min        22.22%     50.00% (50.00%)       22.22%       11.11%
    4 min        25.00%     43.75% (43.75%)       25.00%       16.67%
    5 min        20.00%     45.00% (45.00%)       20.00%       13.33%
    6 min        16.67%     37.50% (37.50%)       16.67%       11.11%
    7 min        22.14%     35.71% (35.71%)       19.05%       14.29%
    8 min        20.83%     43.75% (37.50%)       16.67%       12.50%
    9 min        18.52%     41.67% (41.67%)       14.81%       11.11%
   10 min        18.83%     37.50% (37.50%)       20.00%       13.33%
   11 min        18.18%     38.64% (34.09%)       18.18%       12.12%
   12 min        16.67%     37.50% (37.50%)       16.67%       11.11%
   13 min        17.05%     34.62% (34.62%)       17.95%       12.82%
   14 min        19.05%     35.71% (32.14%)       16.67%       11.90%
   15 min        17.78%     40.00% (35.00%)       15.56%       11.11%
   16 min        16.67%     37.50% (32.81%)       16.67%       12.50%
   17 min        17.65%     35.29% (30.88%)       15.69%       11.76%
   18 min        16.67%     37.50% (34.72%)       16.67%       11.11%
   19 min        15.79%     35.53% (35.53%)       15.79%       12.28%
   20 min        16.67%     33.75% (33.75%)       15.00%       11.67%

DPS Increase

- Assuming Water Elemental adds 30% DPS when up.

- Arcane spec uses AP with IV. This essentially means IV is a 22% DPS increase while up rather than 20%.

- Arc/Frost spec uses AP with IV on 6 of its 9 casts. This makes for an average 21.33% DPS increase instead of 20%, and doesn't require losing any AP casts in fights up to 20 minutes.

FIGHT LENGTH    Frost IV     Arc/Fr IV       Fire      Arcane
    1 min        13.33%       14.22%         6.67%      7.33%
    2 min         6.67%        7.11%         3.33%      3.67%
    3 min         4.44%        4.74%         2.22%      2.44%
    4 min         5.00%        5.33%         3.33%      3.67%
    5 min         4.00%        4.27%         2.67%      2.93%
    6 min         3.33%        3.56%         2.22%      2.44%
    7 min         4.43%        4.06%         2.86%      3.14%
    8 min         6.04%        3.56%         2.50%      2.75%
    9 min         3.70%        3.16%         2.22%      2.44%
   10 min         3.77%        4.27%         2.67%      2.93%
   11 min         5.00%        3.88%         2.42%      2.67%
   12 min         3.33%        3.56%         2.22%      2.44%
   13 min         3.41%        3.59%         2.56%      2.82%
   14 min         4.88%        3.83%         2.38%      2.62%
   15 min         5.06%        3.32%         2.22%      2.44%
   16 min         4.74%        3.56%         2.50%      2.75%
   17 min         4.85%        3.35%         2.35%      2.59%
   18 min         4.16%        3.56%         2.22%      2.44%
   19 min         3.16%        3.37%         2.46%      2.70%
   20 min         3.33%        3.20%         2.33%      2.57%
#1400SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Really? I guess your gear is pretty bad, but is this number raid buffed? I have 56.4mp5 from Mage Armor without raid buffs, and raid buffs add another ~50 spirit if you don't have Divine Spirit, and ~105 if you do.
Let's skip the insults, please. "Pretty bad", indeed! Nowhere did I indicate that I was raiding past the early part of SSC/TK (3/6, 1/4). I have gear commensurate with that: SF/SS, plus badge gear and gear from KZ/SSC/TK. In fact, from the last summary posting by Winsome on WoWJutsu raid progression, my gear is likely to be at the median for raiding mages. I'm not sure if you can access my Armory profile from my posts, but you can see for yourself.

Remember, the longest fights are in SSC/TK, and those are the ones of interest to me. The gear I have is appropriate for these fights. Spirit was almost nonexistent on the crafted stuff, and rare on the drops & T4. I said that you would never use Mage Armor to compensate for missing Clearcasting, and none of your numbers change that fact.

To add some construction to this post: I got feedback that I presumed only 2 gems in a 5 minute fight, and 4 in a 10 minute fight. By popping a lower ranked gem first, after about 30 seconds, you get an extra (smaller) burst of mana and trigger Serpent Coil Braid. The deficit in that situation drops to 1300 and 2300 mana (with SCB) at the 5 and 10 minute marks. This, in turn, changes the needed extra mana to 22.7 m/5s and 19.2 m/5s at 5 and 10 minutes. These are much easier numbers to achieve, lacking a shadow priest in the group.
#1401SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
Let's skip the insults, please. "Pretty bad", indeed! Nowhere did I indicate that I was raiding past the early part of SSC/TK (3/6, 1/4).
My apologies, it wasn't intended to be an insult, just a statement of fact. I once raided TK and killed Kael with gear roughly equivalent to yours, and at that point I would have and did call my own gear bad. I generally consider anything that isn't the currently available maximum to be "bad", because that's where I'm used to being. Again, sorry though :/

Originally Posted by Silke
While this is true, it can also be a boost to our DPS along the same line of thought. Remove Health Potion and replace that with Destruction Potion and you'll see where I'm going with this. I'm only working on T5 content and despite carrying several stacks of Destruction Pots around with me, I'm very hesitant to use them. I much prefer saving my cooldowns for a Health Pot or a Mana Pot as needed. However, with the changes to Mana Gems it will be much more "safe" to burn a Destruction Pot instead of holding onto the cooldown for a Mana / Health pot.
You can also do the same thing with Flame Cap on your HS cooldown and use Mana Pots instead of gems, though. Flame Cap and Destruction Potions add a similar amount of average damage(Flame Cap are actually slightly better, in fact).
#1402SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
Originally Posted by Amarek View Post
This is not true.
Mind posting WWS to prove it? Fireball and Fireblast critting at the same time has resulted it Fireblast's ignite since forever for me, just respecced to Fire 2 weeks ago and it has been that way.
#1403SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
3% crit is a ~2.5% damage increase (assuming fire spec, CSD, 35% crit with mage armour) if you do the maths.
So, the difference is down to 0.3%. Mind that you can gain more than the average value for IV if the fight is not a multiple of 3 minutes, and you can stack it with cooldown usage.

Also, you should be able to start channeling Evocation when IV is about to end to get more benefit from it by hasting a long spell.
CSD requires getting the Tier 5 helm (or better). I don't have access to Vashj yet.

To get 35% crit with mage armor, you have to be stacking crit at the expense of hit and damage gear; I use the word "expense" advisedly as doing so will certainly gimp your damage output. Nobody at Tier 5 level would do that in PvE, at least not for long and maintain a raid spot. So, 3% crit is worth more like 2.8% damage. Lhivera suggests that Fire mages will benefit by 2.77% from IV. The trade off is patently not worth it. If you do the maths.
#1404SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Note that my 2.77% figure assumes that I'm correct about it being 20% haste and not 20% casting time reduction (which is 25% haste). That's how it looks to me from the thottbot data, but it's always possible the mechanics of the buff differ from Heroism's.
#1405SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
Note that my 2.77% figure assumes that I'm correct about it being 20% haste and not 20% casting time reduction (which is 25% haste). That's how it looks to me from the thottbot data, but it's always possible the mechanics of the buff differ from Heroism's.
While your prognostications have always been better than mine, I note that Eyonix explicitly says cast time reduction rather than haste.

This new ability will decrease casting time for all spells by 20%
Since Thottbot has no more access to the PTR than you or I do, I suspect that the Thottbot listing is a data entry error.
#1406SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
While your prognostications have always been better than mine, I note that Eyonix explicitly says cast time reduction rather than haste.
He did indeed. However, ever since Blizzard standardized haste mechanics, the talent as described by Tseric would be an aberration. It's possible that it is an aberration, of course, but I'm finding it more likely at the moment that the talent is simply misworded. It's not like it'd be the first time it happened.

If it turns out to be 25% haste (20% casting time reduction), then so much the better.

Since Thottbot has no more access to the PTR than you or I do, I suspect that the Thottbot listing is a data entry error.
The PTR client is available for download, and contains the spell database.
#1407SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Alvira
Hmmm, with the massive buff to the frost tree, how is full frost or arcane/frost comparing as a pve build?

Frost, because of cold snap, gets to use icy veins more often than fire. Full frost gets to use water elemental more often as well. Frost arguably gets a bigger pve buff than fire next patch in terms of raid DPS.
#1408SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Habanero
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
CSD requires getting the Tier 5 helm (or better). I don't have access to Vashj yet.

To get 35% crit with mage armor, you have to be stacking crit at the expense of hit and damage gear; I use the word "expense" advisedly as doing so will certainly gimp your damage output. Nobody at Tier 5 level would do that in PvE, at least not for long and maintain a raid spot. So, 3% crit is worth more like 2.8% damage. Lhivera suggests that Fire mages will benefit by 2.77% from IV. The trade off is patently not worth it. If you do the maths.
You talk like stacking spell crit is not viable. It certainly is, though not as good as stacking spell damage, spell hit or spell haste, at least for Fire. A 35% crit figure with Mage Armor is easily achievable with an Elemental Shaman/Moonkin group, possibly a Ret Paladin in the raid.
#1409SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Lhivera
Well, since I'm stuck at work on Thanksgiving (giving the techs a shift off since I rarely work in the office), I've messed with the Theorycraft-o-Matic a bit. Added some spells calculations with IV and with IV averaged to Frost and Deep Frost, and added a Fire/IV build. There could be errors, this is really preliminary, but right now I'm showing, with 568 int, 368 Spi, 0 Haste Rating, 164 Hit Rating, 300 Crit Rating, 1345 damage to all schools, CoE, Misery, and Mage Armor:

Burst DPS
2,117.50 Fireball w/Icy Veins (< 20% health only, 2/47/11+1)
2,000.28 Arcane Blast / spammed (< 20% health only, 10/47/3+1)
1,916.32 Frostbolt w/Icy Veins + Waterbolt (on demand)
1,766.35 Fireball w/Icy Veins (on demand, 2/47/11+1)
1,666.90 Arcane Blast / spammed (on demand, 10/47/3+1)

Avg DPS
1,552.35 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV averaged (2/47/11+1)
1,514.40 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/Molten Fury averaged (10/47/3+1) (about 2.51% behind Fire/IV)
1,475.19 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (about 5.23% behind Fire/IV, 2.66% behind Fire)

Avg DPM
16.66 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/Molten Fury averaged (10/47/3+1)
16.58 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (10/0/48+3)
14.72 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (0/0/48+13)
14.69 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV averaged (2/47/11+1)


I've done nothing with the other specs yet.

Fire still comes out way on top for burst < 20%, but Frost does have the advantage of having higher burst available on-demand.


Here's an interesting thing: in fights where AOE DPS matters a lot, Icy Veins changes the best AOE DPS spell from Arcane Explosion for all specs to Flamestrike for 2/47/11+1 and to Blizzard for Frost mages. Given the vastly superior DPM of these spells over Arcane Explosion for their respective specs, that's welcome news.

Edit: Increased +damage to a more reasonable raid buffed value

Last edited by Lhivera : 11/22/07 at 11:42 PM.
#1410SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Habanero
I would not think that Frost against a non-freezable target has higher potential burst once you factor in popping Combustion IV and trinket(s) at the same time versus WE IV and trinket(s). It's also a bit silly to call 2/47/11+1 the de facto Fire dps build when Flamestrike is almost always better from standpoints of DPS, DPM and chance-to-pull-aggro. Those 2 points are better spent elsewhere, most likely as 0/50/11 where you can really put the hurt on with Improved Flamestrike.

Edit: Failed to mention WE.
#1411SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
I may have been confusing with my AOE statement there. Arcane Explosion is currently the best AOE DPS for any spec. With Icy Veins, Flamestrike surpasses Arcane Explosion for the Fire/IV build, and Blizzard surpasses Arcane Explosion for the Frost builds, but Arcane-spec Arcane Explosion still tops the charts.
#1412SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Habanero View Post
You talk like stacking spell crit is not viable. It certainly is, though not as good as stacking spell damage, spell hit or spell haste, at least for Fire. A 35% crit figure with Mage Armor is easily achievable with an Elemental Shaman/Moonkin group, possibly a Ret Paladin in the raid.

Please take care when you use the term "viable." It is not the same as "possible" or "feasible." With the raid stack as you describe, shaman, moonkin, ret pally, and mage armor, you could reach 35%. It is not as good as hit, haste and damage, as you say. You will do less damage than if you stack stats the "right" way.

Is it viable to raid as Frost? Yes. Is it viable to raid as Arcane/* without MSD/LC/2xT5? Yes. Is it viable to raid as high-crit/lower damage Fire? Yes. But if you are creating a fire build, there is little reason other than the thrill of the frequent crit to do less damage than you could.

That was not my point. My point was that 3% to crit from Molten Armor was more damage than an extra amount of mana from Mage Armor. I see nothing in your response that addresses that point.
#1413SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 pewsey
When I first started looking at a new spec for inclusion with IV, my thoughts were to an 10/40/11 build missing Pyroblast, Blastwave and Dragons Breath.

From a raiding an PvE perspective, this just seems better than a 2/x/11 build due to the addition of Cearcasting, without losing the top fire damage on fireball/scorch.

Am I missing something fundamental about losing those 3 talents from 2/x/11 that would not mean that 10/40/11 is superior ?


Edit: Nevermind, I was working from memory and when I rechecked, I'm also missing Pyromaniac. Move along, nothing to see.

Last edited by pewsey : 11/23/07 at 12:00 AM.
#1414SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Raiste
well even dropping pyro/BW/DB, you'd still need at least 41 pts in fire to get all the good talents even if you don't take playing with fire. Though there are more than enough AoE situations in MH and BT such that it makes 2/47/11 superior for raiding in most everyone's eyes.

It'll still be interesting how well coldsnap and IV will stack for frost though depending on what they end up doing with cold snap cooldown.
#1415SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Switching to Mage Armor for the long fight gains 44m/5s (in my case) at the cost of 3% to crit. 3% to crit is definitely more than 2.2% damage increase, so is not a win.
Pardon me? I think you underestimate mage armor.

Let us use a very, very conservative amount of spirit: 146 is the number I shall use, which is the spirit a Gnome like me has.

Mage Armor is then worth 5.51 mana per second (146/8*.3). With a 2.2% figure, you put net mana per second usage at over 200 mana per second, which is, well, absurd. Even a base Fireball, with nothing but Imp. Fireball, uses just 142 mana per second.

At this very conservative value, you're looking at more like 4% longevity increase. And this is with nearly no gear or buff spirit.

I assumed you were saying 2.2% came from the longevity increase due to Mage Armor? Or was it something else?
#1416SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Alcyon
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Pardon me? I think you underestimate mage armor.

Let us use a very, very conservative amount of spirit: 146 is the number I shall use, which is the spirit a Gnome like me has.

Mage Armor is then worth 5.51 mana per second (146/8*.3). With a 2.2% figure, you put net mana per second usage at over 200 mana per second, which is, well, absurd. Even a base Fireball, with nothing but Imp. Fireball, uses just 142 mana per second.

At this very conservative value, you're looking at more like 4% longevity increase. And this is with nearly no gear or buff spirit.

I assumed you were saying 2.2% came from the longevity increase due to Mage Armor? Or was it something else?
I believe the 2.2% came from IV's DPS increase.

What we were essentially arguing was whether a fire build would be better going Arcane Concentration and then using Molten Armour, or going Icy Veins and using Mage Armour.

It was pointed out that IV equates to around a 2.2% DPS increase, but that Molten armour is around 3% (slightly better when you factor in MoE, 210% fire crits, etc) so trading away arcane concentration but then using mage armour to make up for it doesn't really make sense (from a DPS perspective, assuming you aren't having horrendous mana issues).

The exact mathematics behind whether mage armour or arcane concentration save more mana may change the worthiness of the choice, but I think most mages will likely just spec IV, use molten armour and pot, if they have to.
#1417SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0alvinrod
Originally Posted by Habanero View Post
I would not think that Frost against a non-freezable target has higher potential burst once you factor in popping Combustion IV and trinket(s) at the same time versus WE IV and trinket(s). It's also a bit silly to call 2/47/11+1 the de facto Fire dps build when Flamestrike is almost always better from standpoints of DPS, DPM and chance-to-pull-aggro. Those 2 points are better spent elsewhere, most likely as 0/50/11 where you can really put the hurt on with Improved Flamestrike.
I think that even without popping IV, Flamestrike might be better than AE when comparing a 2/47/11+1 build to a 0/50/11 build.

With 3 points in Improved Flamestrike, you can expect the crit rate to be around 50%. AE would have a crit rate of around 26%. The threat difference is somewhat negligible as with Improved Flamestrike you'll be standing far enough away that you'd need to surpass 130% threat on all of the mobs whereas with AE, you'll be close enough to some mobs that you'll pull agro at 110%.

You could also use TLC with Flamestrike because even with IV, your minimum cast is still above 2.5 seconds. Couple the fact that TLC can gain multiple charges provided they occur at the same instant and a 50% crit rate from your Flamestrike and it's well possible that you could see it proc as often as twice per cast.

According to the caps from Inoko's post AE caps out at 6730 damage and Flamestrike at 7830. I'm not positive but I'm assuming that the DoT portion of Flamestrike isn't counted against this. I'm not sure which percentage of your spell damage goes towards the DoT component, but I think that more would be better since it's probably fairly easy to cap out when using it on Hyjal packs. Crit damage also isn't calculated against the cap, making Flamestrike even better since it crits more often and harder.

If the DoT comes out high enough, it may be better to spam Flamestrike with TLC since it will proc like crazy. It's more mana efficient as well considering you're very likely to crit against at least one target.

Anyone who has the exact information on how much Flamestrike's DoT gets out of spell damage want to crunch the numbers?
#1418SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Finkum
Before we get too excited about hasted Flamestrike, remember that it has a very small radius compared to AE, and that the DoT doesn't stack with itself (I seem to remember someone claiming that using different ranks of Flamestrike caused stacking DoTs, but I doubt the damage loss from downranking is offset by this, even if true). Those caveats aside, it does sound as if imp. Flamestrike + IV could be a nice dps boost.
#1419SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
I'm not a fan of flamestrike. My personal issues with flamestrike are its small radius, 3 second cast time, high mana cost and the fact that it has only 10% threat reduction. It just feels 100% inferior to SoC, which warlocks only gained in TBC but managed to surpass mage's AOE role easily with that.

Speaking from my Hyjal thrash clearing experiences, Arcane Explosion is still my best weapon even as with deep fire spec. I'm always pushing the threat cap with AE spam, thus I can't see any viability for me to use flamestrike and be contented with lesser overall damage. Furthermore, I view Flamestrike spam as lower DPS than SoC spam, since it takes longer time to cast, cost more mana(not counting CoE), has significantly smaller radius, and hits for way less damage. I don't know when will blizzard wake up their idea and finally gives mages comparable AOE to warlocks.
#1420SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Nectaridus
0/40/21 Mage Build

After looking at the changes to come for mage, I was wondering how a 0/40/21 build do in dps. From looking at it you'll lose dragon's breath, (1 point in either empowered fireball or pyromanic), 2 point in incinerate, but you'll be able to gain cold snap which results in being able to do 2 cycles of icy vein when mob is below 20%. As a result you'll be able to gain an additional 2 fireball below 20%. Would these 2 fireball be worth losing arc sub and the other fire tree talents?
#1421SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Not a very good chance of that being worth it over the course of a 5-10 minute fight, but on a shorter fight, possibly.

However, there needs to be less speculation about what could be the best, and whether to use it or not. We still don't have the confirmed numbers for IV, and don't know what affects what as of now.

This all looks good, but there is still the problem that for a deep fire spec, no clearcasting, which makes crit that much better now to get more MoE procs.
#1422SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
You're making the mistake of saying 4% longevity is as good as 4% DPS increase. The truth is that is FAR from correct or accurate. Longevity (or "time till oom") and DPS, even when you know these 2 values (and only those), it is impossible to judge which setup is better unless the fight duration is shorter than the "time till oom" of both specs, in which case the higher DPS setup is always better. If the fight lasts longer than the "time till oom" of the "less longevity, higher DPS" spec there is absolutely no way of telling, by these values, which spec will do more DPS in that fight.

Here's what you're missing:
After oom you're still regening (very roughly as accurate values don't matter for illustrating my point):
100 mp5 from pots
200 mp5 from shadow priest
50 mp5 BoW
50 mp5 JoW
50 mp5 mana spring
I won't include but possibly another mana tide and evocation which would make it even more extreme.

Total mana that you can use after you're oom is 450 mp5. Adding 50 mp5 to that via mage armor means that AFTER BOTH ARE OOM, the mage armor does ~11% more DPS, or 8% if you reduce the ~3% DPS from crit.
Then when the molten armor is oom and the mage armor is not, the mage armor is doing full DPS while the molten armor is doing "oom" DPS (the DPS you can do with the 450 mp5, which is far from 0).
Of course you have to remember that the main (of full) portion of the fight in most fights is the time when both setups aren't oom, so you have to count the relative value of the fight in which both setups are not oom, the part where 1 spec is oom and the other is not and then the part where both specs are oom.

All these calculations are not easy to do, but show you that "4% more longevity with mage armor is better than 3% (or 2.3% or whatever) more DPS" is far from realistic. Not only with a good shadow priest people seem to hardly run oom, even when you do run oom you need to be oom for a very significant portion of the fight in order for mage armor to be better. And in those cases, if they even exist, you'd probably be better off bringing a lock or a rogue anyway. But TBH I never heard somoene, when playing in a realistic non-crappy raid setup, saying he felt the need to even check if mage armor was worth using.

Easier way to look at mana vs dps is to say "if time>longevity DPS=DPM*mana/duration" where mana is ALL mana you get in the fight from all sources, though you need to take into account that, say, an evocation on the last minute of the fight won't really get full effect. Much easier than figuring out your "non-oom DPS", "oom DPS" and the relative parts of the figth where you'll be doing those values.
Remember people are also reporting, from all levels of play (except very low ones where the SPs suck or are non-existant or fights are getting messed up and take a lot longer than they should without reaching an enrage timer, or they simply lack a lot of other required buffs), that they're not managing to run oom. Neither do I. Remember when calculating "time till oom" you have to also take into account the "DPS uptime", as in what % of the fight you're actually capable of casting anything. If the boss becomes immune, or is reflecting, or you simply have to move etc, you're still getting at the very least a noticeable portion of your mana regen (mp5 is ticking, potions are cooling down etc, *sometimes* SP DoTs still runnning or even his full DPS). Fights that force you to have a lower % of DPS time will greatly increase the theoretical "time till oom" value, as we all know a small amount of extra mana / less mana usage causes a big increase to longevity time, even though it really doesn't mean a big increase to actual DPS even in those long fights where longevity becomes an issue.

Bottom line is if you want to save yourself a lot of work just use vontre's spreadsheet, I think it can take all those factors into account for you, just make sure you put realistic values in it
#1423SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ignus
the thing that I find interesting about a deep fire/IV spec is the potential of getting imp. blizzard and permafrost, thus letting fire mages reliably aoe with blizzard in parties without the normal worries of having all the mobs swarm you and both run out of blizzard radius and also smack you.

I havent tried using imp blizzard without the other supporting frost talents, so I don't know how effective that would really be, but it seems to be a viable alternative if you are not getting clearcasting anyways.
#1424SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
I assumed you were saying 2.2% came from the longevity increase due to Mage Armor? Or was it something else?
My error in phrasing. 3% crit (hence 3% DPS) from Molten Armor (lost when switching to Mage Armor) was being compared to 2.2% DPS from Icy Veins. I used the word "damage" when I meant the phrase "damage per second".

I'm not really concerned about the OOM condition at the end of a fight, as that is always a struggle to scrape. I've even sacrificed my pet turtle, but I got no mana back I want to reach the end of the fight at zero mana; think converging lines.

To recap: my decision, as for many raiding mages that aren't in Tier 6 content, is whether I can afford to go 2/47/11+1. Here are the factors:

1) Can I scrape another 4500 mana out of a 10 minute fight? I believe I can, with the Serpent Coil Braid. I only occasionally get a shadow priest in my group, as he is a rare and wonderful thing (former mage, btw) but I could make a case to my raid leader that it would be worth it. I can also use Fel Mana potions, for their guaranteed, larger return.

2) Do I prefer Arcane Explosion for AoE? If Flamestrike would not pull aggro, and AE did the same damage, then AE won't pull aggro even in melee range because of the threat mitigation factors. AE also benefits from greater mobility, and a larger radius.
#1425SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Ignus has a point, particularly with fully imp blizz, at least 2/3 permafrost and frostbite, popping IV (with it's added 25% to frostbite and faster tic-rate) with Blizz would certainly make Flamestrike a lot more viable for the fire-mages: They can tag all the agro they like, because the mobs won't be moving anywhere. Not only that, bt it'll be easy to coralle them into place and keep them on the Flamestrike DOT.
#1426SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Duodecimal
2/47/11 + 1 is easy to type out, but where, exactly, to put those 13 points is troubling.

1) We'll be short 3% hit in Arcane if those 2 points are in the 40% reduced threat. The extra point will close that down to a 1% gap.

2) Is 5/5 Imp Frost Bolt better than 5/5 Shatter? If I'm not respeccing to farm, and for guilds who are eyeballing Al'ar, it's probably more likely to see 8 points spent in the bottom Frost tier than 2/5 Imp Frost Bolt. If not Shatter, what else is more attractive in the 2nd Frost tier to get at 10 points total?

I'm planning on 3/47/11 -- 2/2 subtlety, 1/5 focus, and getting to IV via 5/5 frostbolt, 3/3 Precision, and 2/5 Shatter.
#1427SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Daemion
Originally Posted by Duodecimal View Post
I'm planning on 3/47/11 -- 2/2 subtlety, 1/5 focus, and getting to IV via 5/5 frostbolt, 3/3 Precision, and 2/5 Shatter.
Seeing that Shatter requires 15 points in frost I assume that you will spend your points in Improved Frost Nova?
#1428SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Andersnordic
Magic Attunement or IV?;p

Something that haven't been brought up yet.

The biggest challenge related to IV as I see it is that it will be almost impossible to get Magic Attunement now (Without sacrificing too much). I guess its "almost" ok for us that have the current content on farm to be slacking on MA, but I want to stress the importance of using Impr. Amplify Magic on MT/MT2 on "new content", especially for mages that havent killed Illidan yet and for Sunwell, as noone else seems to be stressing it.

I continue to be awed by the fact that so many mages are slacking on getting the above talent. Based on WWS numbers the average raiding guild brings aprox 2,2 mages to each raid. Therefore atleast 1 (Or almost 50% of all mages) should have this talent. Yet, I have never seen a mage with the 12/46/3 spec-.- (Which clearly should be the spec of choice for half of us). In any case, when sunwell comes out, I will seriously consider skipping IV and stick to 12/46/3. I will lose out on a 2,8% buff, but I will be able to continue to offer Impr. Amp which in turn will improve healing done on MT/MT2 by a substantial amount (Even more from hots/PwS).

Since this forum usually create the consensus for viable mage specs, you simply cant ignore one of the most important healing buffs in the game when determining viable builds for next patch and current patch.

Locks have the same challenge I guess. Its usually a pain in the ass to get any lock to spec 5/5 Shadow Embrace, as it will influence their ability to pew pew...

I have offered Impr. Amp Magic to our healers/tanks for 3 months now, when I spec fire shortly (After losing the 2p T5 set), I will go for 12/46/3, but for next patch im really not sure. I will prolly start to ignore MA and go for a strictly pew pew spec atleast until Sunwell since we don't seem to have any trouble with current content. I am going to ask the raid leader + healers first how they feel about it though.

Last edited by Andersnordic : 11/23/07 at 11:35 AM.
#1429SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Duodecimal View Post
2/47/11 + 1 is easy to type out, but where, exactly, to put those 13 points is troubling.

1) We'll be short 3% hit in Arcane if those 2 points are in the 40% reduced threat. The extra point will close that down to a 1% gap.

2) Is 5/5 Imp Frost Bolt better than 5/5 Shatter? If I'm not respeccing to farm, and for guilds who are eyeballing Al'ar, it's probably more likely to see 8 points spent in the bottom Frost tier than 2/5 Imp Frost Bolt. If not Shatter, what else is more attractive in the 2nd Frost tier to get at 10 points total?

I'm planning on 3/47/11 -- 2/2 subtlety, 1/5 focus, and getting to IV via 5/5 frostbolt, 3/3 Precision, and 2/5 Shatter.
I think the talent you're freffering to is Ice Shards and not shatter. If I got that correctly, you're wondering whether you can get away with "doable" dps using frostbolt for Al'ar on full fire spec. If this is indeed the case I'd advise imp. Bolt over Ice Shards. While you're on 35+crit for fire your frost crit will be closer to 15% and as such reducing cast time from 3.0 to 2.5 will give a much more pronounced difference than increasing your crit size from 150% to 200% given you're critting less than one-in-seven.

Also, while you are correct about the arcane hit cap, I'm not so adamant that the AoE targets are indeed lvl 73. While I can't claim to have tabbed all of them I do seriously think that morogrim and solarian AoE tarfgets are a mishmash of 71 and 72. The same goes for Polymorph targets on trash. With +13% hit from gear, no points in Arcane Focus should not be a problem.
#1430SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
I have that spec currently Andersnordic - and agree that the loss of an extra 120 healing on the main tank of other tanks is a significant loss. I agree that one mage in every raid should have it, because 99% of the times it's completely safe to use on a boss and offers a huge boost to your healers.

We're going to evaluate the DPs numbers when this patch goes live, and the probable result will be that either one of us (i.e. me as the raid leader as I'm always there) will stick with 12 points into arcane, or we will have one deep frost mage and one arcane / frost mage, and the arcane frost mage will pick up that talent on his way down the talent tree.
#1431SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Maledict, Andersnordic: Granted that Mag Att is indeed a serious boon to learning in particular and given you're passing up the opportunity to gain 2-4% from IV, perhaps the Amp/Damp role is best left to a frostmage? We already know a frostie will have the talents under question already, as well as have a lot more competitive DPS compared to 2.2 frost. As far as I can see it's the perfect compromise: You get to keep your full Play With Fire, Incinerate and BW/DB -and- gain IV, while they simply juggle a few points with 0 impact on their dps and take on the mantle of buffers.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This also ties in perfectly with frost's Ghost Hit issue, where they'll be wearing 10% hit from gear because Ele Pre is granting 6%, meaning the 3rd point on Arcane Focus isn't in fact wasted, as it is on fire spec.

Or if you're extra fruity and don't like Imp Blizz you can take off some points and go for total mana self-sufficiency and claim not only to buff with improved Amp but also to not need SP/Shaman support for sustainability issues.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
#1432SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Duodecimal
Yes, I meant ice shards. Surfwatch blocks a patchwork of WoW sites (but not, bizarrely, the official forums -- just every other part of the official site), and I'm just not familiar enough with the tree.

My base crit rate is between 20 and 25%, so I think I'd put that floating point into Shards for 3/5. I'd not thought of the typical Polymorph/Counterspell/AE/Spellsteal targets being sub-73, good catch. If I'm lucky I'll be leeching a Winter's Chill (?) for some extra crit, and the cooldown on Frost Nova has never been a major concern in raiding.

Frost will still benefit from Molten Fury, so I won't be all that bad off on Al'ar with 2/47/12. Maybe these retarded immunity fights will be absent come the next expansion. Al'ar and Hydross are both the 'next' boss in our progression, so some of the elemental adaptability in this build will be handy.

Fire primal farming will be a bit less of a hassle, too.

Last edited by Duodecimal : 11/23/07 at 12:28 PM.
#1433SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Ignus has a point, particularly with fully imp blizz, at least 2/3 permafrost and frostbite, popping IV (with it's added 25% to frostbite and faster tic-rate) with Blizz would certainly make Flamestrike a lot more viable for the fire-mages: They can tag all the agro they like, because the mobs won't be moving anywhere. Not only that, bt it'll be easy to coralle them into place and keep them on the Flamestrike DOT.
Ouch, yeah, I hadn't even thought of that. With a tick every 0.83 seconds and a 40% chance to freeze per tick, and a 25% snare on them besides, that's a hell of an aoe CC.
#1434SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Myrdinn
I'd not thought of the typical Polymorph/Counterspell/AE/Spellsteal targets being sub-73, good catch.
Except boss fights ! Spellstealing on council for instance :<
#1435SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Duodecimal: unless you know something I don't, the spellfire set you're wearing won't work with frost, so convention dictates you'll have to swap to closest compromising blues/kara gear. Given that they're generally substantially down on +dmg, you'll be better off not stacking crit gems on them, hence the comment on the likelihood of reduced crit. Before 2.2 when I was frost I was hovering between 16-18% crit hitcapped, though more is perhaps likely nowadays even with off-gear.

Lhivera: I'm hugely flattered by your quoting me, thanks. Given 3/47/11 are likely to go for Imp Flamestrike nowadays I really think we can work into a warlock-thing where theres one Frostie who (incorporating my previous post) has improved amp/damp and CCs the AOE with massive slow/frostbite while the others Flamestrike spam. Just like locks need one affli to buff tank with imp and to provide malediction-CoS so they can do their 0.21.40 thing.
#1436SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
I would have to say that I don't think Flame strike really is a viable spamming AE, at least not in Hyjal (where the majority of AE occurs I would say). The mobs are simply spread too far apart due to the fight, and the increased crit chance on it won't make up for the lost damage you get because you aren't also hitting the necromancers at the back of the wave etc. Flamestrike looks decent on paper, but is hugely limited by it's area of effect - unlike Blizzard, which is much more encompassing.

Also, unless I'm missing something, I don't see how it's actually possible for a frost mage pick up both Magic Attunement *and* get permafrost / improved blizzard / frostbite. I'm missing two talent points in order to get frostbite up to 15%.
#1437SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0aliengrey
Flamestrikes AOE in Hyjal rocks if your tanks and raid knows how to bunch up the mobs. If they aren't.. speak up, they're only hurting the rest of the raid by making the waves go slower.
#1438SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
The testrealm is Up , and it is lagging as Hell.

I can confirm that
ColdSnap has 8 min CD
Icy Veins costs 65 Mana untalented, 3 min CD and not affected by Ice Floes.
Cold Snap reset it as expected
It affects fireball and arcane blast as the tooltip suggests

It is lagging to much to clarify haste vs casttime reduction argument.
#1439SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
Shouldnt you be able to see by the tooltip? As far as I know the tooltip updates the cast time directly influenced by haste effects, even non-permanent ones like PoM and Heroism/Bloodlust
#1440SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
I would, but right now the loading screen takes like 10 minutes and then I am disconnected....
#1441SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Mandii
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
The testrealm is Up , and it is lagging as Hell.

I can confirm that
ColdSnap has 8 min CD
Icy Veins costs 65 Mana untalented, 3 min CD and not affected by Ice Floes.
Cold Snap reset it as expected
It affects fireball and arcane blast as the tooltip suggests

It is lagging to much to clarify haste vs casttime reduction argument.
I'm pretty sure it is being calculated as haste. Just got on the PTR myself and when you activate Icy Veins Fireball is reduced to 2.5s and Frostbolt to 2.08s. That's 20% haste, not 20% cast reduction.
#1442SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Koosha
EDIT: Got beat to it by seconds
#1443SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Odiodin
Fireball without haste + icey veins = 2.5sec cast
Fireball with haste (2.86sec cast) + icy veins = 2.38sec cast

Using a 0/40/21 build on test atm, WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator
#1444SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Well PTR's been reverted to 2.3.0, so for the people who were on: What exactly has changed in the frost tree? Is frostbite the pre-req to Icy? Odiodin's post infers that it's 20% haste and not reduction, so that's covered, and macbeet covers the other questions
#1445SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Odiodin
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Well PTR's been reverted to 2.3.0, so for the people who were on: What exactly has changed in the frost tree? Is frostbite the pre-req to Icy? Odiodin's post infers that it's 20% haste and not reduction, so that's covered, and macbeet covers the other questions
Icy Veins was in the 11 point position, and Cold Snap (8min) was at the 21 point spot. Neither of them had prerequisites, and the tree was otherwise the same.
#1446SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
AVG DPS
1,552.35 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV averaged (2/47/11+1)
1,514.40 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/Molten Fury averaged (10/47/3+1) (about 2.51% behind Fire/IV)
1,475.19 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (about 5.23% behind Fire/IV, 2.66% behind Fire)
Thank you, can you also put in 33/0/28 vs. Full frost dps? And update with the new timers/info?
#1447SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Falorian
33/00/28

I was wondering the same thing about 33/00/28 and Icy Veins. With 3/5 Winter's Chill you don't have to rely on another deep frost mage in the group. Actually tried it on live tonight and was a fairly nice dps increase for me.
#1448SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ebbv
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
I would have to say that I don't think Flame strike really is a viable spamming AE, at least not in Hyjal (where the majority of AE occurs I would say). The mobs are simply spread too far apart due to the fight, and the increased crit chance on it won't make up for the lost damage you get because you aren't also hitting the necromancers at the back of the wave etc. Flamestrike looks decent on paper, but is hugely limited by it's area of effect - unlike Blizzard, which is much more encompassing.
In my guild we mages pretty much exclusively use Flamestrike in Hyjal and it works like a champ. Trash has never been a problem for us. We all dropped DB, BW and Pyro and got 3/3 Imp FS.

Hunter frost traps are plenty to keep the mobs slow enough that warriors can get them back before they get too far.

I've been singing the praises of Flamestrike on here for a while, though. Don't mean to come off as a zealot about it, just hate to see people saying it can't work.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/24/07 at 12:40 AM. Reason: Elaboration
#1449SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0diskape
It's 20% haste, not 20% reduction in cast time. Directly from PTR:

Portal: Stormwind + Icy Veins
8.33 seconds cast time.
#1450SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Baalzaman
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
In my guild we mages pretty much exclusively use Flamestrike in Hyjal and it works like a champ. Trash has never been a problem for us. We all dropped DB, BW and Pyro and got 3/3 Imp FS.

Hunter frost traps are plenty to keep the mobs slow enough that warriors can get them back before they get too far.

I've been singing the praises of Flamestrike on here for a while, though. Don't mean to come off as a zealot about it, just hate to see people saying it can't work.
The wonderful, wonderful thing about flamestrike is you are at range from the mob. Sure you've got 40% threat reduction with arcane, but so often when using arcane explosion you are standing in melee range or close to it of the mobs and so lose the ranged threat buffer. In Hyjal with mobs that can very quickly kill a clothie this is a big deal.

Also has anyone noticed lately that with large groups of mobs that flamestrike with MoE sometimes returns more than one lot of mana? I've been getting up to 3 returns per flamestrike. Not sure if this is lag related (playing from New Zealand).
#1451SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Katu
Just have a question about Amp Magic and raid bosses. My guild just killed Kael last week and we're about to enter MH once we down Kael again to key a few more people. It seems like Amp Magic is pretty popular in MH/BT after reading some post mainly by Andersnordic and Pintofbrew. As a mage I only really ever put AM up when I know zero magic dmg will be hitting the tank, ie Gruul and a few other bosses. Is it pretty much tested and true that even if the tank is taking SOME magic damage, it's still worth it from a healing perspective? Which bosses in MH/BT would you NOT recommend using AM on?
#1452SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Can someone confirm this multiple MoE mana return on AOE? I seem to remember when the BC talents were announced a number of people were claiming Combustion-stacking and BW with last charge into the middle of the chaotic BG which was popular at the time would make it return many times it's own mana cost and as a result Blizz nerfed AoE to proc a max of 1x MoE mana return (or was it "up to base cost of spell"?).

Maledict: You are correct, I miscalculated. I thought using 2/3 permafrost there'd be enough points but I must have miss-clicked and left some talent 4/5 down the line when I checked feasibility of the spec.
#1453SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Katu View Post
As a mage I only really ever put AM up when I know zero magic dmg will be hitting the tank, ie Gruul and a few other bosses. Is it pretty much tested and true that even if the tank is taking SOME magic damage, it's still worth it from a healing perspective? Which bosses in MH/BT would you NOT recommend using AM on?
Amplify Magic is only harmful when your tank takes a significant amount of magic from many sources of small amounts of magic damage.
The amount of extra damage taken is affected by resistance and also by damge multipliers.
I think the common rule of thumb is that the break point is when he takes magic damage as often as he is healed.

The only bosses I wouldn't use it on are Vaelastrasz (constant fire nova), Hydross (extra damage multiplied by his aura) and Doomwalker (enraged crushes + lightning gibs), and even those are debatable.
Amplify is also beneficial on Kael'thas, the absorption gain from PW:Shield is higher than the damage gain of his pyroblast.

Use dampen magic on the imp tank on Illhoof though


Edit:
About MoE - it can only return mana once per cast. I bugs out now and then though, yielding multiple mana returns.
I haven't heard about someone who could reproduce that effect consistently.

Last edited by Roywyn : 11/24/07 at 6:59 AM.
#1454SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
WiPe|Domin
Some Dr. Boom tests from ptr using 0/40/21 build.

Wow Web Stats

Wow Web Stats

Wow Web Stats

Wow Web Stats

Wow Web Stats

Wow Web Stats


With 500ms latency my 2.5sec fireballs (icy veins) where 3 sec fireballs according to logs.....

Last edited by WiPe|Domin : 11/24/07 at 9:55 AM.
#1455SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Anasztaizia
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Can someone confirm this multiple MoE mana return on AOE?

MOE will occasionally proc twice for an AOE. I've personally never been able to consistently reproduce it. It may be due to the mobs being AOEd having different debuffs and that somehow interacting with MOE in a wacky way (eg. the Seal of Light and Unstable Affliction bug) or perhaps it has something to do with the way simultaneous combat events are resolved in parallel in semi-isolation (eg. you can Shaman Purge Divine Shield if you land the Purge as the DS is cast).
#1456SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Baalzaman
from a recent hyjal run:
10:48'38.125	Baalzaman gains 352 Mana from Master of Elements
	.125	Baalzaman gains 352 Mana from Master of Elements
10:50'58.781	Baalzaman gains 353 Mana from Master of Elements
	.781	Baalzaman gains 352 Mana from Master of Elements
	.781	Baalzaman gains 352 Mana from Master of Elements
10:53'00.671	Baalzaman gains 353 Mana from Master of Elements
	.671	Baalzaman gains 353 Mana from Master of Elements
10:56'23.984	Baalzaman gains 353 Mana from Master of Elements
	.984	Baalzaman gains 352 Mana from Master of Elements
It only seems to occur with flamestrike, I have blastwave and it doesn't seem to occur with that
#1457SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0instantkill
After doing some testing on the PTR im having some questions and would apreciate some input.

It look like 10/48/3 specs could be replaced by 10/40/11 or 0/40/21 for pve raiding.
40/21 giving you 40 seconds of haste instead of 20 at the cost of reduced agro from arcane explosion and clearcasting.
(which will probably hurt in BT/MH, my current raiding content)

0/40/21:
  • Do you think its worth getting coldsnap at the cost of 2/2 subtlety or would you rather drop 2 points in fire?
  • To reach combustion and 5/5 empowered fireball youll have to drop 3 points out of either scorch moe pyromaniac or playing with fire. (kinda ignoring blastwave pyroblast and others here). What are your ideas on where to drop these points? Im thinking it makes most sense to take them from pyromaniac.
  • Has anyone modded these changes into vontre's dps spreadsheet?
    Wws testing on Dr. Boom gives some indication but with 5 mages nuking him he simply dies too fast for a good comparison.
#1458SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0MetallicaRulez0
I can see how 40/21 would be good for bosses, but I'm personally not at all comfortable in Hyjal without Subtlety, so I'll probably be going 2/48/11. I'm also unwilling to lose the DPS talents from fire for 40/21, as I think PwF, Pyromaniac, MoE etc. are just better. I'm just going to drop the talents that currently don't help me in order to pick up Icy Veins, and right now that's Arcane Focus and Clearcasting.
#1459SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Probably just lose a little mana efficiency for better dps

Something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Pure PvE build, you lose 1% damage with playing with fire, 1% crit/1% mana cost with pyromaniac, blast wave, 1 in MoE, and gain frostbite/shatter/cold snap

Edit: Btw i don't know what's so great about subtlety, if aggro's a problem use flamestrike, or single target. Screwing up your talent spec for something so minor is not worth it
#1460SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Probably just lose a little mana efficiency for better dps

Something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Pure PvE build, you lose 1% damage with playing with fire, 1% crit/1% mana cost with pyromaniac, blast wave, 1 in MoE, and gain frostbite/shatter/cold snap

Edit: Btw i don't know what's so great about subtlety, if aggro's a problem use flamestrike, or single target. Screwing up your talent spec for something so minor is not worth it
Cold Snap Icy Veins is probably not going to make up for 1% damage and 1% crit loss, although maybe it could I guess.
#1461SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0aliengrey
Can someone confirm that the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond was changed to "at least 2 blue gems" on the PTR please? I tried checking thottbot but it doesn't list requirements.
#1462SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by aliengrey View Post
Can someone confirm that the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond was changed to "at least 2 blue gems" on the PTR please? I tried checking thottbot but it doesn't list requirements.
Yes that's confirmed.

With the testing I just did on Boom on the PTR, I was pulling 1700dps with no consumable usage and CoE as 2/48/11, and I don't have a Skull of Gul'dan yet either. No doubt that with a fully raid buffed, Destrustion Pot, Flamecap usage during Bloodlust+IV+Berserking(troll only) 2000ish dps sustained, and with a Skull of Gul'dan, and easy 2500+ dps if not more possible.

It's also looking like that a 0/50/11 build is going to be superior.

Guess we actually have a reason to use Invis now, and possibly Evocation.

EDIT: After some primitive number crunching, and I'm not sure how accurate this will be, but after dropping clearcasting, the value of crit to damage has nearly doubled. Right now, 1 crit rating is worth ~.7 damage, but with the changes on the ptr I'm getting 1 crit rating is worth 1.2-1.3 damage. This is due in fact to the loss of Clearcasting and IV being able to cause more Ignite stacking.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 11/25/07 at 1:07 AM.
#1463SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
EDIT: After some primitive number crunching, and I'm not sure how accurate this will be, but after dropping clearcasting, the value of crit to damage has nearly doubled. Right now, 1 crit rating is worth ~.7 damage, but with the changes on the ptr I'm getting 1 crit rating is worth 1.2-1.3 damage. This is due in fact to the loss of Clearcasting and IV being able to cause more Ignite stacking.
How do you figure? What metric are you using--DPS? DPM?
#1464SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
EDIT: After some primitive number crunching, and I'm not sure how accurate this will be, but after dropping clearcasting, the value of crit to damage has nearly doubled. Right now, 1 crit rating is worth ~.7 damage, but with the changes on the ptr I'm getting 1 crit rating is worth 1.2-1.3 damage. This is due in fact to the loss of Clearcasting and IV being able to cause more Ignite stacking.
I don't understand what you meant by your last sentence. How does IV causing more ignite stacks gives crit more value? Its no longer the old days of rolling ignites, so I don't really see the point. I also don't understand how the loss of clearcasting increases the value of crit rating.
#1465SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0epiphenom
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
EDIT: After some primitive number crunching, and I'm not sure how accurate this will be, but after dropping clearcasting, the value of crit to damage has nearly doubled. Right now, 1 crit rating is worth ~.7 damage, but with the changes on the ptr I'm getting 1 crit rating is worth 1.2-1.3 damage. This is due in fact to the loss of Clearcasting and IV being able to cause more Ignite stacking.
I don't understand this at all. Icy Veins doesn't modify crit bonus damage. I can see how the loss of Arcane Concentration will cause MoE's mana returns to constitute a greater percentage of your overall mana returns, but then how does that factor into a comparison vs. +damage, which has never affected our mana return at all? And so far as I'm aware, Ignite doesn't really "stack"; two ignites overlapping don't do any more damage than the same ignites would do separated.
#1466SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Man, I've been trying to convey my thought process into words everyone else can understand, but I just can't seem to get it right.

When you stack IV, Bloodlust, Skull of Gul'dan, and Troll Berserking(in my case) you can get your Fireball cast down to a state below the GCD, which allows for Ignites to stack nearly twice as fast as normal, causing your DPS too nearly double, and DPM, depending upon how long the Ignite ticks for to double. Ignites still stack, but not the way they did before, so it takes a longer chain of crits to get to the point you're probably thinking of, but still possible.

But basically, by dropping clearcasting your longevity declines to such an extent that using Evocation is nearly a must at all points. And the only way to bring your longevity back up is to crit more, and as a side product of critting more, you get more ignite chains which raise your DPS up to a point which is higher than getting straight damage.

One thing I did forget to mention though is that those numbers were for what I was running with on the ptr, which was 39% Fire crit, and 1289 Fire damage. So at that amount of crit and damage, the new numbers should fit, but for less than that, I am unsure of right now.

I hope that is a translation of my thoughts that you can understand, and see what I mean by crit getting a higher value with the loss of Clearcasting.
#1467SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Ignites don't stack in any non-linear fashion though. Ignite is 40% of your crit damage(and sometimes less if it bugs), but never, ever more. So there's no way for critting more to do what you're saying.

All I can tell is you're saying that stacking all those things has a lot of burst dps, which is fairly obvious, but I don't see how it provides any novel reason that crit contributes more to your damage than before. That just doesn't make sense.

Maybe you should just show some of the math that you're doing that implies this suddenly boosted crit value?
#1468SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
I'll do some more testing tomorrow to try and confirm my numbers.

All I know is that by the losing Clearcasting, there only way to make up for the mana lost is to Evocate earlier in a fight, or get more crit so you don't have to evocate. Take the theoretical maximum damage done during on evocation period, figure out how much crit you need to get that damage back vs how much +damage needed to make up for that. The crit value scales much much faster than +damage does for that period of time. And by increasing your crit rate overall to compensate for that dps downtime of using evocation, you then prolong the during needed to evocate, and cut down on how long you hold that evocation cast. So by taking the already suggested 1crit:.7 damage ratio, and factoring down the damage and dps loss of casting Evocation over the course of the fight, your crit:damage ratio gets increased to nearly 1crit:1.2-1.3 damage.

Not exact formulas used, but gives an overall idea of what happens when.
#1469SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Darkmantle
My understanding was they put a cooldown on master of elements proc to stop it procing multiple times on aoe. This had the side effect that if you crit a fireball and fireblast at the same time only one would give back mana. This would also explain the unusual multi proc from aoe's. The damage to some of the targets is being processed slightly later and so the cooldown is over.
#1470SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Voley
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
I'll do some more testing tomorrow to try and confirm my numbers.

All I know is that by the losing Clearcasting, there only way to make up for the mana lost is to Evocate earlier in a fight, or get more crit so you don't have to evocate.
Can't agree with that, as typical 10/48/3 mage you cant run oom with a good bt geared shadow priest if you spam fireballs. So ditching out clearcastng will hardly have any effect on the mana situation.
#1471SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Hate Monkey: You have posted what seems to have caused a ripple in this thread: "allows for Ignites to stack nearly twice as fast as normal". What does this mean? How does an Ignite "stack" other than the latent damage from the previous ingite simply adding on to the damage of the new ignite? Assume two spells, both critting for 100 damage: The first one assigns two tics of 20 damage but before the last tic is done the new spell crits, assigning 2x20 of it's own. The ignite then adds the remaining 20 of the previous one which has been (I'll use what I understand as) "stacked" and results in 2x30 tics, which is exactly the same as would have been done given no haste at all.

Unless you're implying/can prove that the new ignite falsely gives, eg, 2 new stacks of 40 (because it can't calculate the 1st tic has been consumed and is simply adding 40+40 and spreading it over the new two tics) I'm failing to understand how you come up with 1crit = 1.4dmg. Even if stacking a dozen buffs brings you to GCD casting speed; what percentage of the fight do you expect to remain in that bracket and how do you presume this has such a huge knock-on effect as to double Crit value?

All evidence I've seen of ignites occurring after previous ones have already been on has pointed to ignite tics being lost in the flow of information. How many times have you seen fireball-fireblast double-dipping resulting in only Fblast's ignite ticking? This was the main reason I advocate against 33.28.0: Critting repeatedly sometimes gives full ignites and some times not.

I think that posting the maths with which you came up with the crit values would help a lot more than trying to verbalize what is a rather hard thing to explain. I'm very curious to see concrete evidence/proof of what's going on with ignite.
#1472SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0zeddilin
blessings decks vs. storms deck

Fellow mages, here is my mind twisting question for all fire crit type mages..

Which deck you think is more efficient? The blessings decks or the storms deck?
#1473SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Zwink
Even with the loss of clearcasting there should be no need to use evocation as Fire. A Shadow Priest and Resto Shaman should be all you need to sustain constant casting. Remove either or both of those and you'll have to start using consumables or mage armor. Using mana potions over destruction potions should be enough to fix any mana problems.
#1474SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
I'll do some more testing tomorrow to try and confirm my numbers.

All I know is that by the losing Clearcasting, there only way to make up for the mana lost is to Evocate earlier in a fight, or get more crit so you don't have to evocate. Take the theoretical maximum damage done during on evocation period, figure out how much crit you need to get that damage back vs how much +damage needed to make up for that. The crit value scales much much faster than +damage does for that period of time. And by increasing your crit rate overall to compensate for that dps downtime of using evocation, you then prolong the during needed to evocate, and cut down on how long you hold that evocation cast. So by taking the already suggested 1crit:.7 damage ratio, and factoring down the damage and dps loss of casting Evocation over the course of the fight, your crit:damage ratio gets increased to nearly 1crit:1.2-1.3 damage.

Not exact formulas used, but gives an overall idea of what happens when.
You're suggesting that, in a scenario where someone has to evocate near the very end of a fight, crit could have the effect of prolonging your dps time long enough so that you need to evocate for a shorter duration or not at all. This in itself assumes you evocate near the end of the fight, for one. In addition, the marginal DPM benefit of 1 crit rating is almost negligibly larger than its DPS benefit (by percentage--that is, almost all of the DPM benefit comes from increasing DPS and very little from decreasing the effective mana cost).

Furthermore, much depends on the actual length of the fight and what percentage of time the 8 seconds of evocation is to the overall fight length.
#1475SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Jacktwok
One thing that has not been discussed is whether or not MOE + DB/Pyro/BW is better than 6% Clearcasting in terms of mana return and at what point your crit rate would make that be the case. I'm horrible with these simulations so I'll leave that to others more versed in them but to kick start things here is the talent build I came up with that includes 3 in clear casting as well as all the important fire talents and IV.

Talent Calc
#1526SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
Good point, how much is 7 int worth in crit rating? I have it at 2.6 which would add 1.7 to my value for the highborne cloak, not sure if that is correct though?
Broken Down...
(equivalencies from Lhivera's Theorycraft Script, v2.3, not 2.3.2 with 1180dmg/301 crit rating/141 haste)

[Shroud of the Highborne]
32 haste * 1.05 = 33.6dmg
23 +dmg = 23dmg
24 int(24/80*22) = 6.6 crit*0.69 = 4.554dmg

Total: 61.154

[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
25 crit *0.69 = 17.25dmg
42 +dmg = 42dmg
16int = 4.4 crit*0.69 = 3.036dmg

Total: 62.286
#1527SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Frenzi
Ahh well according to Lhivera's site for me crit only has a Value of 0.66 and Haste is 1.09 so my numbers will be different to yours and favours the Highborne over the Illidari.

Also is (24/80*22) correct, I thought 1% crit from int was 59.5?

Last edited by Frenzi : 11/27/07 at 8:29 AM.
#1528SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
I thought 1% crit from int was 59.5?
At level 60, it was =)
#1529SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
Im seriously thinking about frost now that IV is implemented.

Anyone compared the dps of blizzard compared to flamestrike?
The crit rating should be about the same if you go for frostbite and shatter?

What Im thinking is to get 1 point in imp blizzard just to get the chill effect and then maxing out frostbite and shatter.
Are you serious? Blizzard can't crit.

Another question i got for you, everyone discussing specs seem to wanna keep 2 points in arcane subtlety, is this only for AE threat or does it fill any other purpose?
It is for the threat reduction.
#1530SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Council cloak is mostly damage, and some crit. Highborne cloak is mostly haste and some damage.

Thus, Highborne cloak scales better with your damage/crit, and its value improves when you get better gear (mainly dmg/crit upgrades with the current gear choices).
Also, flask/oil/food are 145 dmg, wrath of air totem is another 101. That's quite a difference between buffed and unbuffed, and I don't think your 1180 fire damage is fully buffed
#1531SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
This is what I got with v2.3 with 1126dmg/397 crit rating/76 haste (unbuffed)

[Shroud of the Highborne]
32 haste * 1.06 = 33.92dmg
23 +dmg = 23dmg
23 int(24/80*22.1) = 6.35375 crit*0.65 = 4.1299375dmg

Total: 61.0499375

[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
25 crit *0.65 = 16.25dmg
42 +dmg = 42dmg
16 int(16/80*22.1) = 4.4 crit*0.65 = 2.873dmg

Total: 61.123

Once you add any short term damage buffs though it would probably favour the Highborne cloak.
#1532SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Are you serious? Blizzard can't crit.
Didnt know that, thanks for the info
#1533SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0graver
So is it only me who saw a dramatical increase of value of critical strike raiting in Lhivera's new script? (Theorycraft-o-Matic)

Is it some kinda of bag? On my own math 1.00 spell damage cant equal 1.05 Crit Rating.
#1534SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Mine was 0.66 instead of 0.65
#1535SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Whatever the reason for Lhivera's script overvaluing crit rating (on purpose or a bug) it's clearly incorrect, so just ignore it.

The "golden rule" will remain true unless blizzard changes something a lot more significant than Icy Veins. Hit rating > haste rating > damage > crit rating.
#1536SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Sancus
I get extremely high values for crit rating(1.00 Crit Rating: 0.96 Damage, 0.94 Haste Rating) with Deep Frost specs in Lhivera's Theorycraft.

I have no idea why crit is so much better for Frost than Fire, though, especially since Fire's multiplier is better. Maybe it's just that damage is worse? Or maybe it's wrong, I dunno.

Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Also, flask/oil/food are 145 dmg, wrath of air totem is another 101. That's quite a difference between buffed and unbuffed, and I don't think your 1180 fire damage is fully buffed
You make a good point, inc calculations for realistic damage levels :P

Broken Down...
(equivalencies from Lhivera's Theorycraft Script, v2.3, not 2.3.2 with 1426dmg/301 crit rating/141 haste)

[Shroud of the Highborne]
32 haste * 1.19 = 38.08
23 +dmg = 23dmg
24 int(24/80*22) = 6.6 crit*0.78 = 5.148dmg

Total: 66.228

[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
25 crit *0.78 = 19.5
42 +dmg = 42dmg
16int = 4.4 crit*0.78 = 3.432dmg

Total: 64.932

And we have a win, at T6 with proper buffs, the healing haste close is significantly better. Good. Game. Speaking of Haste cloaks, has anyone seen [Shadowcaster's Drape] drop? The abundance of healing haste cloaks and absence of +dmg is very conspicuous.

Last edited by Sancus : 11/27/07 at 10:55 AM.
#1537SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sengiratolom
frostbolt gets slightly less from +dmg due to the build in snare but +dmg should still be more beneficial then crit by a good margin, especially since it affects your WE aswell
#1538SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Taken today off the PTR

11/27 08:31:23.234 You fail to cast Fireball: Another action is in progress.
11/27 08:31:24.577 Boom Bot is killed by Suicide.
11/27 08:31:24.577 Boom Bot is killed by Suicide.
11/27 08:31:24.577 Boom Bot dies.
11/27 08:31:24.577 Boom Bot dies.
11/27 08:31:24.984 Dr. Boom suffers 28 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/27 08:31:24.984 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 4291 Fire damage.
11/27 08:31:25.796 Dr. Boom is afflicted by Ignite.
11/27 08:31:25.796 You gain 127 Mana from Master of Elements.
11/27 08:31:27.031 Dr. Boom suffers 27 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/27 08:31:27.031 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 4449 Fire damage.
11/27 08:31:27.609 You gain 128 Mana from Master of Elements.
11/27 08:31:29.015 Dr. Boom suffers 28 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/27 08:31:29.437 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 4285 Fire damage.
11/27 08:31:29.437 Dr. Boom suffers 1748 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/27 08:31:29.796 You gain 128 Mana from Master of Elements.
11/27 08:31:31.312 Dr. Boom suffers 28 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/27 08:31:31.312 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 4311 Fire damage.
11/27 08:31:31.749 Dr. Boom suffers 2605 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/27 08:31:31.921 You gain 127 Mana from Master of Elements.
11/27 08:31:33.312 Dr. Boom suffers 27 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/27 08:31:33.515 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2806 Fire damage.
11/27 08:31:33.749 Dr. Boom suffers 3467 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/27 08:31:34.749 Fel Infusion fades from you.
11/27 08:31:34.749 Icy Veins fades from you.
11/27 08:31:35.546 Dr. Boom suffers 27 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/27 08:31:35.546 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2763 Fire damage.
11/27 08:31:35.765 Dr. Boom suffers 3467 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/27 08:31:35.765 Ignite fades from Dr. Boom.

First 2 bolded ignites are free +damage working pre-BC, as i derived earlier. My fireball cast time was 2.08 seconds with everything hasty popped, coinciding nicely with ignite ticks.
#1539SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Yeah that is working like Pre-BC Ignite. Now, was it consistently working that way on PTR or just this one time?

Easiest way to test is with Scorch. If it's really been changed back to rolling like that it will help a bit with our DPS gap to Destruction locks. It won't close it by any means, but it will help.
#1540SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
Maybe it is working because his Fireball was near the 2 seconds of ignite... maybe the "bug" can be reproduced by spacing firecrits in nearly exact 2 second intervalls. Let's try this with fireball rank 3 (:
#1541SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Whatever the reason for Lhivera's script overvaluing crit rating (on purpose or a bug) it's clearly incorrect, so just ignore it.
I neglected to change the frost spec stat equivalency functions' base spell for comparison to the IV + Waterbolt average. Should be working correctly now.
#1542SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
I'm going to run some tests on the PTR today to see if they're really self rolling or if that was just a fluke. If they are...that would greatly increase the importance of crit and possibly haste. This sounds a bit too powerful to be intended.
#1543SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0andastra
Lhivera,

I plugged some of my numbers into your calculator. I have 419 int, 242 spi, 369 crit rating, 164 hit rating, 0 haste rating and 1225 damage. I noticed that going from 1223 damage to 1224 damage, the relative values of crit rating and haste rating versus damage goes from .64 and 1.08 respectively to .69 and 1.18. It seems kinda odd to me.
#1544SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Moriendi(SC)
Taken into consideration the Icey Veins Talent, if anyone has time to run the Dps / Dpm breakdowns between 3/47/11 and 0/40/21 and 10/48/3 that would be very much appreciated. Also, i'm curious as to the mechanics of Icey veins with the troll racial.

If the IV is a 20% haste increase, and beserking increases cast speed by 10% (when full life), would they stack multiplicitively, giving a 32% increased cast speed? I know the tooltip is misleading so correct me if i'm wrong.

Also, can someone confirm the gem requirements for post patch CSD?

Last edited by Moriendi(SC) : 11/27/07 at 2:59 PM.
#1545SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
Originally Posted by andastra View Post
Lhivera,

I plugged some of my numbers into your calculator. I have 419 int, 242 spi, 369 crit rating, 164 hit rating, 0 haste rating and 1225 damage. I noticed that going from 1223 damage to 1224 damage, the relative values of crit rating and haste rating versus damage goes from .64 and 1.08 respectively to .69 and 1.18. It seems kinda odd to me.
It could be a rounding issue. Which spec were you looking at?

It might be helpful for me to show part of the interim calculation...what the script is doing is recalculating average damage using an increase of 10 in each stat and then comparing the different increases. Perhaps I should include "Adding 10 (stat X) increases average damage by (Y)" lines in that section so people have an easy way to check it against values in the top of the calculator. At least until the bugs are ironed out.
#1546SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Wowwiki has this reported bug for ignite...which could be the "rolling" that is shown in the log above.

Sometimes a single tick of Ignite will do its damage and then also be added to a second Ignite if it lands just before the tick. This means that one or both ticks of Ignite can do twice the expected damage. This is often mistaken to mean the old "rolling" ignite system from pre-2.0 (see past changes) is still present. The condition for this bug seems to be precise timing, making it difficult to exploit to any advantage.
#1547SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
OK, I have a question for Arcane mages while I work on trying to get an Arcane/IV spec implemented on the TCoM: When timing your casts so that your next AB will start casting with the debuff up and end casting with the debuff down, how much "dead time" will you opt to take instead of trying to squeeze an extra cast in? Example: You have 1.75 seconds left before the debuff expires. You have Icy Veins up and no additional haste, so your next AB will take 1.53 seconds. Do you cast a Scorch, or do you wait .25 seconds and start the AB?
#1548SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sinborn
I apologize if this has been asked already (just poppin in to read some TC during my lunch), but is IV affected by cold snap? And, is the water elemental's cast time affected by IV?
#1549SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Wowwiki has this reported bug for ignite...which could be the "rolling" that is shown in the log above.
Yeah that's why I asked if it was happening consistently. Ignite has had inconsistent behavior (gaining additional rolling damage and sometimes not gaining damage) ever since the 2.0 change.
#1550SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Flareyoshi
Hey guys, been looking over the thread and I am surprised no one has suggested this one yet. Perhaps I'm a fool, but tell me what you think --

0/40/21 for maximized Single Target DPS.

Cold Snap is moving to Ice Block, and thus 21 in frost would give it to you. Thus I'd have 3 uses of IV in a 10 minute fight; given mana consumption, good shadow priest, pots and gems, I daresay it's doable. Admittedly it completely nerfs AoE utility (I'm losing Arcane Concentration, Dragon's Breath, and Blast Wave in the way I have it set up), which is why I said for single target DPS, warranting perhaps mid-raid respecs for the anal retentive (if anyone should be so patient).

If anyone could throw up the stats for DPS on this I'd be much obliged; I haven't gotten into the exact mathematical mechanics as much as the rest of you.
#1551SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Flareyoshi View Post
Hey guys, been looking over the thread and I am surprised no one has suggested this one yet. Perhaps I'm a fool, but tell me what you think --

0/40/21 for maximized Single Target DPS.
People have suggested it, it was discussed earlier in the thread. The additional benefit gained from Cold Snapping IV once every 8 minutes does not compare to the loss of points in Playing With Fire and/or Pyromaniac.
#1552SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0andastra
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
It could be a rounding issue. Which spec were you looking at?

It might be helpful for me to show part of the interim calculation...what the script is doing is recalculating average damage using an increase of 10 in each stat and then comparing the different increases. Perhaps I should include "Adding 10 (stat X) increases average damage by (Y)" lines in that section so people have an easy way to check it against values in the top of the calculator. At least until the bugs are ironed out.
Oh, sorry, forgot about that. It's deep fire (10/47/3 +1).
#1553SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Yeah that's why I asked if it was happening consistently. Ignite has had inconsistent behavior (gaining additional rolling damage and sometimes not gaining damage) ever since the 2.0 change.

Has anyone ever tried using scorch with this? If it's consistant in that critting 100th of a second before the ignite tick will trigger a rolling effect, then you could wait .4 seconds after every scorch to begin a new one. In end game gear...it's possible to reach 50% crit if stacking for it...meaning you'd have a 75% chance of critting before one of the two ignite ticks.
#1554SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Zure
Dealing with a bunch of smaller posts:

Rolling ignites would be a huge deal, and would make crit scale very well with itself. At 40% crit+CSD, 5 stack capped rolling ignites would add about 7% dps for pure fireball spam over non-rolling ignites, at 46% crit about 10%, at 80% crit about 53% ;-). Of course the ability to use combustion/scorch/fireblast would raise this number. With optimal play and raid composition (ret pally+elem shaman+boomkin), we'd probably be within shouting distance of Destro locks on fights that were purely standstill, but would still fall way behind if there were much movement at all (due to ignites falling off, and them being able to tap on the run). This is all too speculative to spend time doing any meaningful modeling of the effect (though it is worth noting that 33/28 might be re-vivified by rolling ignites).

Sinborn: IV is reset by coldsnap. IV has no effect on Water Elemental.

Moriendi: IV and Zerking stack as Cast time /1.2/1.1, so your 32% figure is accurate.

Flareyoshi Re: 0/40/21... Giving up 1 point in pyromanic and 1 in playing with fire basically negates the benefit of Cold snap-->IV. Losing MoE (if you lose incinerate, that's another bit of damage lost) makes you even more dependent on outside mana regen (say, shadow priest dying early). Numbers were run a few pages back on the benefit of cold snap --> icy veins. You should be able to compare that to 1% dmg, 1% crit fairly easily yourself.

Also, you lose Arcane Sub/Blastwave/Dragon's Breath/Imp Flame Strike meaning you are a very weak contributor on AOE. I know you limited your post to single target, but AOE is an unavoidable part of our role in any instance, from 5 man to 25.
#1555SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0abdeal24
I am wondering about 10/48/3 after the patch. In the long term of a boss fight, will the gain of 20% cast speed overide the benefit of clearcasting in something along the lines of a 0/50/11 build?
#1556SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Gentlemen please don't rehash the same questions, particularly in the same thread they have been suggested.

Yes x/42/11+8 will out-dps 10/48/3. Yes it will be less DPM. Can your group setup handle your loss of Clearcast? A good portion of the mana consumption benefit we lose from Clearcast will be replenished with the new mana stones so it's less than you think. Particularly as one in 8 clearcasts (or more) will be wasted on Scorches.

Given you're past Karazahn-level, or given you're there with a Spriest or resto shaman there seems to be no reason to stick with 10.48.3 instead of 2.42.11+6 for raid environments.

Likewise, no 0/40/21 is not meaningful enough to surpass 2/42/11+6.

Try not to ask questions whose answers are 2 clicks of "previous page" away.
#1557SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Arlis
Thank you for the great information. Sorry I repeated a question, I was at work and did a very fast search for what I was looking for. Looking forward to plugging that into Vontre's new sheet when released.
#1558SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Alvira
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
OK, I have a question for Arcane mages while I work on trying to get an Arcane/IV spec implemented on the TCoM: When timing your casts so that your next AB will start casting with the debuff up and end casting with the debuff down, how much "dead time" will you opt to take instead of trying to squeeze an extra cast in? Example: You have 1.75 seconds left before the debuff expires. You have Icy Veins up and no additional haste, so your next AB will take 1.53 seconds. Do you cast a Scorch, or do you wait .25 seconds and start the AB?
For me I prefer to wait just that little bit. Maybe because of lag. But this is why I can actually do 3x AB, 2x FB as a rotation and still get it right. But once I try anything like 3xAB, 3x FB, or 3xAB, 2x FB, 1 scorch. Then I have a high chance of missing the debuff when I start up my next AB again.

Right now, with 3XAB, 2x FB. Its almost perfect. Sometimes, if my lag goes down a lot, I might actually refresh my debuff. But that's fine. Better to refresh it than end up having a 2.5 sec AB cast again.
#1559SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Alvira
Have a question. When I was testing on PTR, I noticed that with max AB debuff up, plus with IV activated, my AB cast was 1.25 seconds on the tooltip. Does this really mean I can go lower than the global cooldown? I dun see any "break" in my spellcasting, and the casts just keep on going. Its hard to tell if I am really casting at 1.5 sec or 1.25 sec because both seem very fast to me. lol
#1560SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Have a question. When I was testing on PTR, I noticed that with max AB debuff up, plus with IV activated, my AB cast was 1.25 seconds on the tooltip. Does this really mean I can go lower than the global cooldown? I dun see any "break" in my spellcasting, and the casts just keep on going. Its hard to tell if I am really casting at 1.5 sec or 1.25 sec because both seem very fast to me. lol
Maybe you can include timestamp in your combatlog, and refer to your combatlog for answer.
#1561SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Ok, so I've got a little bit of data to show one thing I was trying to convey across, not enough to provide definitive proof of the newer crit value;
Full parse here: Wow Web Stats
03:25'25.109	Scrits's Fireball dots Dr. Boom for 33 Fire damage
03:25'26.640	Scrits's Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 6366 Fire damage
937	Scrits gains Aura of the Crusader of NULL
953	Scrits gains 127 Mana from Master of Elements
03:25'27.328	Scrits gains Aura of the Crusader of NULL
03:25'28.890	Scrits's Fireball dots Dr. Boom for 33 Fire damage
906	Scrits's Ignite dots Dr. Boom for 1273 Fire damage
03:25'29.937	Scrits's Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 6258 Fire damage
03:25'30.140	Scrits gains Aura of the Crusader of NULL
140	Scrits gains 127 Mana from Master of Elements
609	Scrits gains Aura of the Crusader of NULL
03:25'31.875	Scrits's Fireball dots Dr. Boom for 32 Fire damage
03:25'32.140	Scrits's Ignite dots Dr. Boom for 1888 Fire damage
562	Scrits's Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 6498 Fire damage
03:25'33.250	Scrits gains 127 Mana from Master of Elements
468	Scrits gains Aura of the Crusader of NULL
03:25'34.875	Scrits's Fireball dots Dr. Boom for 33 Fire damage
03:25'35.171	Scrits's Ignite dots Dr. Boom for 2244 Fire damage
671	Scrits's Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 4158 Fire damage
03:25'37.265	Scrits's Ignite dots Dr. Boom for 2244 Fire damage
781	Scrits's Fireball dots Dr. Boom for 33 Fire damage
03:25'38.796	Scrits's Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 6252 Fire damage
03:25'39.296	Scrits gains 127 Mana from Master of Elements
03:25'40.906	Scrits's Fireball dots Dr. Boom for 33 Fire damage
906	Scrits's Ignite dots Dr. Boom for 1250 Fire damage
03:25'41.812	Scrits's Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 4153 Fire damage
3 Fireball crits, leading to 3 different Ignite tick. 1273->1888->2244->2244
Not exactly the same as pre-TBC ignite rolling, but its a 3s fireball casts getting those numbers making my numbers work so far. Will get better, and more testing later this week,
#1562SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0epiphenom
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
3 Fireball crits, leading to 3 different Ignite tick. 1273->1888->2244->2244
Not exactly the same as pre-TBC ignite rolling, but its a 3s fireball casts getting those numbers making my numbers work so far. Will get better, and more testing later this week,
Nothing is stacking here.

crit 6366 --> Ignite is 2547 (1273/1274)
tick 1273 (1274 remains)
crit 6258 --> 2503 (1251/1252) add remaining 1274/2 = 637 to each tick
tick 1888 (=1251+637, remaining value on this ignite is 1252+637 = 1889)
crit 6498 --> 2599 (1299/1300) add remaining 1889/2 = 944.5 to each tick
tick 2244 (1299 + 945)
tick 2244 (1300 + 944)

total crit damage 19122
total Ignite damage 7649
19122*0.4 = 7649

If these crits hadn't occurred in sequence, you'd have seen six ticks of 1273, 1274, 1251, 1252, 1299, and 1300, which also sum to 7649. These crits are doing no more damage than if you'd crit them widely spaced.

The point that's seriously causing confusion: just because the last two ticks do identical damage does not mean Ignite is stacking. You take what's left on the old ignite, damage that you would have gotten anyway if you hadn't crit again, and you add it to the new ignite, which is also damage that would have occurred whether there was a crit before or not, and that is the new tick, which is nothing more than the sum of damage that would have happened no matter what.

The only actual anomalous Ignite data posted is Searix's and that's because he landed two crits before the ignite from the first crit ticked, which seems to do weird things with the Ignite formula when it's trying to combine a two-tick Ignite with another two-tick Ignite (as opposed to the more usual case of a one-tick Ignite with a two-tick Ignite).
#1563SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0WiPe|Domin
Originally Posted by Flareyoshi View Post
Hey guys, been looking over the thread and I am surprised no one has suggested this one yet. Perhaps I'm a fool, but tell me what you think --

0/40/21 for maximized Single Target DPS.

Cold Snap is moving to Ice Block, and thus 21 in frost would give it to you. Thus I'd have 3 uses of IV in a 10 minute fight; given mana consumption, good shadow priest, pots and gems, I daresay it's doable. Admittedly it completely nerfs AoE utility (I'm losing Arcane Concentration, Dragon's Breath, and Blast Wave in the way I have it set up), which is why I said for single target DPS, warranting perhaps mid-raid respecs for the anal retentive (if anyone should be so patient).

If anyone could throw up the stats for DPS on this I'd be much obliged; I haven't gotten into the exact mathematical mechanics as much as the rest of you.
For fights at t6 gear lvl when most bosses take 3-5min this build would be superior, the longer the fight prolongs the worse it gets.
#1564SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
When the damage for Ignites is done in less ticks than normal, that means there is stacking going on. 5 ticks of ignite instead of 6. But yea, I was trying to get to what Searix posted, but I wasn't able to see it in the log, but I know it exists somewhere.
#1565SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
When the damage for Ignites is done in less ticks than normal, that means there is stacking going on. 5 ticks of ignite instead of 6. But yea, I was trying to get to what Searix posted, but I wasn't able to see it in the log, but I know it exists somewhere.
In Searix's case, he managed to get ignites which deal more than 40% of his crit damage. In your case, your total ignite damage is exactly 40% of your crit damage. Searix's case was a special one, because he somehow managed to "roll" his ignites to deal more damage. I really don't see what your combatlog is trying to imply other than evidence that ignite is working normally, Hate Monkey.
#1566SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Searix
Hatemonkey: The difference between what you did and what i did to get the "beneficial" damage is my crits happened RIGHT on par with the ignite ticks (Well, close enough, i popped all my haste items and had 2.08 cast fireballs).
Let me grab another parse and edit for clarity.


Edited out most everything not pertaining, off the PTR

11/28 03:56:19.046 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3122 Fire damage.
11/28 03:56:19.858 Dr. Boom is afflicted by Ignite.
11/28 03:56:21.390 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3012 Fire damage.
11/28 03:56:21.593 Dr. Boom suffers 624 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/28 03:56:21.796 You gain Combustion (2).
11/28 03:56:23.202 Dr. Boom suffers 24 Fire damage from your Fireball.
11/28 03:56:23.796 Dr. Boom suffers 1227 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/28 03:56:23.796 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1969 Fire damage.
11/28 03:56:24.593 You fail to cast Fireball: Another action is in progress.
11/28 03:56:24.608 You gain Combustion (3).
11/28 03:56:25.593 Dr. Boom suffers 1226 Fire damage from your Ignite.
11/28 03:56:25.905 Ignite fades from Dr. Boom.

Results: Bonus ignite damage (50% ignite damage total). Was surprised at how much leeway it gave me.

Last edited by Searix : 11/28/07 at 6:00 AM.
#1567SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Hatemonkey: The difference between what you did and what i did to get the "beneficial" damage is my crits happened RIGHT on par with the ignite ticks (Well, close enough, i popped all my haste items and had 2.08 cast fireballs).
Let me grab another parse and edit for clarity.
I know exactly what you're talking about, I've seen it happen before. I've been unable to reproduce it to the extent that I need though. That's one of the things that gave me the number for crit being a higher value with IV next patch. It's much easier to understand when you're a Troll and you get a 30% Berserking off with Bloodlust as your casts aproach the 2s cast easy, then adding in one other haste buff provides enough to push the cast faster than Ignite ticks, which produce the true rolling effect, causing a much greater gain in dps. Like I said earlier, I cannot get a decent amount of PTR testing till Thursday, in which I'll have a shaman or two to help me produce this situation on demand easier, and show that the better your passive crit rate, the better gain crit is overall.

Since berserking only lasts 10 seconds, I'll be doing 2 different tests, one with 10% berserking, and one with 30% berserking.

But it still stands, that with the way Ignites stack now, you effectively do your damage in 1 less tick that normal on each chain of crits, which still stand as a dps gain over seperated ignite ticks. Do you guys agree with that statement?

EDIT: To find out what kind of leeway we have with Fireball crits and getting that true stacking ignite to happen, we need to test a 2.3-2.4s FB as your log shows a .4s delay on when the first Ignite tick happens from when it should happen.

And that may be why I've been having that in my head the whole time as a Troll with Berserking, I can reach those haste levels easier to get that cast time. I'll dig through my parse later and see if I can find any data that matches your results.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 11/28/07 at 6:10 AM.
#1568SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
epiphenom
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
But it still stands, that with the way Ignites stack now, you effectively do your damage in 1 less tick that normal on each chain of crits, which still stand as a dps gain over seperated ignite ticks. Do you guys agree with that statement?
Not at all. Your statement is true only if you confine the window over which you calculate your DPS to the crit chain itself.

Crit-Crit-Crit-Hit-Hit-Hit is no more DPS than Crit-Hit-Crit-Hit-Crit-Hit. During the Crit-Crit-Crit portion of the chain, it certainly has more DPS than the Crit-Hit-Crit portion of the other chain, but it only makes sense, since it has one more crit.

For any assumption of identical crit rates (in other words, taking as your example two sets of casts which contain an identical number of hits and crits), it does not matter in the least whether they are chained or separate if Ignite is functioning correctly.

Last edited by epiphenom : 11/28/07 at 2:23 PM.
#1569SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Yes Hate Monkey, several posters have indicated current ignite working by virtue of compacting current and new ignites into fewer tics. It is not however, a DPS gain. What it is, is a DPS loss. Assume following scenario:

0.00 Crit 1
0.02 Ignite 1, 1/2
0.03 Crit 2
(0.04 Ignite 1, 2/2 would happen here but doesn't)
0.05 Ignite 2, 1/2 (with added 0.5*Ignite 1, 2/2 that was remaining)
0.07 Ignite 2, 2/2 + 0.5*Ignite 1, 2/2

Total time remains 7sec, Total damage remains same, the fact that the Ignite is bigger at a later time than it should have been dealt does nothing to it's DPS.

By delaying damage dealing and in stead getting the same damage later you are not increasing DPS at all, rather for the case of *mob dies, remaining (multi-stacked) ignite is dropped* you are in fact losing DPS compared to non-stacking ignites.

Edit: Beaten to it.
#1570SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Ignites look unchanged on the PTR for me. I was able to get a few to roll by landing a spell right before the ignite tick. What is happening here from what I understand is the damage has already taken place on the server side by the time your crit lands...so the ignite ticks. However it seems that it is calculating the damage for the next ignite tick as if the tick that happens .2 seconds after didn't. Therefore the damage is added up for the next 2 ignite ticks...but you still have that "free" tick that just went off.

It could also be an issue with the damage being calculated when the cast is completed for the fireball, but before it lands. I'm not sure at what point the damage for ignite is calculated.


It's not really rolling...just an issue of calculating with race conditions.
#1571SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Have a question. When I was testing on PTR, I noticed that with max AB debuff up, plus with IV activated, my AB cast was 1.25 seconds on the tooltip. Does this really mean I can go lower than the global cooldown? I dun see any "break" in my spellcasting, and the casts just keep on going. Its hard to tell if I am really casting at 1.5 sec or 1.25 sec because both seem very fast to me. lol
Are you using Quartz or any other latency indicator mod?

The cast will go off at 1.25sec but you will be unable to start another cast till the GCD completes which is 1.5sec.

Just like what happens if you were to cast rank 1 Frostbolt with 5/5 Improved Frostbolt. The cast completes at 1 second but you can't start another cast till the GCD completes.
#1572SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
To people who think rolling ignites are in again: the numbers people are posting don't really prove it. Maybe you forget how the rolling ignite works? If you really want proof, you could bring 5 mages to boom and scorch spam him and see if you can hit 20k ignites
#1573SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by vannik View Post
To people who think rolling ignites are in again: the numbers people are posting don't really prove it. Maybe you forget how the rolling ignite works? If you really want proof, you could bring 5 mages to boom and scorch spam him and see if you can hit 20k ignites
They are talking about self or owner only rolling ignites. The rolling ignite that every mage could refresh has not been brought up since this is impossible to do with seperate ignite debuffs.

The reason this is being discussed right now is that fireball is reaching near 2 seconds in some cases with IV, Skull and haste gear...which seems to be bugging out the ignite mechanic at times when used in conjunction with combustion.
#1574SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Qbert
Ignites work the way they have since...2.0? Which is to say they don't work as they should but they work more fairly than they were.

"Stacking Ignites" is nothing more than delaying your earlier crit(s) ignite damage. It is a simple coding work-around that is 'close enough' to the tooltip definition because the programmers can't quite figure out how to get it to work the way it should ("Rolling Ignites" is just a different work-around they tried that turned out to be exploitable). Even though Ignite doesn't work as the tooltip states and consecutive crits backloads dmg/dps, there's just no point arguing it any further because a) it has been argued to death for over a year now, b) the result is pretty close to the definition and as close as the programmers have come, and c) while it is a slightly unfair disadvantage to mages it is precisely that; a slight issue whereas there are many many more important things to occupy developers' and programmers' time.

I don't like it any more than the next mage, but there comes a time where enough is enough and you simply accept the bug as an alternative to torturing complaints about it.
#1575SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Qbert calling the nerf to our DPS when going from rolling Ignites to the current form is a gross understatement. The current functionality of Ignite makes chain crits COST us DPS. That is not a SLIGHT problem. Especially when compared to Improved Shadowbolt. I'd dare say it's the biggest problem facing PvE mages right now, besides the Curse of Elements problem.
#1576SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kycan
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Qbert calling the nerf to our DPS when going from rolling Ignites to the current form is a gross understatement. The current functionality of Ignite makes chain crits COST us DPS. That is not a SLIGHT problem. Especially when compared to Improved Shadowbolt. I'd dare say it's the biggest problem facing PvE mages right now, besides the Curse of Elements problem.
Unless the fight ends before your ignites get to tick, this "dps loss" is completely irrelevant. Your total damage is exactly the same, in either case.
#1577SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Qbert
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Qbert calling the nerf to our DPS when going from rolling Ignites to the current form is a gross understatement. The current functionality of Ignite makes chain crits COST us DPS. That is not a SLIGHT problem. Especially when compared to Improved Shadowbolt. I'd dare say it's the biggest problem facing PvE mages right now, besides the Curse of Elements problem.
I never mentioned anything about a DPS loss because there isn't one unless you're complaining about things dying before your ignites finish. There is no DPS loss theres only a DPS shift. The current ignite mechanics cause chained crits to backload the DPS. This is primarily a PvP issue when a player lives for the extra 2 seconds until the next ignite tick whereas in a perfect world where ignite works as the tooltip states, the first tick would have kill the player ... then that player does something within the 2 seconds that could change an outcome. The other issue being delayed ignite damage giving more time to dispel earlier ignite damage.

I know it's not a good thing or I wouldn't have pointed out the problems, but the number of times that the mechanics make a significant impact are so few and far between that you have no choice but to lump it into the same category as blink... and we all know how those discussions go.
#1578SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by kycan View Post
Unless the fight ends before your ignites get to tick, this "dps loss" is completely irrelevant. Your total damage is exactly the same, in either case.
This happens more than you might think. Especially for people like me who like to blow Combustion and other timers in the last 20% after Bloodlust is hit on boss fights, and far more on Trash.

Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
I never mentioned anything about a DPS loss because there isn't one unless you're complaining about things dying before your ignites finish. There is no DPS loss theres only a DPS shift. The current ignite mechanics cause chained crits to backload the DPS. This is primarily a PvP issue when a player lives for the extra 2 seconds until the next ignite tick whereas in a perfect world where ignite works as the tooltip states, the first tick would have kill the player ... then that player does something within the 2 seconds that could change an outcome. The other issue being delayed ignite damage giving more time to dispel earlier ignite damage.

I know it's not a good thing or I wouldn't have pointed out the problems, but the number of times that the mechanics make a significant impact are so few and far between that you have no choice but to lump it into the same category as blink... and we all know how those discussions go.
Yes on a boss fight all the DPS is just shifted until the end when it may be lost. But on trash and adds it happens a lot more.

But what I was talking about (and this is addressed to both of you), is the DPS *LOSS* going from the old way where they rolled to the new way where it doesn't.
#1579SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
I realize this is hardly TC, very anecdoctal and maybe not very impressive, but I thought I'd share anyway. Really annoyed I didn't get WWS tonight, but forgot after I logged out before Rage since I was passing for someone to get exalted, so you'll have to do with Recount information. I was able to beat some personal records on Anetheron Kaz'rogal and Naj'entus, as arcane frost. I had CoE, Heroism from resto shaman and WC by another mage.

Anetheron


Kaz'rogal


Naj'entus now with Exalted MH ring.




Can't wait for IV to get in that picture, may even be able to compete with stupid destro spec :>
#1580SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Hmm our destro locks get 2.1-2.2k consistently. Good luck.
EDIT: without elemental shaman. or COA/COD.
#1581SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Vhad
Yeah, I know, but it'll be closer atleast, somewhat

Edit: When you say consistently, do you mean every single boss? or consistently on those 3 I linked to?

Last edited by Vhad : 11/28/07 at 6:30 PM.
#1582SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0marloz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Hmm our destro locks get 2.1-2.2k consistently. Good luck.
EDIT: without elemental shaman. or COA/COD.
You talk warmly about your destro warlocks' dps, but I can't seem to find any statistics of them reaching your, quote; 'consistent 2.1-2.2k dps'.

Take your most recent raid (Loading...) for example; none of your warlocks passed ~1900dps on any of the fights, excluding Shade of Akama and Essence of Anger for obvious reasons.

The one fight I found where one of your warlocks actually had 2161dps was on Rage Winterchill - (Loading...) although he was blessed with Drums of Battle and Bloodlust - and higher crit% (44% vs. 32%) than on avreage. On the remaning fights none of your warlocks exceeded ~1850dps.
#1583SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Thats the problem with warlock vs mage. A well geared warlock can consistently do 10% to 20% more DPS than an equally geared mage, even if both players are doing similar roles and has similar skills. Lets look at the various advantages that warlock has.

1) Imp shadowbolt raises DPS significantly, and can be kept up rather easily.
2) Soul shatter is instant cast, thus resulting in very little downtime compared to Invisibility (if there is even a need to use)
3) Shadowbolt has all its damage frontloaded, so it is less likely to lose DPS as compared to a mechanic like ignite.
4) Shadowbolt scales better than all nukes that a mage has (except arcane blast, which is non sustainable).
5) T6 bonus boost warlock more than mage.
6) Shadowbolt is 2.5 second cast time, thus warlock tend to suffer less(compared to fire mage) when the raid boss requires lots of movement. Frostbolt doesn't deal comparable DPS, so even though frostbolt is 2.5 seconds, it can't compete.
7) No downtime spent on keeping a debuff like scorch up. Winterchill and Imp shadowbolt are better in this aspect, but Imp shadow provides a much higher DPS boost than winterchill.
8) If a warlock is free to apply CoD, his dps will be even higher.
9) Curse priority is usually given to CoS (this point is invalid if CoE is kept up).

Until blizzard starts to test things more thoroughly, mage dps will never catch up to a warlock.
#1584SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
2) Soul shatter is instant cast, thus resulting in very little downtime compared to Invisibility (if there is even a need to use)
On a lot of fights a mage can pop invis and immediately start casting a bolt when GCD is up. Invis drops 20% threat per second over five seconds; gcd plus frostbolt is 4 sec, gcd plus fireball is 4.5 sec, so either of these guarantees 80% threat drop using only a GCD much like soul shatter. It's also possible (and repeatable w/ practice) to time it just so the bolt goes off as invis hits as well.
#1585SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dryssa
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
On a lot of fights a mage can pop invis and immediately start casting a bolt when GCD is up. Invis drops 20% threat per second over five seconds; gcd plus frostbolt is 4 sec, gcd plus fireball is 4.5 sec, so either of these guarantees 80% threat drop using only a GCD much like soul shatter. It's also possible (and repeatable w/ practice) to time it just so the bolt goes off as invis hits as well.
This is wrong on three counts. First, Invisibility drops 10% threat each second, not 20%. Second, it drops 10% of your current threat at that tick, not your threat when you first cast Invisibility, so you'll have 100%*(.9^4)=65.51% of your original threat after 4 seconds, not 60%.

Most importantly though, is that Invis is canceled when you begin casting another spell, not when you finish (this is contrary to how it initially functioned when BC was released). Thus if you cast Invis, then begin casting a Fireball when the GCD is up, Invis will be dispelled and you'll only have lost 10% of your threat. In order for a full threat dump you must do nothing (except move) and be hit by nothing for a full 5 seconds.
#1586SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
On a lot of fights a mage can pop invis and immediately start casting a bolt when GCD is up. Invis drops 20% threat per second over five seconds; gcd plus frostbolt is 4 sec, gcd plus fireball is 4.5 sec, so either of these guarantees 80% threat drop using only a GCD much like soul shatter. It's also possible (and repeatable w/ practice) to time it just so the bolt goes off as invis hits as well.
Invis stops working the instant you begin a new cast so you would drop 20% threat using it how you suggest. If I ever have to use it I tend to break it by beginning a cast at around the 20% mark so I don't have to click the buff off and re target the mob.
#1587SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Originally Posted by Dryssa View Post
This is wrong on three counts. First, Invisibility drops 10% threat each second, not 20%. Second, it drops 10% of your current threat at that tick, not your threat when you first cast Invisibility, so you'll have 100%*(.9^4)=65.51% of your original threat after 4 seconds, not 60%.
No it does drop 20% per tick.
#1588SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0terjekv
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
7) No downtime spent on keeping a debuff like scorch up. Winterchill and Imp shadowbolt are better in this aspect, but Imp shadow provides a much higher DPS boost than winterchill.
Unless you have a shadow priest, there is a non-trivial amount of GCDs lost to life tap. Even with endgame gear, the number of shadowbolts you get for one life tap isn't exactly stellar. :-/
#1589SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0frosty
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
Thats the problem with warlock vs mage. A well geared warlock can consistently do 10% to 20% more DPS than an equally geared mage, even if both players are doing similar roles and has similar skills. Lets look at the various advantages that warlock has.

1) Imp shadowbolt raises DPS significantly, and can be kept up rather easily.
2) Soul shatter is instant cast, thus resulting in very little downtime compared to Invisibility (if there is even a need to use)
3) Shadowbolt has all its damage frontloaded, so it is less likely to lose DPS as compared to a mechanic like ignite.
4) Shadowbolt scales better than all nukes that a mage has (except arcane blast, which is non sustainable).
5) T6 bonus boost warlock more than mage.
6) Shadowbolt is 2.5 second cast time, thus warlock tend to suffer less(compared to fire mage) when the raid boss requires lots of movement. Frostbolt doesn't deal comparable DPS, so even though frostbolt is 2.5 seconds, it can't compete.
7) No downtime spent on keeping a debuff like scorch up. Winterchill and Imp shadowbolt are better in this aspect, but Imp shadow provides a much higher DPS boost than winterchill.
8) If a warlock is free to apply CoD, his dps will be even higher.
9) Curse priority is usually given to CoS (this point is invalid if CoE is kept up).

Until blizzard starts to test things more thoroughly, mage dps will never catch up to a warlock.
The problem with mage vs warlock raid-dps comes down to Shadow Weaving imo. The 10% is pretty much the gap between a destro-warlock not on CoE/CoS/CoR-duty and a Firemage with Icy Veins, and it won't disappear unless Shadow Weaving is removed or restricted to SPriests, or Mages get a similar outside buff.
#1590SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
No it does drop 20% per tick.
Originally Posted by Dryssa View Post
This is wrong on three counts. First, Invisibility drops 10% threat each second, not 20%. Second, it drops 10% of your current threat at that tick, not your threat when you first cast Invisibility, so you'll have 100%*(.9^4)=65.51% of your original threat after 4 seconds, not 60%.
Dryssa is correct about how it works, at least according to the last full thottbot/wowhead spell description.
You lose ~35% threat in the first 4 ticks, and on the 5th tick you become invisible and drop all threat.

Odd enough, the spell mechanic is currently "unknown" on wowhead/thottbot, and Invisibility is listed with a 6 second duration. Maybe it's changed, in that case back up your claims please.

Invisibility - Spells - World of Warcraft
Thottbot World of Warcraft: Invisibility


Edit:
The spell description has been something like "Apply Aura periodic, every second: Reduce threat by 10%" for the 5 second duration. It's been that way for a few months until it disappeared for whichever reason.

Last edited by Roywyn : 11/29/07 at 9:43 AM.
#1591SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by terjekv View Post
Unless you have a shadow priest, there is a non-trivial amount of GCDs lost to life tap. Even with endgame gear, the number of shadowbolts you get for one life tap isn't exactly stellar. :-/
Given the context is 2k DPS it's safe to assume the groups are optimized for performance. Not getting stellar bolts-per-tap belies that you have one of the only two abilities in game that scale mana regen per gear (along with sp). The whole problem is the huge excessive synergy between lock/sp. Using life to supply mana and being replenished on both, you both buff each other by 15% and 10/20% respectively and the more damage either of you deal the more you both are sustainable from life AND mana perspective. Sure, SPs get 15% more immunity to aoe and environmental damage effects, but what the hell, with 20% more heal intake I'm sure you don't really mind.

For the purposes of game balance, you can assume reliance on SP to remove your need to Tap as a given in raid environments. Let's put it this way: If your raid is in a position to output 2k DPS, it's clear there will be at least one SP in the raid and his group will be all the destro locks. Mages get seccond dibs as far as I've seen.
#1592SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Frenzi
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Dryssa is correct about how it works, at least according to the last full thottbot/wowhead spell description.
You lose ~35% threat in the first 4 ticks, and on the 5th tick you become invisible and drop all threat.

Odd enough, the spell mechanic is currently "unknown" on wowhead/thottbot, and Invisibility is listed with a 6 second duration. Maybe it's changed, in that case back up your claims please.

Invisibility - Spells - World of Warcraft
Thottbot World of Warcraft: Invisibility
Whenever I use it I watch my threatmeter to give the best time of when to break it as becoming completely invisible is annoying as you have to remove the buff and retarget your mob. There is no way my threat has only been dropping in 10% increments and at its initial implementation it was stated at 20%. Unless they have changed the mechanics it is still 20%. Considering I have reduced my threat by atleast 80% virtually everytime I have used it then it is still working as intended.
#1593SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Voley
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
Thats the problem with warlock vs mage. A well geared warlock can consistently do 10% to 20% more DPS than an equally geared mage, even if both players are doing similar roles and has similar skills. Lets look at the various advantages that warlock has.

1) Imp shadowbolt raises DPS significantly, and can be kept up rather easily.
2) Soul shatter is instant cast, thus resulting in very little downtime compared to Invisibility (if there is even a need to use)
3) Shadowbolt has all its damage frontloaded, so it is less likely to lose DPS as compared to a mechanic like ignite.
4) Shadowbolt scales better than all nukes that a mage has (except arcane blast, which is non sustainable).
5) T6 bonus boost warlock more than mage.
6) Shadowbolt is 2.5 second cast time, thus warlock tend to suffer less(compared to fire mage) when the raid boss requires lots of movement. Frostbolt doesn't deal comparable DPS, so even though frostbolt is 2.5 seconds, it can't compete.
7) No downtime spent on keeping a debuff like scorch up. Winterchill and Imp shadowbolt are better in this aspect, but Imp shadow provides a much higher DPS boost than winterchill.
8) If a warlock is free to apply CoD, his dps will be even higher.
9) Curse priority is usually given to CoS (this point is invalid if CoE is kept up).

Until blizzard starts to test things more thoroughly, mage dps will never catch up to a warlock.
I don't agree with your points, at all. Explanation:

1. It is often eaten by shadowpriests most of the time, so you cant keep it up even 50% of time.
2. Soul shatter is not complete aggro wipe. Soul shatter is subject to resists. That doesnt happen much, but it can.
3. Yes so what? ignite is pretty stable nowadays even with 2 crits in same time. Don't see the point.
4. What do you mean by scaling? Shadowbolt is getting 103% scaling from gear. Fireball is getting 115%.
5. Just no. Warlocks have to cast curses, and lifetap for a pretty much amount of time. It's all balanced.
6. 0.5 seconds do not really matter anywhere in the game.
7. As I already said, mages dont need to lifetap. Warlocks do. And scorch can be kept by only 1 mage doing 8 fireballs 1 scorch rotation. Rest could just spam fireball.
8. How many warlocks do you got in raid? We usually 2. 1 coe 1 cos.

Also if you compete winter chill and frost spec (inferior damage spec), compete it with affliction or demo locks. Why do you even try to compete frost spec with the destro spec? Also you must consider that in any serious raid you will have at least 1 affliction warlock, for the damage reduction thing. And that spec is not capable of doing any decent damage. Also it is less useful to put shaman into warlock group, as they hardly got use of mana tide, and mages need shaman.
#1594SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
Whenever I use it I watch my threatmeter to give the best time of when to break it as becoming completely invisible is annoying as you have to remove the buff and retarget your mob. There is no way my threat has only been dropping in 10% increments and at its initial implementation it was stated at 20%. Unless they have changed the mechanics it is still 20%. Considering I have reduced my threat by atleast 80% virtually everytime I have used it then it is still working as intended.
I dunno what threatmeter you use, but I just looked at Omen's code for it, which is likely copied from KTM, and it does a 10% reduction each tick:

local invisModifiers = {90/100, 80/90, 70/80, 60/70, 0}

So, I'm pretty sure you're just mistaken about your visual reading of your threat meter unless you use something other than Omen/KTM(is there even such a thing?).

Besides that, stating what your threat meter does is not backing up your claims - threat meters are entirely theorycrafted addons coded by players, so even if you were correct, your threat meter might just be wrong.
#1595SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Voley
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
Whenever I use it I watch my threatmeter to give the best time of when to break it as becoming completely invisible is annoying as you have to remove the buff and retarget your mob. There is no way my threat has only been dropping in 10% increments and at its initial implementation it was stated at 20%. Unless they have changed the mechanics it is still 20%. Considering I have reduced my threat by atleast 80% virtually everytime I have used it then it is still working as intended.
They never stated that it drops in 20% per sec. Ever. It has never been that way either. If it was, you could lose aggro after 2 seconds if you overaggroed. But you still keep aggro even after 4 seconds with current invis and the invis that was in january.
#1596SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0frosty
Originally Posted by Voley View Post
I don't agree with your points, at all. Explanation:

1. It is often eaten by shadowpriests most of the time, so you cant keep it up even 50% of time.
2. Soul shatter is not complete aggro wipe. Soul shatter is subject to resists. That doesnt happen much, but it can.
3. Yes so what? ignite is pretty stable nowadays even with 2 crits in same time. Don't see the point.
4. What do you mean by scaling? Shadowbolt is getting 103% scaling from gear. Fireball is getting 115%.
5. Just no. Warlocks have to cast curses, and lifetap for a pretty much amount of time. It's all balanced.
6. 0.5 seconds do not really matter anywhere in the game.
7. As I already said, mages dont need to lifetap. Warlocks do. And scorch can be kept by only 1 mage doing 8 fireballs 1 scorch rotation. Rest could just spam fireball.
8. How many warlocks do you got in raid? We usually 2. 1 coe 1 cos.
1. 50% Uptime is still a 10% dmg-boost.
2. You hardly ever need a full aggro wipe. The 50% wipe is good enough. A mage however needs to be out of combat for 4-5 sec for a comperable aggro wipe instead of just losing 1.5sec due to GCD.
3. On trash or when killing small spawns during bossfights only the burst-dmg really helps, and the ignite often just wont tick b/c the mobs are dead. Having the Ignite-Bonus added to the frontloaded dmg would obviously help killing those mobs faster.
4. Better scaling for warlocks means that warlocks dps increase more than mages dps when both classes gain better gear i.e. more +dmg. It's a result of more multiplier-boni warlocks have: 15% DS, 10% Shadow Weaving, 10% Imp Shadowbolt (considering 50% uptime), 6% T6 Bonus and 20% Shadow and Flame compared to 15% Imp Scorch, 3% Playing with Fire, 10% Firepower, 5% T6 Bonus and 15% Emp. Fireball.
5. Well, one Curse every 1 (CoD) or 5 Minutes (CoE/CoS/CoR). Also have in mind that Mages have 10sec downtime for Evocation, enough time to do 6-7 Lifetaps which also gives more mana.
6. Not if you don't care about min-maxing i guess ...
7. Would still be better if no one needed to cast scorches. But i guess it's indeed only a minor issue.
8. A warlock that would be replacing a mage won't have to keep up CoE/CoS/CoR neither than having an imp out ... the mage wasn't doing anything of this too. If you kick a mage from the raid and get a Destro-Warlock into the same group, having a SPriest and maybe even a Shaman, he will be doing sth like 10-15% more dps by doing exactly the same thing as the mage has done before: hitting mostly a single button repeatedly for the duration of the fight. There will just be additional Shadowbolts flying around instead of some fiery balls.
#1597SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
4. What do you mean by scaling? Shadowbolt is getting 103% scaling from gear. Fireball is getting 115%.
This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how scaling in the game works. You are completely ignoring the effect of Shadow damage's superior multipliers.

8. How many warlocks do you got in raid? We usually 2. 1 coe 1 cos.
Curse of Recklessness is superior to CoE

5. Just no. Warlocks have to cast curses, and lifetap for a pretty much amount of time. It's all balanced.
Actual dps outputted indicates that it isn't.
#1598SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Cardynal
Originally Posted by marloz View Post
You talk warmly about your destro warlocks' dps, but I can't seem to find any statistics of them reaching your, quote; 'consistent 2.1-2.2k dps'.

Take your most recent raid (Loading...) for example; none of your warlocks passed ~1900dps on any of the fights, excluding Shade of Akama and Essence of Anger for obvious reasons.

The one fight I found where one of your warlocks actually had 2161dps was on Rage Winterchill - (Loading...) although he was blessed with Drums of Battle and Bloodlust - and higher crit% (44% vs. 32%) than on avreage. On the remaning fights none of your warlocks exceeded ~1850dps.
I would agree...I've never seen destro locks as high as you say they get manly on any of the webstats i've looked at. I don't know that I'd even count Rage since you get the spirit buff that gives you a nice dmg buff with imp spirit on.

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/29/07 at 11:13 AM.
#1599SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kadgar
Originally Posted by Voley View Post
They never stated that it drops in 20% per sec. Ever. It has never been that way either. If it was, you could lose aggro after 2 seconds if you overaggroed. But you still keep aggro even after 4 seconds with current invis and the invis that was in january.
The original invis had 8 sec duration.
It reduced aggro by 12,5% per sec (8*12,5=100%). (Well at least that's like it looked like in ktm at that time)
When they changed the duration to 5 sec, they didn't adjust the aggro-loss/sec and it stayed 12,5% (or 10%) per second for the first 5 seconds.
#1600SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I would agree...I've never seen destro locks as high as you say they get manly on any of the webstats i've looked at. I don't know that I'd even count Rage since you get the spirit buff that gives you a nice dmg buff with imp spirit on.
Here's our webstats for the last two weeks on the standard dps test fights (Teron, Rage) sans rage for this week, we'll hit Hyjal on Saturday

Teron
Teron
Rage

And the fun part... he doesn't even have 4 piece T6, so take those numbers and make them 6% bigger. 3800 average HITS for a 2.5 second cast just isn't right.
#1601SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
That's almost 1200 more damage on average hits than my frostbolt in full tier6. Gah.
#1602SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Cardynal
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
Here's our webstats for the last two weeks on the standard dps test fights (Teron, Rage) sans rage for this week, we'll hit Hyjal on Saturday

Teron
Teron
Rage

And the fun part... he doesn't even have 4 piece T6, so take those numbers and make them 6% bigger. 3800 average HITS for a 2.5 second cast just isn't right.
What is his actual crit chance? He has 37% on 2 fights and 42% on another...That's pretty high for a desto lock. The armory won't load him for me.

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/29/07 at 12:16 PM.
#1603SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
To talk about something different than Warlocks in a Mage thread: (that is lets talk about Shamans !)

It has become current practice in our raid to give all Heroism to the melee group.
Our single melee group typically consists of 2 rogues, an enhancement shaman, a feral and one rogue/warrior/hunter. The other 1-2 shamans are typically spread over the three remaining caster groups. The Enhancement shaman pops Heroism at some point, and when its over someone has the task to switch another shaman into the melee group, pop heroism and switch back. We have implemented this behaviour because our consensus that rogues and warriors scale better with haste than casters. Of course I can combine my cooldowns with heroism, but it was our understanding that rogues get more out of it, because of offhand energy proccs for rogues and warriors due to increased rage generation. Without heroism use our DD's perform quite balanced.
Now the question that I ask is neither if this practice is fair, nor if it is necessary, but weather I have overlooked something. Many posts in this thread imply that you get to keep your shaman and his heroism/bloodlust, so I am wondering if you would argue that we can make a similar raid benefiting usage of it.?
#1604SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Mages and desto locks actually benefit more from Heroism. A Sword spec rogue with WF does about 70% white damage and 30% yellow dmg. This means that heroism will only imporve 70% of the dps he does. A mage spamming fireball with another mage keeping up scorch for him (which is how my guild does it) will have 100% of his dps benefit from the heroism. If you save BL for the last 22% or so....You'll see an even bigger increase of benefit for fire mages.

We simply have the shaman's use BL in the groups they're in if they're in a dps group.
#1605SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
because our consensus that rogues and warriors scale better with haste than casters.
I would definitely question whether this is true. Haste only affects autoattacks, and yes, there are procs and things like combat potency, but many of those procs reduce in frequency as you are hasted, and even if they didn't, I find it very hard to believe that if, say, autoattacks are 60% of your damage, that those procs make up for the fact that haste has no effect on the other 40% of your damage.

So, everything else equal, I'd say haste actually benefits mages and destro locks more than rogues or warriors. However, everything is rarely equal, and if you have something like warglaive rogues vs mages, it might still be a good choice, whereas if you had non-warglaive rogues vs max-geared 2100+ dps destro locks, hasting them is probably a better use of it.
#1606SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Obviously Heroism/Bloodlust should be prioritized to whichever DPS group puts out the most damage, as that is what will make the best use of it. That will probably be the Rogue group. This is a bit outside the scope of this thread in any case.

Anybody else notice that the promised change of refreshing duration data for all participants of a stack didn't happen? In other words, we still can't see the duration of Fire Vulnerability unless we're the owner of the stack? That's a bummer.
#1607SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0hypetech
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Obviously Heroism/Bloodlust should be prioritized to whichever DPS group puts out the most damage, as that is what will make the best use of it. That will probably be the Rogue group. This is a bit outside the scope of this thread in any case.

Anybody else notice that the promised change of refreshing duration data for all participants of a stack didn't happen? In other words, we still can't see the duration of Fire Vulnerability unless we're the owner of the stack? That's a bummer.
I have noticed that sometimes my scorch timer will reset when I'm not the owner of the stack and sometimes it will just go away. I use the Quartz target debuff bars. Also you can download Scorchio! from files.wowace.com and it works quite nicely for just this.
#1608SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
What is his actual crit chance? He has 37% on 2 fights and 42% on another...That's pretty high for a desto lock. The armory won't load him for me.
It's right around 37% in our raid buffed group, keep in mind that we keep up the pally crit debuff as well as have an elemental shaman in our group. This allows him to shed hit in favor of crit where a T6 mage really can't even shed hit gear just because of how our sets are itemized. In this situation mages don't have a usable hit advantage over destro warlocks while only having 1% more crit from talents and 3% from buffs. This relates pretty directly to our usual crit rates, mine around 42, his around 37.
#1609SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Cardynal
He's getting CoS and you're not getting CoE. Is his CoS from the other warlock? I notice he is affliction...meaning he could have maladiction...giving him another 3% dmg.

Your elemental shaman is putting out some rather low numbers. It's possible that it's his gear. But if he is why your destro lock can do the damage he does...you'd actually have higher raid dps running a resto shaman, putting up CoE, and replacing a different healer with another mage or lock.

Your entire guild won't load for me for some reason on the armory....what did you do!!!!

Last edited by Cardynal : 11/29/07 at 3:50 PM.
#1610SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
thank you, I think we will somewhat playtest which groups can have a bigger impact^^

one other thing:
I just checked back on the test realm, and there is a major difference with mana gems than before, which i think nobody mentioned so far (correct me if I am wrong).

To recap Conjure mana Emerald does the following:
PTR: Costs 1670 mana 3 seconds cast 3 charges and restores 2250->3750 Mana,
Live: Costs 1670 mana 3 seconds cast 1 charge and restores 1420->1705Mana,

on live my net gain is (1705 + 1420)/2 -1670 = -107.5
on ptr I actually get mana (2250 + 3750) /2) - 1670 = 1330
This is with a single use; with all three uses together it is a 7300 mana gain,

What does this mean?

a) If you are really desperate for mana you can actually get mana by conjuring a gem, in contrast to previous behaviour.
b) Is it more mana efficient to recast emerald after 3 uses to use 6 emeralds than to use 3 emeralds, ruby citrine, jade?

To answer b) what are the median values for the other gems?
ruby: 1375
citrine: 1062.5
jade: 750
sum: 3187.5

That is 4112.5 extra mana that you gain provided the fight that lasts about 11 minutes (10 minutes for cooldowns, and you want to spend mana in the beginning and after you use the last one). The number is smaller for shorter fights but still positive... if you find a spot at about 5 minutes into the fight where you can cast for 3 seconds without losing dps time it won't cost you anything.


Edit: the numbers are off, I was wearing Serpent-Coil Braid, concept stays the same though.
#1611SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
Originally Posted by Dryssa View Post
Most importantly though, is that Invis is canceled when you begin casting another spell, not when you finish (this is contrary to how it initially functioned when BC was released). Thus if you cast Invis, then begin casting a Fireball when the GCD is up, Invis will be dispelled and you'll only have lost 10% of your threat. In order for a full threat dump you must do nothing (except move) and be hit by nothing for a full 5 seconds.
I never noticed this change o.0. When did this happen?
#1612SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
He's getting CoS and you're not getting CoE. Is his CoS from the other warlock? I notice he is affliction...meaning he could have maladiction...giving him another 3% dmg.

Your elemental shaman is putting out some rather low numbers. It's possible that it's his gear. But if he is why your destro lock can do the damage he does...you'd actually have higher raid dps running a resto shaman, putting up CoE, and replacing a different healer with another mage or lock.

Your entire guild won't load for me for some reason on the armory....what did you do!!!!
Yurifel, the destro lock, is most certainly not afflication. Fedora is though and does run 13% CoS for all our raids, so I guess there is that. However, it's fairly standard practice to have 1 affliction + remaining destro, so 13% CoS isn't anything special. As to CoE I'm pretty sure that I did have it for the one of those WWS's that I was in for.

Yeah, Nayto's dps could be higher, he is fairly new though, we've been doing some roster expansion in preparation for Sunwell, so his gear is on the lower side.
#1613SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Anaxo
Originally Posted by Frenzi View Post
Whenever I use it I watch my threatmeter to give the best time of when to break it as becoming completely invisible is annoying as you have to remove the buff and retarget your mob. There is no way my threat has only been dropping in 10% increments and at its initial implementation it was stated at 20%. Unless they have changed the mechanics it is still 20%. Considering I have reduced my threat by atleast 80% virtually everytime I have used it then it is still working as intended.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how threat reduction mechanics works. Threat reduction is not additive, it's multiplicative. Pre-TBC, threat modification was additive, which Blizzard realized was a bad idea due to people using [Fetish of the Sand Reaver] to reduce threat to zero. The mage community falsely assumed invisibility was a 20% reduction per second due to a blue stating the spell reduced aggro evenly. Bronx from the WoW mage forum explained the mechanics of invis here.
#1614SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
I was refering to the other warlock when I said he was affliction.

I'd like to see the destro lock's dps when he doesn't have a ret paladin or an elemental shaman.

CoE was up for 1 of 3 of those WWS's. Just so happens to be the one you're in.
#1615SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
What does this mean?

a) If you are really desperate for mana you can actually get mana by conjuring a gem, in contrast to previous behaviour.
b) Is it more mana efficient to recast emerald after 3 uses to use 6 emeralds than to use 3 emeralds, ruby citrine, jade?
From our guild forums:
Resummon and continue using emeralds:
4th Gem - 2400-1670 	  = 730
5th Gem - 2400*2-1670 	= 2130
6th Gem - 2400*3-1670 	= 4530

No Resummon continue down the gem line:
4th Gem - 1100 			 = 1100
5th Gem - 1100+850 	   = 1950
6th Gem - 1100+850+600   = 2550
And with the Braid:

Resummon and continue using emeralds:
4th Gem - 2400*1.25-1670   = 1330
5th Gem - 2400*2*1.25-1670 = 4330
6th Gem - 2400*3*1.25-1670 = 7330

No Resummon continue down the gem line with Braid:
4th Gem - (1100)*1.25          = 1375
5th Gem - (1100+850)*1.25      = 2437.5
6th Gem - (1100+850+600)*1.25  = 3187.5
So, for both cases, you'll see better returns after 2 gems. But it will be just barely if you aren't using the Braid.
The Braid makes this tactic highly useful, netting you 2000 mana on average if a fight goes to 5 gems.

My conclusions from this would be:
1) If it's a 4 gem fight, do not resummon, braid or not.
2) If it's a 5 gem fight and you're using the braid, resummon.
3) If it's a 5 gem fight and you're not using the braid, do not resummon.
4) If there's a good chance for it to be a 6 gem fight, resummon, braid or not.
Full thread.
(Look for posts by Aryad.)
#1616SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Aldric
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I was refering to the other warlock when I said he was affliction.

I'd like to see the destro lock's dps when he doesn't have a ret paladin or an elemental shaman.

CoE was up for 1 of 3 of those WWS's. Just so happens to be the one you're in.
The Rage kill he was actually in without an elemental shaman. Still had the SoC buff up, it only takes 8 points in ret so a well coordinated healing pally core can cover it fairly easily, plus your melee get's improved might. I'll hunt around for a fight where he had neither.

In any case I think we've covered that the 2k destro warlock isn't an oddity. It doesn't even take the best of the best gear to do.
#1617SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pamine
Frost raiding.

Until a few months ago, I used to raid with an arcane / frost spec (40/0/21). Then I respeced deep frost, mainly for PvP reasons, but to my amazement my raid dps went up from my previous spec.

Here's a recent WWS log:

Full run: Wow Web Stats
Vashj kill: Wow Web Stats

It was our 3rd kill I believe, but the logs are similar day to day in SSC and TK raids, and even 10 man runs like ZA, I always end up in the top 3. My gear is pretty average SSC/TK equip and I'm out dpsing similarly geared fire/arcane mages as well as the random rogue, lock and shaman. Now that 2.3 is here, it shines even more.

I'm not actually quite sure why this spec produces a higher DPS than say an arcane or fire spec. Reading these threads it seems fire is the recognized better spec. One thing I'm thinking is the fact that frostbolt has no partial. If you look at the miss% it's always between 1% and 2%, which means every other cast is a full hit. Plus with all the frost talents, with a 21% unbuffed crit, plus 3% from molten armor, I end up at around 40% effective crit. Also while it's true the elemental doesn't always live his full duration because of AEs and such, at the end of the night it always ends up being about 9-11% of my DPS, and has the advantage of splitting threat, so I can open up on the mobs sooner than some other classes without pulling agro.

Anyone else raiding as deep frost and finding it kicks ass? Here's my spec:

The World of Warcraft Armory
#1618SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Pamine View Post
and even 10 man runs like ZA, I always end up in the top 3.
Since there is generally only 4-6 true dps classes in a 5 man, that's a weak stat and completely relative to the other dps there. If you are hitting top 3 in a 25 man raid, then it's impressive.

Frost is close to fire, and will beat it on certain encounters, but your dps went up because arcane/frost is a weaker spec then deep fire or deep frost. Any mage going arcane now is behind the times, even with 2pc T5. It's effectively equal to deep fire, but harder to play. I wouldn't brag about beating him. If the fire mage in your guild has the same gear as you, and is doing less dps on bosses (fire is a little weak on trash compared to deep frost), then he's a subpar player to you. Your theoretical dps ceiling is lower, but you are getting closer to it then he is to his.
#1619SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pamine
Yeah basically always top 3 means always, unless I die early. Usually it's 1st place.

As for my previous arcane/frost spec I still used just frostbolts, not arcane spells. The difference was talents increased overall crit% and +dmg, instead of the frost talents which are only frost, and often only frostbolt specific. I don't know about other players being sub-par, I think deep frost is just very underestimated, when played well it can out dps most classes with equal gear. Obviously I'm not in BT yet so maybe with higher gear, haste, etc it may change.
#1620SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ebbv
Pamine coming into this thread and making sweeping statements like:

I think deep frost is just very underestimated, when played well it can out dps most classes with equal gear.
Is really not helpful. If you care to read the thread the math has been done to death, and many of us regularly respec and try out other specs besides Deep Fire on farm runs like SSC and TK to see what we can do with them.

Please understand that when it's said that Deep Fire out damages Deep Frost this is not to say all Fire mages will outdps all Frost mages. This is saying that the theoretical cap is higher in most scenarios, and that means that playing optimally, Fire will come out ahead. So yes, your experience may vary, but nobody is underestimating Deep Frost. The math has been done, please take the time to read all the information available to you on this forum.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/29/07 at 7:29 PM. Reason: Slight rewording
#1621SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pamine
I read it all ebbv, and I'm not saying that the math is wrong. But what I'm seeing too often is people going with what the math says without thinking about it. Seeing a full thread of people saying if you want to do good DPS in pve you must go fire. All I'm saying is here's an example, here's a case of a deep frost mage doing quite fine in pve. Not only that, but out dpsing other mages and all other classes on a consistent basis on T5 content. I do think many people (maybe not the ones who did the math in this thread but some of the thousands of casual browsers) are underestimating frost, and I'm just showing proof of it. Some cold talk amongst 65 pages of mostly hot stuff ;P
#1622SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rookie
Originally Posted by Pamine View Post
But what I'm seeing too often is people going with what the math says without thinking about it. Seeing a full thread of people saying if you want to do good DPS in pve you must go fire.
That's really not what the thread is about. It's people going fire BECAUSE of the math. There have been tests done to show how deep frost compares to deep fire, and people that want to do it, will (like always). The reason it's not being discussed as much as fire is, is because this is theorycrafting, people are doing everything they can to min-max and right now, mathematically, fire does better than frost.
#1623SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Pamine View Post
I read it all ebbv, and I'm not saying that the math is wrong. But what I'm seeing too often is people going with what the math says without thinking about it. Seeing a full thread of people saying if you want to do good DPS in pve you must go fire. All I'm saying is here's an example, here's a case of a deep frost mage doing quite fine in pve. Not only that, but out dpsing other mages and all other classes on a consistent basis on T5 content. I do think many people (maybe not the ones who did the math in this thread but some of the thousands of casual browsers) are underestimating frost, and I'm just showing proof of it. Some cold talk amongst 65 pages of mostly hot stuff ;P
Except by our standards you did not do well, your damage output is not impressive. Your WWS show Kael and Vashj, neither of which is great for judging maximum damage output. There's a bit of sitting around on both of them, and a lot of target switching. But even so, I can see your average frostbolt was 2k. That's only 800 DPS. So coming into this thread and telling us you have found the light and the way because you're #1 in your guild as deep frost doing 800 DPS Frostbolts is not going to surprise anyone or revolutionize anything. What you were told before is true, you're #1 because your competition is worse than you, period.
#1624SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Your parses show you at about 1000 dps on vashj/kael. Sorry, but that's not even remotely impressive. I was doing 1100-1200 dps on vashj/kael as Fire, before I had T6 or any bt/hyjal gear really.

These days on actual dps fights I doo 1600-1800dps. So you're going to need a lot more than ~1000dps parses on bad dps comparison fights to show anything of use, man.
#1625SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
But its totally cool to raid frost. For me choice of specc comes down to personal preferance. If you like it, stay that way!
#1626SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0epiphenom
Originally Posted by Pamine View Post
I read it all ebbv, and I'm not saying that the math is wrong. But what I'm seeing too often is people going with what the math says without thinking about it. Seeing a full thread of people saying if you want to do good DPS in pve you must go fire. All I'm saying is here's an example, here's a case of a deep frost mage doing quite fine in pve. Not only that, but out dpsing other mages and all other classes on a consistent basis on T5 content. I do think many people (maybe not the ones who did the math in this thread but some of the thousands of casual browsers) are underestimating frost, and I'm just showing proof of it. Some cold talk amongst 65 pages of mostly hot stuff ;P
Well, this is a theorycrafting thread, and it's about throwing out some numbers to prove what you want to say. WWS doesn't really count, especially not a "look at my relative position, frost is fine" sort of assertion.

You could probably get a more complete explanation in the WWS thread, but even a cursory analysis shows that your numbers are basically high because everyone else is mediocre (or bad). Bupu, the other mage in the parse, is Arcane, not fire, and theorycraft predicts that Arcane is awful this patch. Unsurprisingly, Bupu is awful. Your demo and destro locks wandered around with an imp and sacced a fel hunter, respectively; also, your affliction locks are channeling Drain Life as a main nuke instead of Shadow Bolt, plus one of them was kiting striders. Your Vashj strat puts your rogue and hunters on elementals which entails waiting around for stuff to spawn, and therefore not doing dps, and so on. There are other reasons beyond "frost is strangely competitive" - and even if it is, this parse doesn't show it.
#1627SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
arcane/frost is a weaker spec then deep frost.
This is most definitely not true. It's easy passing the crit % that makes arc/frost higher dps than deep frost as a tier6 mage. With moonkin, retadin and sometimes WC I peak out at 50%+ crit. I posted some decent numbers by arcane frost a page back.
#1628SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Well actually my spreadsheet will frequently claim that frost does slightly more dps than fire on a shortish fight. The difference as explained is in the soft factors, lack of a short-cast nuke, lack of pushback protection, lack of pet protection. Fire is just way more reliable.
#1629SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kaimani
Originally Posted by Pamine View Post
I read it all ebbv, and I'm not saying that the math is wrong. But what I'm seeing too often is people going with what the math says without thinking about it. Seeing a full thread of people saying if you want to do good DPS in pve you must go fire. All I'm saying is here's an example, here's a case of a deep frost mage doing quite fine in pve. Not only that, but out dpsing other mages and all other classes on a consistent basis on T5 content. I do think many people (maybe not the ones who did the math in this thread but some of the thousands of casual browsers) are underestimating frost, and I'm just showing proof of it. Some cold talk amongst 65 pages of mostly hot stuff ;P
There are some parts of what you're saying that I agree with. Yes, theoretical mathcraft doesn't really take into account all scenarios, and the rebuttal that vashj or kael are 'bad examples' because they don't involve sitting still and nuking for 5 minutes is bull. I'm sorry, but practically every fight that actually provides some measure of challenge has some sort of interruption to the ideal scenario, and different specs do react to those interruptions in different ways. Fights with long, forced pauses essentially increase the total uptime/frequency of temporary effects like AP or a water elemental for example, and this is frequently never taken into consideration.

That said, at T6 gear level, and in T6 encounters, fire will perform better, and with greater ease, in the largest number of situations. For every WWS parse of a frostie doing great dps on fight X by perfectly protecting their elemental, timing their cooldowns etc., you can find ten more of fire mages defeating them by doing nothing but mashing one button. There's just too much stacked against frost to make it succeed even when trying to arbitrarily weigh specific encounter mechanics - spell pushback alone will ruin your day in black temple.
#1630SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
My point was that Kael and Vashj are atypical encounters, and this is definitely the case when you compare them with the rest of the bosses that follow in Hyjal and BT. Yes there's no more Golemaggs, but Naj'entus, Supremus, Rage, Teron, Anetheron, etc. etc. are far more "tank and spank" than Vashj and Kael, and thus provide "better" DPS figures.
#1631SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Akron
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
This is most definitely not true. It's easy passing the crit % that makes arc/frost higher dps than deep frost as a tier6 mage. With moonkin, retadin and sometimes WC I peak out at 50%+ crit. I posted some decent numbers by arcane frost a page back.
Well, again this is very atypical as you mention two hybrids which are certainly not the standard in high-end PvE. Shadow Priests and Feral Druids are essential while an Enhancement Shaman is very common. The rest, especially the two you mention, are much rarer. It's already been already tested that under high crit conditions, which can occur but are not the standard, Arcane-based specs can do very good damage.
#1632SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Kaimani View Post
the rebuttal that vashj or kael are 'bad examples' because they don't involve sitting still and nuking for 5 minutes is bull. I'm sorry, but practically every fight that actually provides some measure of challenge has some sort of interruption to the ideal scenario, and different specs do react to those interruptions in different ways.
No, you're missing the point entirely. Those fights are a bad example because spec is a ridiculously minor factor in your dps on those fights. They are much, much more slanted towards who is a better player at minimizing movement and not wasting time, your group composition, how much dps other people in your group are doing, and just plain random factors.

This is why they're worthless for comparing specs, because in order to compare specs you need to reduce the other factors to a minimum, and in those fights, your spec as a factor is what's reduced to a minimum combined with them also being very atypical, long, and strange fights. Benchmarking dps on such things makes no sense.
#1633SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
There is no such thing as an atypical encounter.

Real specs should ideally be designed for real encounters. Hence why specs for ten minute encounters are laughed at when other specs (+spriest and an injected shaman) are more than enough. There do not exist encounters that make regen better than "sustained burst" whatever the fuck that is. All classes live at that level, save the 2-T5 mage, which is damned close.

Why is clearcasting shit? Because it is obviated by better mana regen. It is not in an of itself shit, it only shit because it serves a purpose that doesn't need to be filled. Mana is damage. If it is mana is counterspell or whatever... that encounter is so dumbed down, you can spell-steal or CS asleep.

Prove me wrong in sunwelll because there sure as hell is nothing in 2.3 to change my mind.
#1634SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
I think there is no one that doesn't believe a destrolock will out do a firemage very fine. I've had one bosskill lately where I don't have to move much where I beat our destrolock and that was teron but lo and behold he didnt have concaura, I did: Wow Web Stats

With the iceblock change etc I see no reason at all to ever try frost again except on Herr Illidan. If the iceveins was and something else was made trainable and iceblock kept in frost I'd probably go frost more due to the added survivability and support and extra DPS from coldsnap etc.
#1635SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0frosty
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
I think there is no one that doesn't believe a destrolock will out do a firemage very fine. I've had one bosskill lately where I don't have to move much where I beat our destrolock and that was teron but lo and behold he didnt have concaura, I did: Wow Web Stats
He apparently also had his Imp out, which is 15% less dmg for him. He also wasn't in a SPriest group which means more Lifetapping.
#1636SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
And now for something new that hasn't been brought up:

This past week i reprofessioned Tailoring->Leatherworking (wasn't using tailoring anymore), powered up leatherworking in a day with 700g (to 365 skill). Made a few drums of battle, and gave it a roll this week in PvE.

Been very pleasantly suprised, shadow priest/ele sham were much more accepting at having me in the group, and i noticed a personal dps increase as well (not as much as the rest of the group due to drums triggering a global cool though). It buffed my pet when it was out though, and i paired it with my other 2 minute timers (skull, destro pot, braid, etc.) for maximum effect.

Overall i'm definately pleased at the results, and would advise anyone who was considering it to try it out, if they have the money and time. The drums themselves are cheap too, giving 50 charges for ~10-11g AH
#1637SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Grai
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
And now for something new that hasn't been brought up:

This past week i reprofessioned Tailoring->Leatherworking (wasn't using tailoring anymore), powered up leatherworking in a day with 700g (to 365 skill). Made a few drums of battle, and gave it a roll this week in PvE.

Been very pleasantly suprised, shadow priest/ele sham were much more accepting at having me in the group, and i noticed a personal dps increase as well (not as much as the rest of the group due to drums triggering a global cool though). It buffed my pet when it was out though, and i paired it with my other 2 minute timers (skull, destro pot, braid, etc.) for maximum effect.

Overall i'm definately pleased at the results, and would advise anyone who was considering it to try it out, if they have the money and time. The drums themselves are cheap too, giving 50 charges for ~10-11g AH
The other neat thing about Drums is the fact that they do not share a cooldown with any of our other DPS consumables (Gems, Flame cap, Destruction Pot).
#1638SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0koetjeka
Hey guys,

We are only weeks away from 2.3.2 and I'm trying to decide the spec I'm going to take.

It will probably be 0/50/11 or 0/40/21, the problem is I can't really choose the right one :P

0/40/21 will have Icy veins and cold snap, so basically 1 more IV each fight. But it does not have the following fire talents:
-molten fury
-1 point in playing with fire
-flame throwing
-incineration
-dragonsbreath

I don't really care about the range of my spells, I'm used to 30 yards with AB anyway. Neither will I use fireblast because of the ignite overwrite, and dragonsbreath has no use imho. So basically I will lose molten fury and 1 point in playing with fire which will be a total of ~4% dps.

Do you think cold snap will give me more dps ?
#1639SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Maledict
This question has been answered already in this thread several times, and Lhivera's theorycraft site shows the results. No, Cold snap is not worth sacrificing molten fury and playing with fire for, nevermind the other talent of flame throwing.

Even if the numbers came out to be similar, I would still recommend going with passive increases over activated abilities, due to the large amount of Ae's and random effects that can disrupt your ability cycle and ruin the effects, but in this case there's a very clear theorycrafted advantage to sticking with deep fire.
#1640SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Zure
Originally Posted by koetjeka View Post
Hey guys,

We are only weeks away from 2.3.2 and I'm trying to decide the spec I'm going to take.

It will probably be 0/50/11 or 0/40/21, the problem is I can't really choose the right one :P

0/40/21 will have Icy veins and cold snap, so basically 1 more IV each fight. But it does not have the following fire talents:
-molten fury
-1 point in playing with fire
-flame throwing
-incineration
-dragonsbreath

I don't really care about the range of my spells, I'm used to 30 yards with AB anyway. Neither will I use fireblast because of the ignite overwrite, and dragonsbreath has no use imho. So basically I will lose molten fury and 1 point in playing with fire which will be a total of ~4% dps.

Do you think cold snap will give me more dps ?
Numbers posted in this thread show coldsnap will not yield 4% extra dps. Click back four or five pages. It's a pain to read these monster threads, but it's worth it.

As to only putting 40 into fire:

All mages *should* care about their range: it allows them to spend more of their time dpsing, rather than moving to a closer position on a number of fights.

All mages *should* use fireblast, any time they are moving.

All fire mages *should* assist in keeping fire vulnerability up, which means incinerate will boost their dps on fireball/scorch rotations.

All fire mages *should* be using AE or flamestrike when dealing area of effect damage, and so points into either imp flamestrike or arcane sub would be beneficial to them.


EDIT: Very good point about Drums of Battle. Simplistic calculation (no cooldown stacking, no pet, all 5 party members do equal damage), shows the global cooldown to be worth a net of 6.15 seconds of dps (5.1% increase * 5 party member * 30 seconds - 1.5 second global), or a 5.1% increase in "your" damage if used every 2 minutes. Pretty nifty how it works out so perfectly.

Other info: Drums require 365 LW to create, but are not BoP and only require LW 350 to use.


EDIT2: I think almost everyone will agree that the latest patch notes changes are a good thing.

A smaller band on mana gems is incredibly useful, since you can use the first charge earlier and since going oom is so dramatically worse than being able to have excess mana to spend (i.e., the low end is the key).

A lower chance to freeze was probably inevitable. Better to have it now than in a month, when the mage community would be up in arms about the "nerf". Pity though... I was looking forward to the absolutely insane damage output that hefty freeze chance would have given if left alone to cast for even a few seconds.

Last edited by Zure : 11/30/07 at 11:33 AM.
#1641SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0marloz
Some small changes in the newest patchnotes. Managem: It's now 2340 to 2460 not 1800-3000. A bit more consistent but still a slight nerf on the top side. Secondly, Icy veins chance to freeze the target reduced from 25% to 10%.

New 2.3.2 patchnotes (not live on PTR yet it seems)
Originally Posted by Salthem
* Conjure Mana Gem mana restore variance substantially reduced,(Rank 5 – Emerald) now restores 2340 to 2460 mana and has three charges.
* Icy Veins (NEW Frost Talent) decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 10%. Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown. It is now in the Cold Snap position in the talent tree.
#1642SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roe
The new updated 2.3.2 PTR patch notes:


Mage

* Cold Snap (Frost) cooldown reduced. It is now in the Ice Block position in the talent tree. This ability will no longer reset the cooldown on Fire Ward.
* Conjure Mana Gem mana restore variance substantially reduced,(Rank 5 – Emerald) now restores 2340 to 2460 mana and has three charges.
* Ice Block (Frost) is now available on the trainer to all mages at level 30.
* Icy Veins (NEW Frost Talent) decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 10%. Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown. It is now in the Cold Snap position in the talent tree.
#1643SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0andastra
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
There is no such thing as an atypical encounter.

Real specs should ideally be designed for real encounters. Hence why specs for ten minute encounters are laughed at when other specs (+spriest and an injected shaman) are more than enough. There do not exist encounters that make regen better than "sustained burst" whatever the fuck that is. All classes live at that level, save the 2-T5 mage, which is damned close.

Why is clearcasting shit? Because it is obviated by better mana regen. It is not in an of itself shit, it only shit because it serves a purpose that doesn't need to be filled. Mana is damage. If it is mana is counterspell or whatever... that encounter is so dumbed down, you can spell-steal or CS asleep.

Prove me wrong in sunwelll because there sure as hell is nothing in 2.3 to change my mind.

Atypical might not be the best word but I think we can agree that Vashj/Kael are not good barometers for dps. I think a better word for Vashj/Kael would be assignment based encounters. I frequently am no. 1 on Vashj for my guild and it's all because of our strat. I'm assigned to dps the middle (striders/naga) and I can basically nuke nonstop. For those assigned to tainted elementals, they can spend a huge portion of stage 2 not doing anything at all, and that would reduce their dps.
#1644SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by marloz View Post
Some small changes in the newest patchnotes. Managem: It's now 2340 to 2460 not 1800-3000. A bit more consistent but still a slight nerf on the top side. Secondly, Icy veins chance to freeze the target reduced from 25% to 10%.

New 2.3.2 patchnotes (not live on PTR yet it seems)
I would consider this a buff to the gem. It allows to to use it right when we're 2400 mana down and not have to worry about wasting mana. The last thing you'd want is to wait until you're 3000 mana down and have it only return 1800. Plus it is more consistant with the previous mana gems now.
#1645SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ebbv
I'm a little sad at the metagem thing but maybe they didn't want those few of us who use Serpent-Coil Braid getting 3750 back sometimes. That's most likely the reason for reducing the variance down. It seems silly but it's the only thing that makes sense.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/30/07 at 12:47 PM.
#1646SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kadaan
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I would consider this a buff to the gem. It allows to to use it right when we're 2400 mana down and not have to worry about wasting mana. The last thing you'd want is to wait until you're 3000 mana down and have it only return 1800. Plus it is more consistant with the previous mana gems now.
I agree.

The average mana returned is still the exact same. (1800+3000)/2 == (2340+2460)/2. Now you know you can use it when you're 2500 mana down instead of waiting till 3000 so you don't waste anything. Even more-so with the [Serpent-Coil Braid], which would require you to wait till you were down 3750 before popping it to avoid any wasted mana.
#1647SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0baudin
No one has mentioned this, but there is a change to the Hex Shrunken Head on the PTRs

* Hex Shrunken Head: This item now has a 20 second shared cooldown with other similar trinkets.
I was looking forward to stacking the effects of Icon and Hex. Oh well.
#1648SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
Has anyone done an updated DPS value of trinkets sine the 2.3 changes?

Spell damage for fire and frost has become more valuable per point so the Shadow priest list that showed me dps value by spec isn't accurate as it used to allegedly be.
#1649SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Kasi
We had one mage go from 10/48/3 to 40/0/21 and his dps has gone up a considerable amount. Before he was in the middle of the mages, now he consistently tops the mages. I have to believe a big part of this is that we have a deep frost mage who is his winter's chill bitch. Thus once you get the superior dmg and crit scaling of arcane/ice, and you have someone keeping the spell crit bonus up, you can do some pretty nice things.
#1650SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Tempestra
Originally Posted by baudin View Post
No one has mentioned this, but there is a change to the Hex Shrunken Head on the PTRs



I was looking forward to stacking the effects of Icon and Hex. Oh well.

I wonder if the Skull and Hex Shrunken Head stack like the Skull and Icon stacked pre-2.3?
#1651SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Kasi View Post
We had one mage go from 10/48/3 to 40/0/21 and his dps has gone up a considerable amount. Before he was in the middle of the mages, now he consistently tops the mages. I have to believe a big part of this is that we have a deep frost mage who is his winter's chill bitch. Thus once you get the superior dmg and crit scaling of arcane/ice, and you have someone keeping the spell crit bonus up, you can do some pretty nice things.
Is the water elemental pet merged for your full frost mage that is pulling up WC? Most do not do this by default.
#1652SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Enough with the anecdotal "We have this one Mage who's specced 20/20/21 and he is our #1 DPS" garbage. It's not helpful.
#1653SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Zure View Post
All fire mages *should* assist in keeping fire vulnerability up, which means incinerate will boost their dps on fireball/scorch rotations.
Hasn't it been shown that putting 2 points into Incinerate is at most a .2% dps increase? There are other talents that are not a buff to dps overall, but for certain encounters that are more viable.

Personally next patch with going 0/50/11, going to put points into Impact just to help out with Hyjal trash. It seems a far better utility, for certain PvE situations and a decent PvP helping. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft It seems a bit for self sustained for AoE situations, and a nice little helping of "wtf he reflected that" on the side in pvp.

As far as people coming here posting shit about mages respecing and getting #1 dps, not useful as you forget at lower gear levels a 10/48/3 build is not the best, there are superior builds for a lower geared mage(karazhan and lower) that will produce a higher dps outcome.
#1654SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
Incinerate is clearly one of the weaker talents for sustained DPS, but for trash clearing it's very useful. It's just that the idea behind the build is just to stack all the stupid 1% DPS talents and it is the highest single-target DPS build. At this point, I'd reccomend 13/45/3 for the standard raiding mage, with 2 in Magic Attunement and 1 in Arcane Impact.


And looking at your build, I'm reminded again about how much I hate the first tier of talents for the support tree. Improved Frost Ward vs spell you'll never cast!
#1655SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
I've actually raided as 13/45/3 with 3 points in Arcane Impact before LC was nerfed, and the dps gain on it was huge, more than you'd think. But as for now, it's not worth it going more than 10 points in arcane for anything really. Sure getting Magic Attunement is nice, the reality is, at most you only cast Amp Magic on 3 targets at a time, and if you're going to use Dampen Magic for an encounter, having Magic Attunement makes it not worth it with such a big hit on the heals you receive.

And yea, the filler talents suck, but with what you just said about Improved Frost Ward, and it being a Tier 1 talent, why is Improved Fire Ward a tier 4 talent? Never occurred to me till now that Improved Fire Ward is the single most useless talent a mage has, even more useless than Wand Spec.
#1656SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 pewsey
AOE vs Single Target

One thing that is concerning to me about the theorycrafting that is going on right now is that it's not really showing any form of realistic scenario regarding the (current) set of encounters I'm against.

Basically, we're just starting HS/BT and there is just so much AOE as part of the encounter mechanics (Kael weapons, Hyal trash, not seen any internals of BT yet) that focussing on single target DPS seems, well, pretty outdated.

Has anybody been looking at modelling the various scenarios we find in game to use a comparative source, rather than a single target.

While we can probably agree that the IV-Deep fire variant specs are likely to be best single target, I'm more likely to believe that something with deeper arcane is likely to do more in a DPS fight overall. (Say 40/0/21)

While not directly "theory", I'd like to hear from some of the more progressed mages about a couple of things regarding encounters;

1. Do you have roles for your mages ? (deep frost for WC, arcane/frost for AOE, IV/Fire for single target)
- this would have the advantage of building a "set" of mages that have synergy between each other

2. Our guild has felt that destroying AOE packs is of value, is there a diminishing return in worrying about that and just making sure that we do "enough" damage using a 10/48/3 spec is sufficient.

Finally; has anybody thought about building simulations with 5 rounds of 5 AOE targets + 1x single target to compare the various specs.
#1657SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ebbv
The reason AoE is not discussed is because arcane and fire are both capable of significant AoE DPS, so it doesn't really matter. Deep fire can spam Flamestrike very effectively (this is what my guild does.) Basically it doesn't matter which spec you do, your AoE will be enough to down the Kael weapons and Hyjal trash, thus the single target DPS is what is emphasized.

Last edited by ebbv : 11/30/07 at 9:20 PM.
#1658SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
A possibility is 2/45/14 or something close to that; deep fire talents for single target DPS with a tricked out blizzard for heavily snaring mobs in AE. I used this on Hyjal this week and was really happy with it, we run with a fair number of warlocks and snaring mobs while they used SoC made it easier than I remember it being otherwise. Should note that frostbite is something tanks / melee need to be aware of as it can lead to aggro-on-reachable-target versus highest-threat, could possible drop this for something else too though.
#1659SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
A possibility is 2/45/14 or something close to that; deep fire talents for single target DPS with a tricked out blizzard for heavily snaring mobs in AE. I used this on Hyjal this week and was really happy with it, we run with a fair number of warlocks and snaring mobs while they used SoC made it easier than I remember it being otherwise. Should note that frostbite is something tanks / melee need to be aware of as it can lead to aggro-on-reachable-target versus highest-threat, could possible drop this for something else too though.
But the loss of your own personal dps was very substantial using such a build, while with a deep fire build with Flamestrike spam, and the 3 points into Impact like the build I linked a few posts ago will lead to a higher personal dps run, and if multiple people are speced the same, will lead to a far more controlled fight with the same high personal dps.

Originally Posted by pewsey View Post
1. Do you have roles for your mages ? (deep frost for WC, arcane/frost for AOE, IV/Fire for single target)
- this would have the advantage of building a "set" of mages that have synergy between each other
Even if you have other mages seeding buffs to offspecs, from a pure dps standpoint, a deep Fire mage will out damage an Arcane/Fire mage getting seeded the Imp Scorch debuff. The only time seeding a debuff is worth it is when a deep Frost mage seeds WC to an Arcane/Frost mage, and even then, with proper rotations and gear, a deep Fire mage will beat him on damage with sustaining Imp Scorch himself.

2. Our guild has felt that destroying AOE packs is of value, is there a diminishing return in worrying about that and just making sure that we do "enough" damage using a 10/48/3 spec is sufficient.
If you would of read some of the last few pages of this thread, you would see that an AoE has a max damage that can occur, without outside interference, so no matter what spec you are now, on AoE packs each mage within reason should have nearly the same damage done, which leads to a use of AoE spell rotation in the end on deciding which is the most damaging output per spec of mage.

At a tier 5 point in gear AoE damage caps become reachable without popping trinkets and such, so at no point pre-Morogrim shall you be worried about not enough damage per AoE cast, just the amount of AoE classes and whether they spam their spells or casually cast them.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 12/01/07 at 6:29 AM.
#1660SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
But the loss of your own personal dps was very substantial using such a build, while with a deep fire build with Flamestrike spam, and the 3 points into Impact like the build I linked a few posts ago will lead to a higher personal dps run, and if multiple people are speced the same, will lead to a far more controlled fight with the same high personal dps.
I checked some of our random WWS parses of damage dealt during Hyjal trash and found I did a very slightly larger amount of damage with blizzard than arcane explosion spam, there are so many other variables that this comparison is probably worthless but I really didn't feel gimped on damage (AE capping out and all anyway). Just for context - we run with +/- one mage or lock 2 mages and 4 warlocks, using imp blizz lets us start using blizzard very early on a pull very shortly followed by Seed of Corruption. It's very clear when a mob is moving towards a warlock; this isn't a problem as we still have frost novas, dragon's breath, soul shatter to use until the mob gets a tank's attention.

Impact as a method of keeping mobs off cloth very early in an AE pack seems less reliable to me but I'd imagine it would scale better with more mages, where as blizzard is something only one mage really needs to be doing to snare all mobs in the blizzard footprint more or less instantly. It's only useful on trash really but since we're all going to be putting 11 points into frost soon I thought I'd try spending some points on something I thought might be worthwhile in the frost tree and was pretty pleased with the utility of it on AE trash in KZ, ZA, Hyjal, and BT, it felt more elegant than straight AE spam, and I think it made the trash easier (not that it's hard to begin with). YMMV (?).
#1661SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Personally I'm planning on rolling with a 0/47/14 build and using a flamestrike -> Blizzard -> flamestrike rotation.

Figure using the initial Flamestrike to proc the Ashtongue and then popping IV + Blizzard. The flamestrikes keep the haste up and the blizzard uses the haste as well as rooting and snaring and generally keeping them together for the next flamestrike. Should also help to maximize warlock dps with seeds and with the snare allow them to start seeding earlier since their personal risk will be lower. Also should be nice for tanks since any mob heading for the outside of the AE zone will be moving so slowly they won't have to move far to taunt/smack them to regain aggro.

Still debating my last 4 points in the Fire tree though, currently leaning towards 2 in Impact and 2 in Blazing Speed and not putting any points into incinerate and going without pyroblast or blastwave. Although that leaning does seem to change on a somewhat regular basis.
#1662SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
I checked some of our random WWS parses of damage dealt during Hyjal trash and found I did a very slightly larger amount of damage with blizzard than arcane explosion spam, there are so many other variables that this comparison is probably worthless but I really didn't feel gimped on damage (AE capping out and all anyway). Just for context - we run with +/- one mage or lock 2 mages and 4 warlocks, using imp blizz lets us start using blizzard very early on a pull very shortly followed by Seed of Corruption. It's very clear when a mob is moving towards a warlock; this isn't a problem as we still have frost novas, dragon's breath, soul shatter to use until the mob gets a tank's attention.
There is no doubt that Imp Blizzard+Frostbite is huge control boosting, but when it comes down to it, Blizzard ticks every second for 360ish damage in my gear, for a comparison, 980 damage every 3 seconds, and AE is 700ish damage per hit, 1400 damage every 3 seconds, per target it hits till capped. And since Blizzard can't crit, it is completely worthless when the number of mobs dwindle, where as AE is still viable.

The amount of personal damage you lose from using Blizzard over Flamestrike, AE, Blastwave, DB is to much to let it slid. And since the trash at the Horde camp usually becomes spread out very easy, Blizzard becomes more useless.
#1663SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
There is no doubt that Imp Blizzard+Frostbite is huge control boosting, but when it comes down to it, Blizzard ticks every second for 360ish damage in my gear, for a comparison, 980 damage every 3 seconds, and AE is 700ish damage per hit, 1400 damage every 3 seconds, per target it hits till capped. And since Blizzard can't crit, it is completely worthless when the number of mobs dwindle, where as AE is still viable.

The amount of personal damage you lose from using Blizzard over Flamestrike, AE, Blastwave, DB is to much to let it slid. And since the trash at the Horde camp usually becomes spread out very easy, Blizzard becomes more useless.
The idea behind the blizzard is that you can start off AE'ing earlier (DPS is lower but time spent AE'ing is higher or at least sooner); the mobs don't become spread out because they're heavily snared, casters can be much more aggressive, start earlier, etc. For something like 4-6 mobs I was using AE (tanks should have mobs on them solidly by that time anyway, no one's pulling aggro) but these sections of time were pretty short . . . we always single target below 3 mobs anyway. I don't think it's really appropriate to spreadsheet/theorycraft this, it's the execution advantages that I felt gave this an edge and I'm really just trying to communicate that I honestly believe it might be worth the talent points in 2.3.2 as a macro-level kind of tactic for AE, given that it's not sacrificing much of anything from single-target dps in that patch (nor is it now other than clearcasting efficiency). It just seemed to 'click' and trash went down noticebly faster than it usually did, mostly because we were starting much earlier.
#1664SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ignus
to spider, I am in favor of the validity of that spec, but does your control take into account having a protection paladin? I've never been to hyjal but I do have a prot pally myself, and it would seem that consecration alone should allow you to do as much personal dps as you want without worrying about aggroing large groups.
#1665SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Tyrian
does your control take into account having a protection paladin
The idea behind the blizzard is that you can start off AE'ing earlier
We never used to do Hyjal with a Protpally up until a month ago. The difference, for an aoe-happy mage, is night and day. Just let him round the mobs up, then AOE your heart out immediately.

The idea that blizzard lets you 'aoe earlier' and associated benefits might have some merit for Warrior/Druid tanks in Hyjal, however - but is thrown out the window when you have a prot pally at your disposal.
#1666SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kasi
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Is the water elemental pet merged for your full frost mage that is pulling up WC? Most do not do this by default.
Not sure. However he is the only mage in the raid with a WE. Currently right now we have 3 mages who usually raid. One is currently fire, one is deep frost, one is arcane frost. Before 2.3 all 3 were deep arcane/fire. I'm just looking at the relative ratings of the 3 mages in comparison to eachother, before all 3 were usually equal, now the arcane/frost guy has pulled in front of nearly all the casters.

Edit: I know anecdotal evidence isn't that great, but it was just something I've observed within our guild. And no this isn't a 20/20/21 build. This is a pretty normal 40/0/21 build which from what I've seen in Lhivera's TC does pretty well if someone else is providing the WC debuff.
#1667SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Grecasi
The problem with any type of frost build that relies on frostbolt spam is pushback. If you had in pushback in any sort of fight frost comes way behind and there are currently too many encounters giving this a nail. RoS stage 3 (or in the old days Vaelastrasz) is a perfect example of why there is a problem with using frost while raiding, even in a 40/0/21 build (although you can spam AM in a situation like that it's a dps and dpm drop by 20% at least on both parts).
I doubt frost actually can be viable unless they give it some sort of pushback protection, just a small amount of damage delays frostbolts by .6-1 second which is a huge dps dip if it only happens on every 3rd frostbolt even.

You are forced to do x/46/10 (4point spare) if you want to be optimal for 95% of the current boss fights. Frost is currently only good for one thing and thats for learning encounters but thats mainly due to Ice Block which is trainable from 2.3.2 and as such there is no reason at all after that. Ice barrier (30sec cd); you might as well use mana shield while learning encounters if you really need something like this.

Either way I think it's valiant to try to find something else then a cookie cutter build but albeit it seems like a lost cause.

ps. Since your fire-mage is trailing behind the two frost mages then I dare to say its how that fire-mage plays and his/her stats/gear setup vs trash and bosses. Not cause the other builds are better, because 40/0/21 will be in the same neighbor hood as 10/48/3 right now if you play both correctly, even theory crafting and simulations show this.

edit: just recalled that while you are in ssc/tk and you still have 2x T4 as your best equipment in some slots, frost is actually very viable due to the set bonus "Pushback Resistance". Not sure where the balance is when 10/48/3 or x/46/10 will be better. I am sure someone can do the math on it though.

Last edited by Grecasi : 12/02/07 at 9:29 PM.
#1668SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 pewsey
Originally Posted by Grecasi View Post
ps. Since your fire-mage is trailing behind the two frost mages then I dare to say its how that fire-mage plays and his/her stats/gear setup vs trash and bosses. Not cause the other builds are better, because 40/0/21 will be in the same neighbor hood as 10/48/3 right now if you play both correctly, even theory crafting and simulations show this.

edit: just recalled that while you are in ssc/tk and you still have 2x T4 as your best equipment in some slots, frost is actually very viable due to the set bonus "Pushback Resistance". Not sure where the balance is when 10/48/3 or x/46/10 will be better. I am sure someone can do the math on it though.
I've been swapping back and forth between Arc/Frost (40/0/21) and Deep Fire (10/48/3 - Imp Flamestrike, no Incinerate) to see what it's like.

I find that on a lot of encounters the damage "bursts" from AP+Trinket in frost, and the current +3% frost hit is making Frost come out ahead for me.

The main thing that's making frost working well right now is the phantom hit. (I'm in T4/T5 gear) Maybe when I get more T6 gear that's less of a problem, but TCing out the gear I wear with frost and being hit capped, and the gear with fire I get about a 1-2% increase when Arcane/Frost. _If_ the phantom hit went away, I'd be forced to swap more gear around and would be getting about a 1-2% in favour of fire.
#1669SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 frmorrison
I have been UA/Shadowburn for about 2 months, and the only time in raiding where 2.5 second SB pushback is an issue is RoS phase 2. Everywhere else it is a very minor problem, plus you can always shield yourself for RoS phase 2 for that one part of the encounter.
#1670SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Pintofbrew
While I agree that pushback is quite a minor issue, shielding one's self can only go so far: Given a shield costs you 1.5sec in terms of dps, it needs to "last" 1.5sec worth of interrupts. Each time you get pushback, it can be from 0.6 to 1.0 depending, so unless you get pushed back twice on one spell or once on two spells you're not really gaining in terms of pushback resistance. This is particularly true given the damn thing only soaks up ~1300 damage and as such isn't really much of a consolation against interrupt resist.

Somehow I'm still reluctant to believe 40.0.21 is competitive in real terms with full frost. I'll be even more so in 2.3.1 when frost will have the benefit of potentially two Cold Snaps per boss. Even if 40.0.21 has coldsnap too, it's only one more IV, whereas for frost it'll be one more elemental on top, and another IV++Elemental when the second cold snap goes through.

Edit: My ignorance of the encounter betrays my uninformed state. He is of course not refering to Ice Barrier.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 12/03/07 at 12:04 AM.
#1671SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
I think he was talking about stealing the rune shield since it is in reference to RoS phase 2.
#1672SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0kadgar
Originally Posted by Grecasi View Post
The problem with any type of frost build that relies on frostbolt spam is pushback. If you had in pushback in any sort of fight frost comes way behind and there are currently too many encounters giving this a nail. RoS stage 3 (or in the old days Vaelastrasz) is a perfect example of why there is a problem with using frost while raiding, even in a 40/0/21 build (although you can spam AM in a situation like that it's a dps and dpm drop by 20% at least on both parts).
I doubt frost actually can be viable unless they give it some sort of pushback protection, just a small amount of damage delays frostbolts by .6-1 second which is a huge dps dip if it only happens on every 3rd frostbolt even.
Don't dorget that you can always switch your gear to 2p T4 for heavy interrupt fights.
Switching from T6 gloves and shoulders to T4 changes your stats:
-13 sta
-5 int
-7 spi
-32 spell dmg
-3 hit rating
-6 crit rating
-1 blue -1 yellow +1red socket
-18 spell penetration

Additinally you loose the T6 bonus and the effect of epic gems not taken into account.

Together you loose about 50 spell dmg, 6crit rating and 5% frostbolt dmg.
Not soo bad for 100% pushback prevention, where fire has only 70% (with T6).
#1673SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
To provide better numbers, the average T6 geared mage has 1200 spell damage, to all that is easily. Dropping T6 4piece is a 60 damage drop, then another 60ish from the gear swap, you're down 120 damage, a substantial hit when dropping down to use 2 piece t4. Not to mention that if you need to avoid pushback to gain damage, Fire is already twice as good as frost for that reason only.
#1674SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Now the only thing they have left to do is revamp Molten armor or something to be like fel armor, like 100-150 spelldmg so we can compete with warlocks and it's all gravey! Oh and increase icy veins to either 50% speed or 30 seconds :P It's all good in the hood ! =)
#1675SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Wug
Intro: My guild is working on SSC. We have three mages who for a long time used arcane/fire hybrid builds and are now wondering whether to switch to deep fire. After reading the information in this forum, I had been encouraging them to do so. However, after conducting some tests using Vontre's spreadsheet, I'm no longer so sure. Below are the results of some calcuations I conducted regarding the relative DPS of arcane fire versus deep fire.

Procedure: Using the base stats of one of our mages (wishingstars) as a starting point, I altered her spec and gemming numerous times and plugged the results into Vontre's spreadsheet.

I used three different gemming configurations:

High Crit
Spell Damage: 695 base (+221 fire, +172 arcane)
Crit Rating: 361
Hit Rating: 164

High Damage
Spell Damage: 794 base (+221 fire, +172 arcane)
Crit Rating: 273
Hit Rating: 164

Extra Hit
Spell Damage: 754 base (+221 fire, +172 arcane)
Crit Rating: 273
Hit Rating: 200 (with her gear, no gemming configuration could produce exactly 202)

*Edit*: Note that 794 base damage + 221 fire damage = 1015 total +dam when casting fire spells. Granted this is not terribly high, but it seems quite normal for most mages entering SSC. The analysis in this post is aimed at mid-level raiding mages, not those in BT gear.

I used four different specs:

33/28/0

40/21/0

40/18/3

10/48/3

I assumed that another mage would be applying Imp. Scorch, but that no curses or other debuffs would be on the target.

*Edit*: In all these builds, fireball is assumed to be the typical nuke. However, in examining the results on Vontre's spreadsheet, I noticed a very large difference among the specs in the damage that can be obtained from an AB spam. Clearly, an AB spam is not viable for any significant length of time. However, it could be used towards the end of a fight or during AP to add additional DPS at the cost of mana. That is the reason for including the AB spam numbers below. I apologize for not explaining that in the initial post.


Results:

33/28/0_____Fireball Spam_____Arcane Blast Spam
High Crit__________1029__________1173
High Damage_____1050__________1205
Extra Hit__________1057__________1181

40/21/0_____Fireball Spam_____Arcane Blast Spam
High Crit__________1010__________1250
High Damage_____1025__________1281
Extra Hit__________1033__________1257

40/18/3_____Fireball Spam_____Arcane Blast Spam
High Crit__________1021__________1250
High Damage_____1036__________1281
Extra Hit__________N/A__________N/A

10/48/3_____Fireball Spam_____Arcane Blast Spam
High Crit__________1102__________1023
High Damage_____1135__________1058
Extra Hit__________N/A__________N/A


Conclusions:

1. As expected, 10/48/3, hit-capped, with +dam gemming produced the highest DPS for a fireball spam. However, it also produced the lowest AB spam DPS compared to the other specs. The high +dam variant of 33/28 is 85 DPS lower than 10/48/3 for a fireball spam, but 147 higher for an AB spam. Meanwhile, the +dam variant of 40/18/3 is 99 DPS lower than 10/48/3 for a fireball spam, but 223 DPS higher for AB spam.

2. 40/18/3 performed better than 40/21/0. 40/18/3 with +dam maxed out beats all three gemming variants of the 40/21/0 build. Thus, 40/21/0 is not recommended.

3. 33/28 seems to perform better at 164 +hit and +dam maxed out then at 200 +hit. Adding the extra +hit increases fireball DPS by only 7, but reduces AB spam DPS by 24. Also, compared to 40/18/3, the 33/28 spec gives a better fireball (1050 versus 1036) but a worse AB (1205 versus 1281).

4. Gemming for crit rating over +dam decreases DPS in every case no matter what spec.

In sum, the arcane/fire builds seem to me slightly more competitive than others have claimed, but still lacking in DPS. 40/18/3 is 8.7% less DPS than 10/48/3, whereas 33/28 is 7.5% less. A well-timed AP/Pyro/AB Spam could make up for some of this difference. Also, the arcane tree provides extra total mana and mana regen, thus enabling greater use of destruction potions. Any leftover mana can be converted to DPS at the end of the fight using an AB spam, whereas such an option is not available to deep fire mages. Still, ~8% is a lot to make up, and deep fire will likely come out ahead even given these factors.

One wrench in this analysis is Icy Veins. If the new 2/47/11 specs prove to be even higher DPS than 10/48/3, then arcane fire builds may be even less viable than my calculations suggest.

Last edited by Wug : 12/03/07 at 1:09 PM.
#1676SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
1: You wouldn't spam AB with a hybrid-spec... Why on earth would you? Dump your mana for less scaling? The only place you'd actually dump mana with AB spam is at the end of a boss's life and that's where molten fury kicks inn..

2: Icyveins firespec > cookiecutter firespec. You are only dropping clearcasting to get a hastetalent that increases dps.
#1677SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Wug
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
1: You wouldn't spam AB with a hybrid-spec... Why on earth would you? Dump your mana for less scaling? The only place you'd actually dump mana with AB spam is at the end of a boss's life and that's where molten fury kicks inn..

2: Icyveins firespec > cookiecutter firespec. You are only dropping clearcasting to get a hastetalent that increases dps.
Sorry, I didn't clarify the AB spam part very well. The idea is that it could be a viable mana dump in exchange for increased DPS, either at the end of a fight or durring AP. Normally you would be using fireballs, yes.

Regarding molten fury, the DPS numbers for the 10/48/3 spec are already counting MF as a net 4% DPS increase for the entire fight. Thus, it's not quite accurate to say that Molten Fury gives a comparable DPS boost to AB spam at the end of the fight, given that MF is already being factored into the total DPS for the deep fire build.

Note, though, that my introduction is a bit misleading. (I forgot to change it after finishing the math.) The numbers indicate that Arcane Fire builds are close to 10/48/3 in DPS output, but still don't quite reach it. And as I said at the end, IV will likely make the Arcane Tree even worse. Hopefully Blizzard will notice this and do something to arcane...
#1678SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Wug:

Firstly, this post should have been situated in [Mage] Help me please? if you are expecting advice. This is the TC thread and your post seems to me as off-topic.

Secondly, there is no such thing as AB spam, nor speccing for it. There are so few cases where AB spam is in fact an option and these are so far between that speccing it is almost irrelevant.

Lastly, beyond any question, reproach, reason or rhyme, arcane-fire is so totaly dead after 2.3.1 it's not even funny any more. Full fire with Icy Veins will leave it far behind. If your mages are serious about raidng, and at SSC they'd better be, they should spec out of arcane and into fire or frost. At this level both are fine, with the difference of one being useless at Al'ar and the other being useless for half of Hydross.

Arcane-fire is a crutch for low-level gear mages. It's perfectly fine and competitive during leveling and fresh at 70, but the more gear you gain the more abysmal is it's scaling. Mind mastery simply does not scale almost at all, and fireball gets very very few talents that increase it in a percentile way. Once out of Gruul 40/18/3, 40/21/0, 43/18/0 and all associated specs should be discarded.

Arcane-fire hybrid (33/28/0) while signifficantly better than arcane-fire is still considered to be sub-par. Some raiders in BT swear that it's fine, some swear at them. The jury is out. Chances are it won't be -strictly- better than full fire on most occasions, but many are remaining competitive with it. Either way, the need for dramatic amounts of hit mandate it can only be considered competitive at BT level gear, as getting 202 hit with T5 means much compromise in terms of dmg/crit.

Once 2.3.1 is out, however, 33/28/0 will simply not be competitive under any circumstances because it won't have the (soon to be standard) 11 frost.
#1679SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Wug, the reason you're seeing numbers from 33/28 being close to 10/48/3 is because your example Mage has low +damage. Even in "high" +damage gearing you are only rocking 794. The advantage to Fireball is in it scales much better. And yes, this is exactly what should go in the "Help me" thread.
#1680SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Wug
Hmm, I guess I'm a little confused about the purpose of these various threads. I actually wasn't trying to ask for advice with my initial post, but to provide some hard data on the relative value of some different specs. I know that it's old news to most folks, but I've read this entire thread and saw very few hard numbers comparing the hybrid arcane/fire builds with other builds post 2.3. I thought that providing some numbers to that effect might make for a more robust theorycraft on the subject.

Ebbv: It's 794 base + 221 fire = 1014 total damage when casting fire spells. Not great, but fairly typical for mages entering SSC. Sorry if that was confusing in the initial post.

Pintofbrew: I'm confused by your dismissal of 40/18/3 coupled with your half-hearted endorsement of 33/28. My numbers show them to be within 15-20 DPS of each other on a fireball spam. Also, moving from 164 +hit to 200 +hit on the 33/28 build only increased fireball DPS by 7. I could have made a mistake, but those are the numbers I got. If they're correct, then 33/28 would not seem to rely on insanely high +hit gear.

Regarding Icy Veins, remember that it's not yet a done deal. I do think Blizzard reads these boards, and I'm hoping they realize the damage that IV will do to the arcane tree unless they give that tree a little help.
#1681SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Grecasi
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
Don't dorget that you can always switch your gear to 2p T4 for heavy interrupt fights.
Switching from T6 gloves and shoulders to T4 changes your stats:
-13 sta
-5 int
-7 spi
-32 spell dmg
-3 hit rating
-6 crit rating
-1 blue -1 yellow +1red socket
-18 spell penetration

Additinally you loose the T6 bonus and the effect of epic gems not taken into account.

Together you loose about 50 spell dmg, 6crit rating and 5% frostbolt dmg.
Not soo bad for 100% pushback prevention, where fire has only 70% (with T6).
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
To provide better numbers, the average T6 geared mage has 1200 spell damage, to all that is easily. Dropping T6 4piece is a 60 damage drop, then another 60ish from the gear swap, you're down 120 damage, a substantial hit when dropping down to use 2 piece t4. Not to mention that if you need to avoid pushback to gain damage, Fire is already twice as good as frost for that reason only.
Like Hate Monkey says, the sacrifice is far to great and fire has 70% and when you pair that with conc aura (35%) there is no pushback anymore. Some claim you only get 79%, but since I've been raiding for 2.5 years (may 2005) I can say never seen pushback with fire when I've had conc aura, so in my opinion it's 70+35=105%. For T6 mages with 4 pieces this is really out of the question of being optimal. For mages with lower gear it's a whole different story I'd say, as I mentioned in my edit.
#1682SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Oh my apologies for misreading. Yes that is much more typical and reasonable.

Still, no, you're not giving us any new information, and it's not really hard data. It's just the same spreadsheet results we've known for some time.
#1683SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Little something for you musers out there:

33/0/28 will always pair icy veins with AP, both being exactly on 3 minute timers (which is a small advantage over the 3:10-3:20 cooldown of combustion). Will the synergy be enough to pop 2 min trinkets (specifically braid/skull of gul'dan)/drums/destro pots on 3 minute timers with them? Or will it be more beneficial to pop them every 2 minutes?
#1684SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Northerner
One can pop them on the two-minute cooldown and still hit two out of three three-minute cooldowns if the fight is long enough. That may seem obvious but there is certainly no point in 'saving' them to synch each and every time when you can keep a 3:2 synch ratio regardless. I'd also advocate popping combustion a bit early so that it is synched in on the third cast or so. Combustion will creep no matter what though and that's life.

The only time I could see delaying a trinket-IV use would be if fight length is well known and you can synch up with sub-20%. At that point it is pretty obviously a trivial situation anyhow of course.
#1685SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Little something for you musers out there:

33/0/28 will always pair icy veins with AP, both being exactly on 3 minute timers (which is a small advantage over the 3:10-3:20 cooldown of combustion). Will the synergy be enough to pop 2 min trinkets (specifically braid/skull of gul'dan)/drums/destro pots on 3 minute timers with them? Or will it be more beneficial to pop them every 2 minutes?
This type of build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft ?

First off, why the hell would you even spec that? If you're going to factor in all consumable usages, then you got to factor in Bloodlust/Heroism, which as Frost would put you below the global cooldown, causing a stop in dps gain for that spec with those trinkets/drums.

But to your question, it all depends upon where your raid dps is at. If you down a typical boss, Rage, Anetheron, Kaz'Rogal, Naj'entus, Teron, in under 3 minutes, then its best used to pop the 2 minute timers at the start of a fight, and line the timers up at the end under the effect of bloodlust and such. But if you take 4 minutes to kill those bosses, then it's best used to pop everything together to get the maximum possible burst.
#1686SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Wug: 33/28/0 does need 202 hit rate, that is significantly more than 164 at pre-ssc levels. You also miss-read me: I did not say 40/18/0 is not competitive with 33/28/0, I said both of them are lagging badly compared to 10/48/3 and even worse compared with Full-fire/IV. While you noted that between them there is little difference, the hybrid 33/28/0 scales better than 40/18/3 and if you try data on a simulator with much superior gear you'll find 33/28/0 to be notably ahead of 40/18/3.

Either way, however, discussing the finer minutiae of arcane/fire and arcane/fire hybrid is pointless; They're both DOA come 2.3.1. As Ebbv posted, you are not posting "hard data" you are merely linking simulator output of what is known.

As for "Regarding Icy Veins, remember that it's not yet a done deal. I do think Blizzard reads these boards, and I'm hoping they realize the damage that IV will do to the arcane tree unless they give that tree a little help." I don't quite get what the point of your statement is? We get what is probably one of the most important buffs/changes to our class since BC came out, barring Tax removal, a new game mechanic and a new variant to make frost more than a "3-talent wonder" and all you can say about it is you hope it'll get a re-think because you feel Arcane/Fire builds are let down? Perhaps Warlocks should re-think Soul Link because poor Affli/Destros can't spec it too?

Arcane is currently Broken. It has always been broken. It only managed brief glimpses of glory during (a) Damage tax and (b) Item Abuse 2.2. Never has arcane stood on it's own two feet. Removing IV to gimp every other spec will not make it any better, thank you.

Hate monkey: Though I agree as to why the hell would anyone want to make a Arc/Frost hybrid, I believe the 33 was refering to Arcane Power + Spell Power (minus one point Arc. Potency and Arc. Mind).

This spec is a poor variation of the (up to now) controversial 40/0/21. The main difference being, it can eventually Winter's Chill for it's self, and in exchange loses Mind Mastery. Is it worth it? I can't say, but intuitively it doesn't look like it.

IV synergizes nicely with Ap, perhaps there is more merrit to 40/0/21 now than there ever was before. Given WC from another mage, I can see this spec having potential. More TC needs to be done.
#1687SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Wug: 33/28/0 does need 202 hit rate, that is significantly more than 164 at pre-ssc levels. You also miss-read me: I did not say 40/18/0 is not competitive with 33/28/0, I said both of them are lagging badly compared to 10/48/3 and even worse compared with Full-fire/IV. While you noted that between them there is little difference, the hybrid 33/28/0 scales better than 40/18/3 and if you try data on a simulator with much superior gear you'll find 33/28/0 to be notably ahead of 40/18/3.

Either way, however, discussing the finer minutiae of arcane/fire and arcane/fire hybrid is pointless; They're both DOA come 2.3.1. As Ebbv posted, you are not posting "hard data" you are merely linking simulator output of what is known.

As for "Regarding Icy Veins, remember that it's not yet a done deal. I do think Blizzard reads these boards, and I'm hoping they realize the damage that IV will do to the arcane tree unless they give that tree a little help." I don't quite get what the point of your statement is? We get what is probably one of the most important buffs/changes to our class since BC came out, barring Tax removal, a new game mechanic and a new variant to make frost more than a "3-talent wonder" and all you can say about it is you hope it'll get a re-think because you feel Arcane/Fire builds are let down? Perhaps Warlocks should re-think Soul Link because poor Affli/Destros can't spec it too?

Arcane is currently Broken. It has always been broken. It only managed brief glimpses of glory during (a) Damage tax and (b) Item Abuse 2.2. Never has arcane stood on it's own two feet. Removing IV to gimp every other spec will not make it any better, thank you.

Hate monkey: Though I agree as to why the hell would anyone want to make a Arc/Frost hybrid, I believe the 33 was refering to Arcane Power + Spell Power (minus one point Arc. Potency and Arc. Mind).

This spec is a poor variation of the (up to now) controversial 40/0/21. The main difference being, it can eventually Winter's Chill for it's self, and in exchange loses Mind Mastery. Is it worth it? I can't say, but intuitively it doesn't look like it.

IV synergizes nicely with Ap, perhaps there is more merrit to 40/0/21 now than there ever was before. Given WC from another mage, I can see this spec having potential. More TC needs to be done.
Sorry was thinking AP fire, yes 40/0/21.

And for the person who does the TC: plz check to see if it would be better to save 2 minute timers for AP/Veins. Napkin math is that you lose 50% uptime saving the 2 minute timers for 3 minutes, but gain 1.30 (AP) * 1.16667 (Veins) = 1.5x dps for duration, on par dps UNTIL you consider that by pairing all these cooldowns (skull, braid, destruction pot, drums with AP and icy veins) that they get an exponential effect on each other, which should increase everything by everything. Good stuff.
#1688SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
I was searching for about an hour to try to find the calculations someone made comparing fireball spam to a fireballx2/fireblast rotation. I like to do my own spreadsheets and i'm having trouble proving mathmatically why fireballx2/fireblast is less dps.

I think i'm overexaggerating how much damage a fireblast does. just was curious if someone has that thread handy so i can check my math. i'd also not mind sending my quick and dirty spreadsheet i whipped up if someone wants to look at it.
#1689SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ignus
A question about the 2 points in arcane for Fire/IV spec, am I missing something or wasn't arcane subtlety pretty marginal for non arcane mages? only benefits I can see is for arcane explosion spam at low threat, I'm not sure if that's the intended use of the talent. it looks like you could pick up some better frost goodies such as permafrost +frostbite + imp blizzard and aoe farm using that, or drop points in imp. flamestrike for AoE, or pretty much anything more useful than get 10 spell penetration. Is that 10 spell penetration actually good enough to bother keeping it?
#1690SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Iod
Originally Posted by Ignus View Post
A question about the 2 points in arcane for Fire/IV spec, am I missing something or wasn't arcane subtlety pretty marginal for non arcane mages? only benefits I can see is for arcane explosion spam at low threat, I'm not sure if that's the intended use of the talent. it looks like you could pick up some better frost goodies such as permafrost +frostbite + imp blizzard and aoe farm using that, or drop points in imp. flamestrike for AoE, or pretty much anything more useful than get 10 spell penetration. Is that 10 spell penetration actually good enough to bother keeping it?
Frostbite + Blizzard AoE grinding = Bad thing. Tried it a few times, and always have better results with NO frostbite. As for your question- Arcane subtlety is for when you have to burst AoE things in a GROUP situation. The 40% Threat reduction is a godsend in these situations since most raid mobs will one or two shot you. And where the heck are you getting '10 spell penetration' from?

[Edit: Clarified why I mentioned the solo grinding. I'm well aware it doesn't belong in the TC thread.]

Last edited by Iod : 12/04/07 at 9:35 AM.
#1691SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Iod View Post
Frostbite + Blizzard AoE grinding = Bad thing. Tried it a few times, and always have better results with NO frostbite. As for your question- Arcane subtlety is for when you have to burst AoE things in a GROUP situation. The 40% Threat reduction is a godsend in these situations since most raid mobs will one or two shot you. And where the heck are you getting '10 spell penetration' from?
I think it's safe to assume that grinding and soloing is beyond the scope of the TC thread. Arcane Subtlety is indeed there for AE, and as to whether or not blizzard's slow is worth it over AE it depends on your group: Blizzard is lower DPS than AE (though AE caps faster unless I'm wrong) and perhaps is not necessary depending on setup. Some groups have a retadin tank the mobs and use flamestrike spam, some have a frostie imp-blizz them for slow, some just charge in with faith in God and AE ti'll the mobs cease.

For two points, AOE peace of mind is rather invaluable, but if your AOE role is control via slow, by all means, get imp blizz. Your guild group-setup will dictate which one is best for you.
#1692SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Arawethion
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Blizzard is lower DPS than AE (though AE caps faster unless I'm wrong)
Last I knew, Blizzard was not capped, but this may be out-of-date.
#1693SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Arawethion View Post
Last I knew, Blizzard was not capped, but this may be out-of-date.
WoW Forums -> Sunday morning PTR AoE Cap testing page 3/4.

Blizzard caps at 28.950, or 3619 per second.
Cone of Cold caps at 6500, or 4333 per second.

Arcane Explosion caps at 6730, or 4486 per second.

Flamestrike caps at 7830, or or 2610 per second. The DoT portion is not capped
Blastwave caps at 9440, or 6293 per second.
Dragon's Breath caps at 10100, or 6377 per second.

The AoE penalty for +damage is 50%, so the spells get casttime/3.5s*50% of your spell damage. CoC/BW/DB get 90% or 95% of that value since they snare/disorient.
This means instants get 21.4% of their spell damage per cast.

Flamestrike is split 55% DD, 45% DoT. That means the direct damage gets 23.57% (55%*1/2*3/3.5), and the DoT gets 3% (45%*1/2*2s/15s, ticks every 2s, 15s is the normalised DoT duration) per tick.


Blizzard scales with haste gear, Flamestrike scales with crit and haste, the other instants only scale with crit.

Seed of Corruption is capped at 12.600 I think, 6300 per second.
I remember that number from a post where people tested it on a PTR, can't find it anymore.


Clarification - the "cap per second" is not an actual cap per second. The cap is still per cast, and I just divided that cap by the cast time/GCD to get a figure to compare the capped DPS of AoE spells. So at the cap, DPS still increases with crit and haste gear where possible.

Last edited by Roywyn : 12/04/07 at 8:06 PM. Reason: Flamestrike checked.
#1694SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ignus
Thank you for the clarification, and for frostbite I was thinking more IV + frostbite on super imp blizzard would mean 75% slow reduction with a 40% chance of sticking the mob in place per tick, unless I misunderstand the mechanics of blizzard.

That makes a lot more sense to pick up the talent for the -threat on AE, which I did mention in my post Iod ^^

And to pintofbrew, My thinking was to use flamestrike spam in a raid situation where you need the damage, and should not have to worry about the threat(basically hyjal trash) in which case, getting improved flamestrike would seem to be a better choice than getting arcane sub and using AE. Also, I love your M:tg reference in your avatar XD

and in general... I think this is within the scope of the thread since we are only comparing the last... 9? leftover points in the deep fire/IV spec after getting all essential talents. my post was more a reaction to having lhivera's theorycraft bot list the spec as "2/48/11+7" when I am of the opinion that the notation should probably go "0/48/11+9" I just found it odd that it was included as an "essential" talent, and wondered if I had missed something.

This does bring up another question though. as IV Fire, are you going to be better off with flamestrike or with arcane explosion? If I skip frostbite, and assume that the slow on blizzard will be enough to keep me alive when AoE'ing in small group content, even while I have threat, and at the same time have an additional benefit to another area of the game, wouldn't that make it such that AE would only be used in large group content? I could see it remaining the de facto AoE spell for 10 man raids, but for 25 mans, specifically hyjal, would we want to shift to using flamestrike spam, or would we be doing more damage by using DB/Blastwave/AE in melee range?

To clarify, if I'm AoE'ing in hyjal, with a paladin tank, will I not take aggro with flamestrike spam? And is it viable DPM? I had sort of written off both blizzard and flamestrike as being frivolous AoE's that would not be very helpful, so I'm personally trying to explore the validity of those spells in different situations just in terms of my understanding.

Thanks as always for answering my questions ^^
#1695SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Nickolina
Originally Posted by pewsey View Post
One thing that is concerning to me about the theorycrafting that is going on right now is that it's not really showing any form of realistic scenario regarding the (current) set of encounters I'm against.

Basically, we're just starting HS/BT and there is just so much AOE as part of the encounter mechanics (Kael weapons, Hyal trash, not seen any internals of BT yet) that focussing on single target DPS seems, well, pretty outdated.

Has anybody been looking at modelling the various scenarios we find in game to use a comparative source, rather than a single target.

While we can probably agree that the IV-Deep fire variant specs are likely to be best single target, I'm more likely to believe that something with deeper arcane is likely to do more in a DPS fight overall. (Say 40/0/21)

While not directly "theory", I'd like to hear from some of the more progressed mages about a couple of things regarding encounters;

1. Do you have roles for your mages ? (deep frost for WC, arcane/frost for AOE, IV/Fire for single target)
- this would have the advantage of building a "set" of mages that have synergy between each other

2. Our guild has felt that destroying AOE packs is of value, is there a diminishing return in worrying about that and just making sure that we do "enough" damage using a 10/48/3 spec is sufficient.

Finally; has anybody thought about building simulations with 5 rounds of 5 AOE targets + 1x single target to compare the various specs.
We pretty much flew through MH/BT with a fleet of Arcane Fire Mages, and we have been doing very well ever since. We tend to use AM spam until opertune moments for AB spam. We have all chopped and changed spec's and we all end up swapping back to Arcane Fire builds. 10/48/3 tends to work very well for most encounters, but phase 2 of illidan is a dps race that 10/48/3 tends to fail badly at. Arcane Missile spam for Illidan in phase 2 works wonders. Illidan is the only thing that puts me off 10/48/3 though tbh.

We can clear Black Temple and Mount Hyjal in 2 evenings now, and a lot of that has to do with the utility of good controlled aoe/arcane bursting in Hyjal.

We may not be the best guild out there, but those are our findings at least. My biggest bug bare is loosing my 4 part T5 set bonus lol, I don't want to lose it

I'm keen to test out Icy Veins next patch though.. Hopefully the one thing that can convince us all to respec.

Last edited by Nickolina : 12/04/07 at 11:50 AM.
#1696SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Arawethion View Post
Last I knew, Blizzard was not capped, but this may be out-of-date.

Blizzard is indeed capped now but they also increased the damage it does at the same time.


It gets 8/3.5/2= 114.28% of your +damage now.

Blizzard is actually comparable dps to AE with enough haste.

Basically AE rises above the cap with crit rating and Blizzard rises above the cap with haste rating.

I'm planning on using Flamestrike to proc the Ashtongue and then popping IV and then alternating Blizzard with Flamestrike till nothing moves. From some preliminary tests using that rotation as deep frost with the Ashtongue (but no Icy Veins yet) I was able to keep up with the other mages who were spamming AE on the packs before Supremus and during the packs in MH. By "keep up" I mean I was the lowest mage but not by a substantial amount (DM order was warlock, mage, mage, mage, warlock) and once Icy Veins enters the picture I'm thinking it may even be superior to non-arcane mage AE spam.
#1697SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Trawnis
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Basically AE rises above the cap with crit rating and Blizzard rises above the cap with haste rating.
Isn't the aoe cap applied to damage/spell and not damage/second or did I completely miss something?
#1698SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Arawethion
Originally Posted by Trawnis View Post
Isn't the aoe cap applied to damage/spell and not damage/second or did I completely miss something?
Right, so a Hasted Blizzard will do the same damage in less time.
#1699SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Arawethion View Post
Right, so a Hasted Blizzard will do the same damage in less time.
Only issue is that for some reason Blizzard's casting bar is never adjusted when haste is applied so the cast just ends before the casting bar completes. The issue is present on the PTR as well so I don't think it will be corrected for next patch either.

It's a ton of DPS using a MSD proc on a Blizzard.
#1700SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
I don't really see how that is an issue? The spell ends when it ends so you can just use it immidiatly after, it's not like you ever had to /stopcast macro Blizzard.
#1701SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I don't really see how that is an issue? The spell ends when it ends so you can just use it immidiatly after, it's not like you ever had to /stopcast macro Blizzard.
Well, if the object is to maximize dps for an AoE situation then being forced to wait for the server to tell your client that the channel has completed is in direct opposition to that goal.

Also never had to /stopcast Blizzard before because Blizzard had horrible dps since it was still using the old AoE calculations, now that it's been changed and in coordination with all the new haste effects it's dps is getting to the point where it is at least somewhat competitive with AE spam. Add IV into the mix and it should actually be at the point where a Deep Frost mage will do more dps with an IVed Blizzard then they can get from using AE.
#1702SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by vannik View Post
I was searching for about an hour to try to find the calculations someone made comparing fireball spam to a fireballx2/fireblast rotation. I like to do my own spreadsheets and i'm having trouble proving mathmatically why fireballx2/fireblast is less dps.

I think i'm overexaggerating how much damage a fireblast does. just was curious if someone has that thread handy so i can check my math. i'd also not mind sending my quick and dirty spreadsheet i whipped up if someone wants to look at it.

hate to bump this but i havn't gotten a response. at 1430+dmg 35% crit, hit capped and 17 haste (slightly over 1%) i calculate that fireballx2/fireblast is more dps than fireball spam, but by 3% which is ~50 dps.
#1703SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
As all channeling spells, there is no "you can't cast that yet" server-side command. Even pre-2.3 you could break an AM/Blizz by casting another spell without /stopcasting
#1704SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Torix
Originally Posted by Iod View Post
And where the heck are you getting '10 spell penetration' from?
Isn't the '10 spell penetration' a reference to the first part of Arcane Subtlety's description, ie "Reduces your target's resistance to all your spells by 10" - which as far as I can see does show up on the character sheet as 10 Spell Penetration?
#1705SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
As all channeling spells, there is no "you can't cast that yet" server-side command. Even pre-2.3 you could break an AM/Blizz by casting another spell without /stopcasting

True but its very hard to tell when it is going to end when you have a bunch of haste active since the bar just stops and since the bar stopping is from a spell complete command from the server that means effectively you either are guessing where to start or waiting for that command from the server and either way you are losing dps.
#1706SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Gumibear
Couldn't you circumvent the casting bar problems with Blizzard much like the way shadow priests do with Mind Flay?

/cast [nochanneling] Blizzard

You can spam that and it wouldn't recast until you aren't channeling anymore.
#1707SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by vannik View Post
hate to bump this but i havn't gotten a response. at 1430+dmg 35% crit, hit capped and 17 haste (slightly over 1%) i calculate that fireballx2/fireblast is more dps than fireball spam, but by 3% which is ~50 dps.
Including 4pc T6?
#1708SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Searix
Originally Posted by vannik View Post
hate to bump this but i havn't gotten a response. at 1430+dmg 35% crit, hit capped and 17 haste (slightly over 1%) i calculate that fireballx2/fireblast is more dps than fireball spam, but by 3% which is ~50 dps.
Well that is strange. I was initially going to trash you for thinking this, but testing shows me that without popping haste consumables, i'm getting it as a 3-5% increase (more haste-less haste gear), more with imp fire blast. Someone test this more but doing napkin testing my fire blast is doing ~1100-1200 non crit, with fireball 1900-2000 (4 peice t6), non scorched/buffed, which means that ignoring haste gear weaving it in is beneficial.

Hrmph, EJ masterminds go at it!

Edit: Also, when/did the description of permafrost change? It seems to imply that speccing into it reduces movement speed AND attack speed per point, wowhead has no additional info, and thottbot seems to be hinting at it also affecting attack speed

Last edited by Searix : 12/05/07 at 8:01 AM.
#1709SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
I'm currently weaving it myself but there is one thing I'm quite unsure about and that is how it is affected by the new cast-mechanics because to me castmechanics seem to be better when spamming one spell and not swapping spells (seems like there is some kind of interpolation/extrapolation at work there) which atleast FEELS like whenever i weave inn a fireblast, atleast with a 200+ ms ping, that I'm getting a bigger pullback/lag than what would've happened pre-2.3. Might just be my head playing games with me of course.
#1710SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Vhad
I've definitely noticed that as well. Especially noticable with Ice Lance, before 2.3 you could be lucky to get it to hit the same time as frostbolt when comboing it on a frozen target, now it almost always lands before frostbolt. Same thing with fireblast.

Last edited by Vhad : 12/05/07 at 9:41 AM.
#1711SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Gumibear View Post
Couldn't you circumvent the casting bar problems with Blizzard much like the way shadow priests do with Mind Flay?

/cast [nochanneling] Blizzard

You can spam that and it wouldn't recast until you aren't channeling anymore.
Issue is that [nochanneling] is determined client-side so you are still waiting for the server to tell your client that the channel has completed before it will start a new channel.

Current casting model is that you want to send the request for a new cast/channel as the casting bar hits the red bar in quartz so that the request reaches the server at the moment the server becomes free for the next cast. Using [nochanneling] means that you won't send the request till you get the spell completed from the server which means you are adding latency up and down to your dps.

A priest using [nochanneling] with mindflay is actually destroying their dps if they are chaining mindflays. Channeled spells will be optimal using the same methods as cast time spells, hit the request for 'button up" when the bar hits the red and then spam the button a few times on the offchance you hit the request too early.

Lets say you have enough haste to bring Blizzard down to a 5.9 second channel. Blizzards cap is 28950 which means the channel should do 4907 dps with that haste. However using [nochanneling] or waiting for the animation to complete adds up+down stream latency onto the channel. If you have 150ms latency the dps drops to 4669.

Considering my current AoE plan for 2.3.2 is Blizzard (rank 1)-> Flamestrike -> IV + Blizzard (max rank) -> Flamestrike -> Blizzard that 240 dps loss is something I would prefer not to have to deal with.
#1712SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Vannik
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Well that is strange. I was initially going to trash you for thinking this, but testing shows me that without popping haste consumables, i'm getting it as a 3-5% increase (more haste-less haste gear), more with imp fire blast. Someone test this more but doing napkin testing my fire blast is doing ~1100-1200 non crit, with fireball 1900-2000 (4 peice t6), non scorched/buffed, which means that ignoring haste gear weaving it in is beneficial.

Hrmph, EJ masterminds go at it!

Edit: Also, when/did the description of permafrost change? It seems to imply that speccing into it reduces movement speed AND attack speed per point, wowhead has no additional info, and thottbot seems to be hinting at it also affecting attack speed

My calculations do not include the 5% bonus for tier 6 since I don't have currently have it. My spreadsheet is actually at my home and I'm at my research lab so I can't plug in that bonus.

The thing I concluded from a non-4piecet6 mage is that it's not the level of +dmg that makes fireball spam better it's the ammount of spell haste you have because the fireballx2 fireblast rotation is always going to be 7.5 seconds because of the cooldown on fireblast. Reading everyones posts about fireball spam so generally made me want to calculate at what this level of gearing was that made fireball spam optimal. I figured 1430+dmg raid buffed would be a pretty good number to think that I wasn't geared poorly. *edit* I also changed my overall +dmg to 2000 and it still didn't lean things to fireball spam. *edit*

Hopefully when I get access to the spreadsheet I can plug in the extra 5% and compare it to a non-haste mage and see how these two coorelate. The difference will swing towards fireball spam obviously, and it will obviously be less than the 5% difference in dps, so you could probably conclude that even if fireblast was slightly better, the range you gain may be more beneficial overall. Also, as you add haste the fireball spam will definately pass the fireblast rotation.

Thanks for the replies!

Last edited by Vannik : 12/05/07 at 3:08 PM.
#1713SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Edit: Also, when/did the description of permafrost change? It seems to imply that speccing into it reduces movement speed AND attack speed per point, wowhead has no additional info, and thottbot seems to be hinting at it also affecting attack speed
It affects Ice Armor which has a Movement & Attack speed reduction to them, so I believe that's where you see that wording come into effect.

Originally Posted by vannik View Post
****
The thing I concluded from a non-4piecet6 mage is that it's not the level of +dmg that makes fireball spam better it's the ammount of spell haste you have *****
You are forgetting that if a Fireblast and Fireball crit at the exact same time, the Ignite bonus is lost, and only the Fireball's Ignite goes, which over the course of a fight, is guaranteed to happen several times, leading to a lower dps than spreadsheets give. If you look back a couple pages, you'll see some initial work being done on what happens when you crit Fireballs faster than the Ignites can tick, and you'll see that the dps gain is very substantial. Passive haste doesn't apply fully here as it is impossible to stack enough haste passively to achieve these number reliably, but a decent chunk, 5-10% passive haste may push those numbers even higher.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 12/05/07 at 3:17 PM.
#1714SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Sinborn
I've noticed that quartz does not track the cast time of hasted blizzards very well. Quartz always correctly tracked AM with MSD procs, and bloodlust/troll zerking, but it seems stuck on the 8 sec cast time for blizzard. For instance when I had MSD and I cast blizzard when it procced, I got the double time blizzard, but the cast bar would stop halfway through.

BTW go spellsteal the haste buff in ZA off a flamecaster and cast blizzard or AM, it's great fun.

Last edited by Sinborn : 12/05/07 at 3:23 PM.
#1715SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sleyn
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I don't really see how that is an issue? The spell ends when it ends so you can just use it immidiatly after, it's not like you ever had to /stopcast macro Blizzard.
With spell haste the damage ticks from blizzard speed up.
#1716SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
BTW go spellsteal the haste buff in ZA off a flamecaster and cast blizzard or AM, it's great fun.
Or pyroblast spam. I think it brings it to a 1.5sec cast actually, every other single target spell is s under the GCD for sure.
#1717SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sleyn
Originally Posted by Kir View Post
Or pyroblast spam. I think it brings it to a 1.5sec cast actually, every other single target spell is s under the GCD for sure.
Arcane Missle can be spammed around the GCD, and if you have the threat reduction you'll actually be able to do some fun damage with it. Don't forget you can kite as well (with 200% increased movement speed) when you inevitably pull aggro.
#1718SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0vishal
Arcane 2P T5

Seen many discussion about this and how Arcane is dead.
I don't really believe its dead untill you have 4-Peice T6.
I am trying to show evidence, I am sure you guys have seen better but this is the best I have seen.
I recently became arcane from being fire for a long time so still trying to get used to rotation, and get used to casting AM when Clearcast procs so there should be alot of improvements.

The parse is not suppose to compare other guys just overall damage done by me.

Obviously have bunch of upgrades still comming:

Want hex trinket and Blessing deck that right there will move my + arcane damage over 1400 raid buff.
4P T5 will lower damage by about 40 points due to 7% int bonus to damage loss but will gain in the +70 damage for 6 sec every crit which should happen offen, etc.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Wow Web Stats

We just hit Mt. Hyjal last night, and winterchill killed the first time we saw him.
I kind of got owned by lag and didn't even dps the boss which sucks.

Basic question is, am i correct about my decision to stay Arcane untill i am able to build 4P T6 or am i just doing something wrong and due to that not able to perform as well as arcane. Not the perfect player but hope to get some insight on what you guys think.

Thanks in advance.
#1719SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0aliengrey
This thread has turned into a bitchfest. Peace out.
#1720SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0spiderella
Originally Posted by vishal View Post
Basic question is, am i correct about my decision to stay Arcane untill i am able to build 4P T6 or am i just doing something wrong and due to that not able to perform as well as arcane. Not the perfect player but hope to get some insight on what you guys think.
In my (generic) opinion - You are incorrect about 4pc t6 but you're not failing to generate appropriate damage w/ arcane spec. You would probably deal more damage as deep fire.
#1721SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
It affects Ice Armor which has a Movement & Attack speed reduction to them, so I believe that's where you see that wording come into effect.



You are forgetting that if a Fireblast and Fireball crit at the exact same time, the Ignite bonus is lost, and only the Fireball's Ignite goes, which over the course of a fight, is guaranteed to happen several times, leading to a lower dps than spreadsheets give. If you look back a couple pages, you'll see some initial work being done on what happens when you crit Fireballs faster than the Ignites can tick, and you'll see that the dps gain is very substantial. Passive haste doesn't apply fully here as it is impossible to stack enough haste passively to achieve these number reliably, but a decent chunk, 5-10% passive haste may push those numbers even higher.
This can easily be modeled. If i have a 30% crit rate with fireball (34% with fireblast) the probability of pulling a fireball crit is 3/10 and fireblast is 34/100:

3/10*(34/100) = 0.102 = 10.2% chance this will happen. So every 10 rotations you get this to happen or once every 75 seconds. so, ignite from a fireblast being 40% of total crit, if you crit for 2750 it'd be 1100 damage lost (40% of 2750) which equates to 14.66~dps. This isn't going 3 to 5% of your total dps, which still makes fireballx2 fireblast better until a haste threshold is hit. But yes I agree it does close the gap.

So, without 4 piece tier 6, and including this, I still conclude that fireballx2/fireblast is higher dps with 0 haste gear, and X ammount of damage. The cross over to fireball is dependent on spell haste not spell damage, which could be vaulable information to someone.

*edit* I've mentioned it a few times if someone would like to see my spreadsheet who does this type of analysis shoot me a PM *edit*
#1722SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Jarlyn
In regards to keeping Fire Blast in your normal rotation, it's relatively easy to prove that the higher your base +damage is, the gap between the much larger coefficient on Fireball vs the (comparatively) poor coefficient on Fire Blast will widen substantially as your gear improves. Even without the 4pc T6 bonus, 1 Fireball will ultimately do more than double the damage of 1 Fire Blast, particularly factoring in that haste rating is wasted on Fire Blast. At that point in time, you're better off with pure Fireball spam than trying to mix Fire Blast into your rotation.

Of course this situation is probably only going to be possible with a fair amount of MH/BT gear. For those still at T4/5 levels of spell damage, it may be worthwhile to Blast every time it's up.
#1723SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
In regards to keeping Fire Blast in your normal rotation, it's relatively easy to prove that the higher your base +damage is, the gap between the much larger coefficient on Fireball vs the (comparatively) poor coefficient on Fire Blast will widen substantially as your gear improves. Even without the 4pc T6 bonus, 1 Fireball will ultimately do more than double the damage of 1 Fire Blast, particularly factoring in that haste rating is wasted on Fire Blast. At that point in time, you're better off with pure Fireball spam than trying to mix Fire Blast into your rotation.

Of course this situation is probably only going to be possible with a fair amount of MH/BT gear. For those still at T4/5 levels of spell damage, it may be worthwhile to Blast every time it's up.
Jarlyn, this was the reference i was talking about, i personally have almost the best in every spot, and doing the math it's still a 3-5% dps increase.

Btw ignoring incinerate, spell haste, and ignite stacking, fire blast can be modelled as half the casting time of fireball. Simply, look at fire blast damage, and look at fireball, if fire blast does more than half of fireball it's beneficial dps. I'm still not convinced though that the ignites stacks are bugged still, i know they were in 2.0 but i haven't seen evidence since then.
#1724SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Jarlyn
Ignite stacks are bugged if and *only* if your spells go off such that your Fireball and Fire Blast hit (and obviously, crit) at the exact same time. Screenshots for proof:

Control (no fire blast):


Tests 1&2 (casting fire blast while the fireball was still in the air):




Last one, timing my blast so it hits exactly the same time the fireball does:


Did this about 2 minutes ago.
#1725SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
In regards to keeping Fire Blast in your normal rotation, it's relatively easy to prove that the higher your base +damage is, the gap between the much larger coefficient on Fireball vs the (comparatively) poor coefficient on Fire Blast will widen substantially as your gear improves. Even without the 4pc T6 bonus, 1 Fireball will ultimately do more than double the damage of 1 Fire Blast, particularly factoring in that haste rating is wasted on Fire Blast. At that point in time, you're better off with pure Fireball spam than trying to mix Fire Blast into your rotation.

Of course this situation is probably only going to be possible with a fair amount of MH/BT gear. For those still at T4/5 levels of spell damage, it may be worthwhile to Blast every time it's up.
I don't know if you read my early post, but according to my math, even with 2000+dmg the gap won't be bridged to make fireblall spam neglecting haste more dps. So, the point at which it is better to eliminate it for maximizing dps is better suited to a mage with some ammount of haste gear. It has nothing to do with how much +dmg you have, because with realalistic +dmg numbers assuming my equations are right and the other mage isn't lieing, , fireball spam is a slight dps (3-5%) downgrade when you have 0 haste. This 3%-5% drops ~1% when taking into account 1/10 fireblast will crit with a fireball and you'll lose the ignite damage. This is specifically for a non 5-piece tier 6 mage as well.


The gearing to make fireball spam better is revolved around haste gear.
#1726SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Finkum
To back up this argument with some (very simple) maths:- using the following formula

FBlast coeff x +dmg + Fblast base = (Fball coeff x +dmg + Fball base) / 2
0.43x + 725 = (1.15x + 719) / 2

and solving for x (your spell damage), it turns out you need 2520 spell damage for pure fireball spam's dps to equal the dps given by including fire blast in your rotation (assumes zero haste, does not account for incinerate).

With 4t6, this becomes

0.43x + 725 = 1.05 * (1.15x + 719) / 2

and solving for x gives 2006, still well above typical spell damage levels.

Augmenting the formula to allow for spell haste (no 4t6, y denotes spell haste rating):

0.43x + 725 = (1.15x + 719) / ((3 / (1 + (y / 1570))) / 1.5)

Substituting in my own raid-buffed +dmg, x = 1100, it turns out that I would need ~325 spell haste rating (~21% haste) before pure fireball spam wins out.
#1727SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Scruffy1207
Rotation Help

I need a little help with ultimate DPS rotation for a mage. I am a 41/20 arc fire spec. 1026 Fire DMG unbuffed, 28.21% chance to crit. any Ideas?
if this armory link works there ya go. it was broken when i copied the link. http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...maul&n=Scruffy
#1728SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Tempestra
Originally Posted by Scruffy1207 View Post
I need a little help with ultimate DPS rotation for a mage. I am a 41/20 arc fire spec. 1026 Fire DMG unbuffed, 28.21% chance to crit. any Ideas?
if this armory link works there ya go. it was broken when i copied the link. The World of Warcraft Armory
[Mage] Sweet Informational Thread

There's a sweet informational thread for a reason. Sorry - I really try to avoid saying "this is a stupid question" but... this thread exists for this specific purpose.
#1729SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Rounced
Originally Posted by Finkum View Post
To back up this argument with some (very simple) maths:- using the following formula

FBlast coeff x +dmg + Fblast base = (Fball coeff x +dmg + Fball base) / 2
0.43x + 725 = (1.15x + 719) / 2

and solving for x (your spell damage), it turns out you need 2520 spell damage for pure fireball spam's dps to equal the dps given by including fire blast in your rotation (assumes zero haste, does not account for incinerate).

With 4t6, this becomes

0.43x + 725 = 1.05 * (1.15x + 719) / 2

and solving for x gives 2006, still well above typical spell damage levels.

Augmenting the formula to allow for spell haste (no 4t6, y denotes spell haste rating):

0.43x + 725 = (1.15x + 719) / ((3 / (1 + (y / 1570))) / 1.5)

Substituting in my own raid-buffed +dmg, x = 1100, it turns out that I would need ~325 spell haste rating (~21% haste) before pure fireball spam wins out.

That is really interesting, I really didn't think that including Fireblast in the rotation, especially with Empowered Fireball, would scale nearly that well.

So would it be worth pulling a point from somewhere and taking the one point in Imp Fireblast or should I just plan on using Fireblast in the rotation whenever it is off cooldown? Also revises my current thoughts on speccing points into Incinerate.

Something like this perhaps,

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator

Edited to add:

At 1500 damage you would need 190 haste rating before pure Fireball spam beats adding in Fireblast. Which seems to imply that it really is worth placing that point in Improved Fireblast since having static 190 haste rating and being hit capped with 1500 spell damage isn't feasible with the currently available gear choices. Even with the Skull you will just use pure spam while the proc is active and then add Fireblast back into the rotation when the buff fades.

Last edited by Rounced : 12/06/07 at 9:57 AM.
#1730SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
In a deep firespec which is 10/44/3 you have 4 points to waste. People usually put the first three in pyroblast, blastwave, dragonsbreath and coincidentialy the last point fits perfect inn Imp fireblast to make fireblast be ready for a 2fireball+fireblast rotation
#1731SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
In a deep firespec which is 10/44/3 you have 4 points to waste. People usually put the first three in pyroblast, blastwave, dragonsbreath and coincidentialy the last point fits perfect inn Imp fireblast to make fireblast be ready for a 2fireball+fireblast rotation
That will be small consolance given the incoming need for Icy Veins. Funny how the amount of haste needed to make Fball>Fblast is exactly the amount given by IV.

I find it ironic that we re-discover Fblast an improvement over Fball when a few months back data was posted advocating against it in the old thread.
#1732SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
In a deep firespec which is 10/44/3 you have 4 points to waste. People usually put the first three in pyroblast, blastwave, dragonsbreath and coincidentialy the last point fits perfect inn Imp fireblast to make fireblast be ready for a 2fireball+fireblast rotation

I was talking about for 2.3.2 and I don't think many people will be keeping the 10 points in Arcane once Icy Veins becomes available.
#1733SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
That will be small consolance given the incoming need for Icy Veins. Funny how the amount of haste needed to make Fball>Fblast is exactly the amount given by IV.

I find it ironic that we re-discover Fblast an improvement over Fball when a few months back data was posted advocating against it in the old thread.
From what I remember that old data advocated to not weave it inn at something like 1500-1600 spelldmg. The only reason I don't always weave it inn is mana and ping since it seems to slow down the sequence due to new castingsystem.
#1734SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
All of this assumes 0 lag and a working server side spell queue. You guys need to run the proper tests on the new cast system to make sure it will output 0 latency on instant casts, since that would invalidate your conclusions.
#1735SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
From what I've noticed, 1 point isn't sufficient to do a 2 fireball/ 1 fireblast rotation anymore with the new casting mechanic. When I've tested it out, the cool down isn't up when you're able to start casting the fireblast...which is at about 1/5 of the fireball cast bar left. With 1 point, you have to wait till the fireball is nearly complete before you can cast fireblast. With 2 points, the cool down comes back up just in time to cast it when my fireball is 2/3 of the way complete.

What this seems to do is start your global cool down before you even finish your fireball cast or at least as soon as you finish the cast, which means you can start your next fireball sooner.

Also, has anyone else noticed that Scorch is currently giving 2 stacks per hit on the Crusade Card? This may be old news but I just noticed it this week since I hardly pay attention to that stacking anymore.
#1736SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kilon
I were wondering if the Fireball-Fireball-Fireblast rotations are still beneficial to your dps if you have enough haste to cast the 2 Fireballs before the cooldown ends (assuming you'll always lose at least a very little cast time to latency). Would you attain higher damage by just waiting out, i.e. casting 3 Fireballs prior to the Fireblast, wait until the CD finishes (I'm talking about the occasional 0.05-0.08 second, not for every Fireblast as I still encounter the issue of latency), or drop some other talent point to reduce the Cooldown on Fireblast by another 0.5 second?
#1737SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
As posted above...there are really only 44 points in fire worth getting...blastwave and dragons breath aren't worth all that much as from my experience...they get me killed while AEing quite often from their larger amount of threat. Depending on your haste, you could drop all 3 points in imp fireblast.
#1738SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Duodecimal
If replacing clearcasting with the new mana gems is a wash, how does the extra 30 mana per second or so cost of weaving Fireblast factor into sustainability?

In my spreadsheet it nearly doubles mana consumption. Is that worth a ~3% dps gain?
#1739SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kasi
It really depends if you have a shadow priest. It's probably much the same with me doing a 3 LB, 1 CL rotation. If you have a shadow priest, you probably won't be able to run oom as a fire mage no matter what you do (well other than spamming flamestrike). If you don't then yeah you probably won't be able to fireblast at all, and might have issues just maintaining a full fireball spam.
#1740SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
As for latency/new casting mechanics affecting when you can start Fblast, who cares?

If Fblast is indeed more than 0.5 of a fireball, I'm not bothered if I can fit one for a 2*Fball,1*Fblast rot. Why not go 3*Fball,1*Fblast rotation instead? No excess points to be dumped in Imp Fblast and no question of whether there's some funny check serverside, blah blah. Though I do concede that manly has a point on whether the server handles the start of the next Fireball correctly in terms of timing.

Granted, 2Fball,1Fblast will be better than 3Fball,1Fblast on theortetical terms, but I wouldn't risk having server side inject added down-time because it won't handle cooldowns correctly.
#1741SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
As for latency/new casting mechanics affecting when you can start Fblast, who cares?

If Fblast is indeed more than 0.5 of a fireball, I'm not bothered if I can fit one for a 2*Fball,1*Fblast rot. Why not go 3*Fball,1*Fblast rotation instead? No excess points to be dumped in Imp Fblast and no question of whether there's some funny check serverside, blah blah. Though I do concede that manly has a point on whether the server handles the start of the next Fireball correctly in terms of timing.

Granted, 2Fball,1Fblast will be better than 3Fball,1Fblast on theortetical terms, but I wouldn't risk having server side inject added down-time because it won't handle cooldowns correctly.
You are being rather dismissive for a theory crafting thread. Have you actually tried it yourself to see what i'm talking about with the GCD starting earlier when using fireblast with 2 points in it? Even it if starts .1 seconds earlier...that's 4 seconds of dps time gained over a 5 minute fight....which is another fireball. This is theory crafting after all...not oh it's good enough.

I'll test this more this weekend to see if it does infact start the GCD quicker.
#1742SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Avg fireball = ((1-crit%)*((904+713)/2+ dmg*1.15)*1.13 + cit%*((904+713)/2+ +dmg*1.15)*1.13*2.1)
Avg fireblast = ((1-crit%-0.04)*((730+865)/2+ +dmg*0.43)*1.13 + 2.1*(crit%+0.04)*((730+865)/2+ +dmg*0.43)*1.13)

This is the average value including ignites for critting that your fireball and fireblast will hit for. (A crit is 150% of spell damage + 40% of the total crit. Yes, I know you can't count crit damage as instant damage, but these crit %'s are only true as you look towards infinity, so if you do your calculations based on your exact crit% this fact will be negligible.

With these numbers you need 3200+dmg 30% crit to make fireball spam = fireblast rotation. I agree with the fact that due to spell queing and latency you'd need 2 points in fireblast so you can que it like you can fireball.
#1743SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ebbv
DISCLAIMER!
So this isn't really that meaningful, I was just curious what the numbers would be. Obviously more thorough testing needs to be done. I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

I'm wearing some haste gear so my Fireball Cast time should be 2.87sec. I realize I could have simplified this by taking off the haste gear but I am curious about how the haste gear impacts it too, so here we are.

35.890 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3417 Fire damage.
38.796 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2176 Fire damage. 2.906 (+36ms)
41.828 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3536 Fire damage. 3.032 (+162ms)
44.859 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2150 Fire damage. 3.031 (+161ms)
47.671 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2203 Fire damage. 2.812 (-60ms?)
50.687 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3242 Fire damage. 3.016 (+146ms)
53.796 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2191 Fire damage. 3.111 (+241ms)
56.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2302 Fire damage. 2.813 (-60ms?)
00.359 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2113 Fire damage. 3.750 (I flubbed this one)
03.343 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2210 Fire damage. 2.984 (+114ms)
07.171 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3355 Fire damage. 3.828 (I flubbed this one too)
Average Latency 92ms

The first thing that jumps out besides the 2 I messed up (which we'll just throw out), is the 2 which have shorter than expected cast times. I believe this is a feature of the new cast system and with enough practice and perhaps some adjustment to Quartz once we understand it better, may become repeatable.

Anyway the above Fireball spam is easy to understand and obvious.


15.625 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 2040 Fire damage.
16.437 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2166 Fire damage. 0.812
21.156 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2258 Fire damage. 4.719
23.968 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3428 Fire damage. 2.812
26.156 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 2099 Fire damage. 2.188
27.203 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2185 Fire damage. 1.047
31.734 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2225 Fire damage. 4.531
34.125 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1329 Fire damage. 2.391
34.546 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2049 Fire damage. 0.421
39.640 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3217 Fire damage. 5.094
42.500 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3349 Fire damage. 2.86
42.687 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1339 Fire damage. 0.187

Here is one example of Fireball, Fireball, Fireblast combat logs using the same gear with 2.87 cast. Note that it is not as intuitive to read due to travel time mixing up the time of damage dealt vs. cast time. Let's break it down.

A - Fireball
B - Fireball
C - Fireblast

Because of Travel Time C will hit before B, and this is what obfuscates the combat log. We expect a single rotation with my haste gear to take:

2.87*2 + 1.5 = 7.24sec

Let's look at what the rotations actually took from another Ball, Ball, Blast log. This time with rotations labeled:

17.578 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 2123 Fire damage. C0
23.406 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2138 Fire damage. A1 5.828
25.906 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1351 Fire damage. C1 2.5
26.328 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3288 Fire damage. B1 0.422
31.046 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2199 Fire damage. A2 4.718
33.484 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 2029 Fire damage.C2 2.438
34.062 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2210 Fire damage. B2 0.578
39.218 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2314 Fire damage. A3 5.156
41.515 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1374 Fire damage. C3 2.297
42.031 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2055 Fire damage. B3 0.517
46.953 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3262 Fire damage. A4 4.922
49.218 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1402 Fire damage. C4 2.265
50.046 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3467 Fire damage. B4 0.828
54.890 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3470 Fire damage. A5 4.844
57.203 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1310 Fire damage. C5 2.313
57.812 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2208 Fire damage. B5 0.609
03.390 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3303 Fire damage. A6 5.578
So if we take a given set we should have the time of that rotation. Note that any given A will contain the GCD from the C of the set before it. Let's see what these 5 rotations actually took.

A1 5.828
B1 0.422
C1 2.500
T1 8.75 (+1.51*)

A2 4.718
B2 0.578
C2 2.438
T2 7.734 (+0.510)

A3 5.156
B3 0.517
C3 2.297
T3 7.97 (+0.730)

A4 4.922
B4 0.828
C4 2.265
T4 8.015 (+0.775)

A5 4.844
B5 0.609
C5 2.313
T5 = 7.766 (+0.526)

* - Slow first fireball, so let's throw this out.

Ignoring the first set, the last 4 still each took an average of 635ms longer than we'd expect to complete the rotation. That is to say that our 7.24sec rotation becomes 7.875sec rotation in reality, and that means that 8% of your cast time is being eaten up by latency.

By comparison with my Fireball spam example above each Fireball averages 92ms latency, that means each Fireball goes from 2.87sec to 2.962sec on average. That's just 3% of cast time eaten by latency, or almost 3 times more efficient than Fireblast rotation.

This is why Fireball Spam is better DPS than Fireblast rotation even though on paper it seems like Fireblast should be better.

I encourage someone else to do some more thorough testing, I just wanted to get this out there.

Last edited by ebbv : 12/06/07 at 2:57 PM. Reason: Clarification
#1744SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
DISCLAIMER!
So this isn't really that meaningful, I was just curious what the numbers would be. Obviously more thorough testing needs to be done. I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

I'm wearing some haste gear so my Fireball Cast time should be 2.87sec. I realize I could have simplified this by taking off the haste gear but I am curious about how the haste gear impacts it too, so here we are.



Average Latency 92ms

The first thing that jumps out besides the 2 I messed up (which we'll just throw out), is the 2 which have shorter than expected cast times. I believe this is a feature of the new cast system and with enough practice and perhaps some adjustment to Quartz once we understand it better, may become repeatable.

Anyway the above Fireball spam is easy to understand and obvious.





Here is one example of Fireball, Fireball, Fireblast combat logs using the same gear with 2.87 cast. Note that it is not as intuitive to read due to travel time mixing up the time of damage dealt vs. cast time. Let's break it down.

A - Fireball
B - Fireball
C - Fireblast

Because of Travel Time C will hit before B, and this is what obfuscates the combat log. We expect a single rotation with my haste gear to take:

2.87*2 + 1.5 = 7.24sec

Let's look at what the rotations actually took from another Ball, Ball, Blast log. This time with rotations labeled:



So if we take a given set we should have the time of that rotation. Note that any given A will contain the GCD from the C of the set before it. Let's see what these 5 rotations actually took.

A1 5.828
B1 0.422
C1 2.500
T1 8.75 (+1.51*)

A2 4.718
B2 0.578
C2 2.438
T2 7.734 (+0.510)

A3 5.156
B3 0.517
C3 2.297
T3 7.97 (+0.730)

A4 4.922
B4 0.828
C4 2.265
T4 8.015 (+0.775)

A5 4.844
B5 0.609
C5 2.313
T5 = 7.766 (+0.526)

* - Slow first fireball, so let's throw this out.

Ignoring the first set, the last 4 still each took an average of 635ms longer than we'd expect to complete the rotation. That is to say that our 7.24sec rotation becomes 7.875sec rotation in reality, and that means that 8% of your cast time is being eaten up by latency.

By comparison with my Fireball spam example above each Fireball averages 92ms latency, that means each Fireball goes from 2.87sec to 2.962sec on average. That's just 3% of cast time eaten by latency, or almost 3 times more efficient than Fireblast rotation.

This is why Fireball Spam is better DPS than Fireblast rotation even though on paper it seems like Fireblast should be better.

I encourage someone else to do some more thorough testing, I just wanted to get this out there.
Wow. . . with 1250 dmg and 70 haste yes, even mathmatically it will go to fireball's favor. Do you have one point in fireblast? Probably. The most effective way to analyze this is just to figure the time between fireblasts. But you should have 2 points in imp fireblast if you want to better take into effect of the spell queing and that will also account for some haste to a point.
#1745SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0beta4Life
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post

At 1500 damage you would need 190 haste rating before pure Fireball spam beats adding in Fireblast. Which seems to imply that it really is worth placing that point in Improved Fireblast since having static 190 haste rating and being hit capped with 1500 spell damage isn't feasible with the currently available gear choices. Even with the Skull you will just use pure spam while the proc is active and then add Fireblast back into the rotation when the buff fades.
1500 spell dmg is definitely feasible raid buffed. I believe that I sit right around 1540 fully buffed (imp DS, flask, food, oil, and shammy totem), with 145 passive haste +skull of guldan (which is equivalent to about 29 passive haste used every cooldown i believe). I find that squeezing fireblasts into my rotation doesn't boost my dps enough to even notice it (due to the unpredictable nature of crits), the mana inefficiency isn't really a problem with evocate, but if you think about it, your fireblast would have to increase your dps by more than 60ish, in order to make up for the 10 seconds you have to spend evocating every fight because you throw the fireblasts in.

I am not saying that fireblast isn't worth doing for everyone, but once you reach the end of the game, and have 1250+ spell dmg unbuffed, with a decent amount of haste, it is unlikely that fireblast will do anything for you.

Just to preempt any questions about my low hit, i always have a draenei elemental shaman in my group, making the hit cap for me only 9% (4% from shaman, 3% from EP).
#1746SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Vannik View Post
Wow. . . with 1250 dmg and 70 haste yes, even mathmatically it will go to fireball's favor. Do you have one point in fireblast? Probably. The most effective way to analyze this is just to figure the time between fireblasts. But you should have 2 points in imp fireblast if you want to better take into effect of the spell queing and that will also account for some haste to a point.
I obviously have 1 point in Fireblast, yes. Even with 2 points, the way that latency interacts with instant GCD spells like Fireblast is what kills it. Also don't quote long posts if you're just going to write a 3 line response, please.
#1747SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Well, your methodology is somewhat flawed. The combatlogs show only local timestamps. This means the order in which you see things listed have no correlation with the order it ran on the server. The only way to know if the 'server side queue' does allow for 0 latency is to cast as many fireballs as possible, and compare the total time taken vs predicted time.

The best way to test this out would be no haste gear, downrank to the first rank of fireball with 3s cast time, and spam that.
Then do the same with ice lance spam.
Then do the same with downranked fireball/icelance.

In any case, it isn't productive to point out that 1500 damage is possible in the top end gear. If you like doing that, you can have fun posting in the wow forums. The issue that will have by far the most impact of the theory is whether or not zero latency is possible. Going through very rough numbers, if you gain, say, 3% more dps with fireblast every 3 fireballs (ignoring gear and whatnot), but at the same time it costs you an added 100ms lag every 1.5seconds, then it is readily apparent that fireblast is not the way to go.
#1748SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Right, that's what I was doing a rough test for. To see how the fact that Fireblast doesn't interact well with the new cast system impacted latency in the rotation. And I think even with the tiny little example I used, it's readily apparent that Fireblast doesn't play well.

Tomorrow is a non-raid night so if nobody else has taken up the task I will do some more thorough testing then.
#1749SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
DISCLAIMER!
So this isn't really that meaningful, I was just curious what the numbers would be. Obviously more thorough testing needs to be done. I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

Lots more stuff :-)
Wondering if the issue has to do with the possibility that they added a server-side "queue" to the casting system. Well not so much a queue as a fudge factor. There was talk on the UI forums by Blue that they were thinking of allowing a bit of leeway into the system as to when the server would receive the request.

So the server would be eligible to receive a new request say up to 250ms before it was actually free to cast a new spell and then would cast that spell exactly when freed.

Not sure if it ever was incorporated into the system or not but since you say you had one point in Improved Fireblast that would mean that the server would only allow the next cast every 7.5 seconds but since you have some haste involved, 2.87 fireballs, you would be adding 0.26 seconds into the equation since that would be necessary to complete the cooldown with only 1 point in Improved Fireblast.

So your average rotation ended up being 7.875 and the cooldown for Fireblast with 1 point is 7.5 so for the 3 spells you actually only added 0.375ms or 0.125ms per spell which doesn't look too much different then the 0.092ms you had with Fireball spam and could be accounted for by the Human factor especially in such a small sampling.

What I'm suggesting is that the Fireblast was eligible to be cast even with only one point in Improved Fireblast due to the "fudge" factor in the casting system allowing the cast request to hit the server and be responded to even though you actually shouldn't have been able to cast due to Fireblast still being on cooldown due to the haste.

Someone should hop (I'm at work atm) on the test server and either repeat the test with no haste gear in place or take 2 points in Improved Fireblast and see if the same latency issue is still there.
#1750SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0clairecakes
So the guild is making serious attempts on Al'ar and then we'll be moving back to SSC and working on Hydross. Now the idea of deep fire or deep frost spec doesn't really appeal to me because that means respecs between boss attempts. I've been arcane/frost and done decent damage (and jaw dropping amazing when a deep frost mage puts up Winter's Chill) but I was thinking of maybe trying a 40/5/16 spec. I can use the fireballs as filler on hydross and go back to frostbolts for al'ar.

Would that work? Or am I over thinking/ignoring things?

My big goal is to get my other piece of T5 spec arc/frost and woo another mage to spec deep frost.
#1751SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Cardynal
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Wondering if the issue has to do with the possibility that they added a server-side "queue" to the casting system. Well not so much a queue as a fudge factor. There was talk on the UI forums by Blue that they were thinking of allowing a bit of leeway into the system as to when the server would receive the request.

So the server would be eligible to receive a new request say up to 250ms before it was actually free to cast a new spell and then would cast that spell exactly when freed.

Not sure if it ever was incorporated into the system or not but since you say you had one point in Improved Fireblast that would mean that the server would only allow the next cast every 7.5 seconds but since you have some haste involved, 2.87 fireballs, you would be adding 0.26 seconds into the equation since that would be necessary to complete the cooldown with only 1 point in Improved Fireblast.

So your average rotation ended up being 7.875 and the cooldown for Fireblast with 1 point is 7.5 so for the 3 spells you actually only added 0.375ms or 0.125ms per spell which doesn't look too much different then the 0.092ms you had with Fireball spam and could be accounted for by the Human factor especially in such a small sampling.

What I'm suggesting is that the Fireblast was eligible to be cast even with only one point in Improved Fireblast due to the "fudge" factor in the casting system allowing the cast request to hit the server and be responded to even though you actually shouldn't have been able to cast due to Fireblast still being on cooldown due to the haste.

Someone should hop (I'm at work atm) on the test server and either repeat the test with no haste gear in place or take 2 points in Improved Fireblast and see if the same latency issue is still there.
You're not going to be able to cast the fireblast and have it still go through with this "fudge" factor since your cooldown in is the client side. I don't believe the request would even go to the server since you're hitting a cooldown. If so...you'd be able to cast during GCD...or under 1.5 seconds...and have it go through. I'm at work as well so I'm unable to test this. =/

Good point about the added MS though.

And Clairecakes....wrong place to post this.
#1752SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
So your average rotation ended up being 7.875 and the cooldown for Fireblast with 1 point is 7.5 so for the 3 spells you actually only added 0.375ms or 0.125ms per spell which doesn't look too much different then the 0.092ms you had with Fireball spam and could be accounted for by the Human factor especially in such a small sampling.
It could be the human factor, but please note that 125ms being added to a Fireblast is equivallent to 250ms being added to a Fireball, which is a far cry from the 92ms average I saw.

Again, much more testing needs to be done, I just did a quick test to see if how bad Fireblast interacted with the new cast system and with the bit of haste gear I have.

edit:

And yeah, that's correct, you cannot start the first Fireball of the next rotation "on time" because of the GCD from Fireblast preventing you from even sending the request, this is a big part of why the Fireblast rotation gets destroyed by latency.

Normal Fireball spam is able to overcome latency a bit due to the new system (and before it, via /stopcasting), but when you put a Fireblast into the rotation half of your fireballs are being delayed until the GCD is up.
#1753SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
It could be the human factor, but please note that 125ms being added to a Fireblast is equivallent to 250ms being added to a Fireball, which is a far cry from the 92ms average I saw.

Again, much more testing needs to be done, I just did a quick test to see if how bad Fireblast interacted with the new cast system and with the bit of haste gear I have.

edit:

And yeah, that's correct, you cannot start the first Fireball of the next rotation "on time" because of the GCD from Fireblast preventing you from even sending the request, this is a big part of why the Fireblast rotation gets destroyed by latency.

Normal Fireball spam is able to overcome latency a bit due to the new system (and before it, via /stopcasting), but when you put a Fireblast into the rotation half of your fireballs are being delayed until the GCD is up.

Your haste on your gear is going to obviously swing fireblast out, because as haste increases the advantage of fireball spam increases due to your 7.5 second cooldown. I don't know why you can't see this, but your fireblast rotation will always be 7.5seconds given any ammount of haste, so you can also see that the GCD is clipping.

All I am saying is that just generally saying fireball spam is the way to go is completely incorrect, no matter what attainable +dmg you have. Fireball spam is more closely related to your haste gear.

Try a 3 fireball/fireblast rotation to see if the latency kills it. This should both eliminate your haste gear effecting the global cooldown problem that you have. You should notice an increase in dps with fireballx3/fireblast over fireball spam. If not, we can conclude that instant casts have a different mechanic than non-instant spells, if that's what you're implying, in regards to spell queing.
#1754SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Rounced
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post

Normal Fireball spam is able to overcome latency a bit due to the new system (and before it, via /stopcasting), but when you put a Fireblast into the rotation half of your fireballs are being delayed until the GCD is up.

Actually that's wrong.

GCD is client side. Which means there is no reason to fudge it at all. It starts running the instant you request the spell on your client and runs for exactly 1.5 seconds and then allows you to make additional requests. The fudge factor is built in since you have to wait for the 1.5 seconds to run before you can make an additional request.

0 - request Fireblast, GCD starts and cooldown starts for Fireblast
0.15 - server receives Fireblast request, casts Fireblast
1.5 - client completes GCD and is free to request new spell
1.65 - server receives next spell request

Thats why your client locks up in GCD whenever you request a spell, so that the server doesn't have to worry about the timing of the next spell request. I'm sure there are checks to make sure that you haven't hacked the client to shorten the GCD but otherwise even if the request goes in a bit early due to shifting latency the server will still honor the request.


True this is only my limited understanding of the way the new system functions but with GCD being fixed in duration and completely client-side there shouldn't be any issues with needing to fudge anything no matter how the new system works.

Last edited by Rounced : 12/06/07 at 11:35 PM.
#1755SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by clairecakes View Post
So the guild is making serious attempts on Al'ar and then we'll be moving back to SSC and working on Hydross. Now the idea of deep fire or deep frost spec doesn't really appeal to me because that means respecs between boss attempts. I've been arcane/frost and done decent damage (and jaw dropping amazing when a deep frost mage puts up Winter's Chill) but I was thinking of maybe trying a 40/5/16 spec. I can use the fireballs as filler on hydross and go back to frostbolts for al'ar.

Would that work? Or am I over thinking/ignoring things?

My big goal is to get my other piece of T5 spec arc/frost and woo another mage to spec deep frost.
[Mage] Help me please? That way ->

Every day there's someone who wants advice on the TC thread.

For hydros, don't bother 5 talent balls aren't worth it. With no ignite to create synergy with Spell Power it's quite mediocre. I'm full frost and on Hydros I just AB/Scorch rotate, Unless DPS is an issue for your guild (and if it is, you should respec) it won't matter.

Al'ar likewise isn't particularly intensive on DPS. As long as you can manage a modicum of 500ish dps you're fine. many mages do Al'ar full fire using default AM and AB rotations which is quite low on output but adequate for what is primarily a heal-and-tank intensive encounter.
#1756SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by clairecakes View Post
So the guild is making serious attempts on Al'ar and then we'll be moving back to SSC and working on Hydross. Now the idea of deep fire or deep frost spec doesn't really appeal to me because that means respecs between boss attempts. I've been arcane/frost and done decent damage (and jaw dropping amazing when a deep frost mage puts up Winter's Chill) but I was thinking of maybe trying a 40/5/16 spec. I can use the fireballs as filler on hydross and go back to frostbolts for al'ar.

Would that work? Or am I over thinking/ignoring things?

My big goal is to get my other piece of T5 spec arc/frost and woo another mage to spec deep frost.
Respeccing for al'ar is something you'll only do your first kills anyways. I went deep frost for Al'ar 2 maybe 3 times then just stayed fire and used arcane-spells and did like 600 dps instead just means the fight will be a tad longer.
#1757SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
There are a few things to consider when looking at fireblasting.

1) Haste gear limits the effectiveness of this - as the rotation can never be under 7.5s
2) Mana - If rotating in fireblast causes you to have to evocate - that's 8-10s of dps loss.


Generally it's really not worth it unless it's a fight that requires movement such as gurtogg bloodboil rotations (perfect time to rotate in fireblasts)

Edit: Also - once you've "beat the game" in gear - it's not even a consideration on standstill fights :P

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/14/07 at 5:24 AM.
#1758SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post

1) Latency - 200 ping = 1.7s fireblast vs 3s fireball
I don't get why people keep saying this. One aspect of the "fix" to the casting mechanics is that it should turn 1.5s casts into true 1.5s casts. Thats why the GCD occurs whenever you request a spell.

I think the real problem is that we are all relatively proficient at using Quartz and /stopcasting so that we can aim for "button up" right when the casting bar hits the red but since Quartz doesn't run with an instant cast spell we lose that frame of reference and our "button up" occurs with a slight delay.

Just did some testing on the PTR. Cast 20 Fireballs and 28 for each of the other spell sets.

Casting with Quartz and aiming for "button up" at the red
Fireball - average 3.046
Scorch - 1.602


Spamming cast button as fast as I could
Scorch - 1.56
Ice Lance - 1.593


With all the sets I had several casts under the 1.5s mark which leads to an interesting question; is the lag due to me or the mechanics of the new system?

Fastest Casts (no haste gear)

Fireball - 2.719
Scorch - 0.969

Scorch Spam - 1.312
Ice Lance Spam - 1.375

Being able to cast under the supposed minimum casting time also seems like it should be worth exploring to see if it is real or just due to the data being recorded on my client and the latency between my client and the server causing the discrepancies.

So does anyone want to pull out a G15 and go after Dr Boom with Ice Lance and Scorch spam again (Manly)?
#1759SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
It's not the spam they are referring too, they are referring to weaving in a different spell between fireballs where you aren't chaining the same cast. Go 2xfireball 1xinstacast.
#1760SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
You've always been able to cast under the "supposed minimum casting time" It's just, you can't cast a new spell before the GCD is over - or am I misunderstanding you?
#1761SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
The wow general threads at the time of implementation were touting that instant cast spells were being handled differently and not affected by the spell queue. Although I did hear a wide amount of different theories about how it works, the ones that seemed the most appropriate are the one with the 250ms latency window and the one about the instant casts.

In any case, 3.046ms average lag out of 20/28 fireballs would indicate that there is in fact no spell queue. If you think a bit about it, the only time we should see the effect of lag would be at the last fireball (ie: the local timestamp of the last fireball can be misleading) and also at the first fireball if you begin your stopwatch as you begin to hit your key. As such, if true spell queue existed, I would expect maybe 300 ms lag in total, not much above that. In other words, 0.3s of lag spread out over 20 casts, which would give 3.015s average fireball casts.

With this said, I can give it a shot with a G15. I might also try a G15 macro of (/cast /wait 100ms /cast /wait 3s /cast /wait 3s /cast /wait 3s ...) which would properly test out what were looking for.
#1762SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
ebbv
The "below minimum" cast times are due to latency fluctuations. Such that your "start cast" from the server to your client is delayed more by latency than the "cast complete" message. I figured this out after my testing yesterday revealed those faster fireballs.

Also those who keep bringing up my haste gear, it was already addressed on the previous page. Even if you take the haste gear out of the equation, and just ignore the 0.26s that in theory I had to wait for my Fireblast cooldown (though latency on the Fireballs should have reduced that somewhat), the Latency impact on Fireblast was still much greater than Fireball.

Alright, so I'm tired of the haste gear being brought up which I was afraid it might be, along with the Fireblast cooldown. So I swapped out the haste gear and respecced to have full 3/3 Imp Fireblast. The combination of the two is unnecessary but this way nobody can call shennanigans. Here's what I got, which is very much in line with what I got before if you ignored the 260ms from Haste.

So here we are doing a 7.5sec Rotation.

10.062 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3183 Fire damage. A0
12.390 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 2046 Fire damage. C0 2.328
13.375 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3249 Fire damage. B0 0.985
18.125 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2070 Fire damage. A1 4.75
20.156 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1336 Fire damage. C1 2.031
21.343 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1999 Fire damage. B1 1.187
25.953 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1980 Fire damage. A2 4.61
28.171 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1309 Fire damage. C2 2.218
29.171 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2104 Fire damage. B2 1.00
33.921 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3224 Fire damage. A3 4.75
35.875 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 1951 Fire damage. C3 1.954
37.031 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3284 Fire damage. B3 1.156
41.656 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3170 Fire damage. A4 4.625
43.765 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 1967 Fire damage. C4 2.109
44.875 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3352 Fire damage. B4 1.11
49.609 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3226 Fire damage. A5 4.734
51.796 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1334 Fire damage. C5 2.187
52.703 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2100 Fire damage. B5 0.907
57.343 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3133 Fire damage. A6 4.64
59.359 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 2016 Fire damage. C6 2.016
00.468 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3153 Fire damage. B6 1.109
05.093 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3310 Fire damage. A7 4.625
07.093 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1329 Fire damage. C7 2.00
08.328 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3366 Fire damage. B7 1.235
12.953 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3140 Fire damage. A8 4.625
14.937 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1364 Fire damage. C8 1.984
16.046 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3271 Fire damage. B8 1.109
20.593 Your Fireball was resisted by Dr. Boom. 4.547 Ax
A1 4.75
B1 1.187
C1 2.031
T1 7.968 (+468ms)

A2 4.61
B2 1.00
C2 2.218
T2 7.828 (+328ms)

A3 4.75
B3 1.156
C3 1.954
T3 7.86 (+360ms)

A4 4.625
B4 1.11
C4 2.109
T4 7.844 (+344ms)

A5 4.734
B5 0.907
C5 2.187
T5 7.828 (+328ms)

A6 4.64
B6 1.109
C6 2.016
T6 7.765 (+265ms)

A7 4.625
B7 1.235
C7 2.00
T7 7.86 (+360ms)

A8 4.625
B8 1.109
C8 1.984
T8 7.718 (+218ms)


Average Latency 333ms


So average Latency per rotation is 333ms, which is much higher than the 92ms per Fireball average I got on Fireball spam. Any way you slice it, it's Fireblast and the GCD getting in the way that's killing it. From my testing the GCD is NOT ending early and allowing you to start your Fireball on time, it is delaying the next Fireball every time.

Obviously the sample size is still small, but one thing that struck me was the consistency of the numbers, including more identical timings than I'd have ever expected.

edit:

Manly I had the opposite conclusion. The average latency per Fireball being so much lower than my actual average latency tells me there *is* a spell queue. The average latency per Fireball can be account for by latency fluctuations, note that as would be expected from such an artifact, we are seeing negative latency.

I am fairly convinced that for non-instant spells there is a small "grace window", which does act like a queue. For instant spells it's not there, though, because you're waiting on GCD, not a castbar.

Last edited by ebbv : 12/07/07 at 1:19 PM.
#1763SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
You've always been able to cast under the "supposed minimum casting time" It's just, you can't cast a new spell before the GCD is over - or am I misunderstanding you?

Well I did cast under the GCD if you look at the Fastest cast for Scorch and Ice Lance.

Thanks for agreeing to test that Manly, I'm really curious what it would show.

As for the weaving aspect, one of the things that makes that testing very unreliable is the human factor.

Since Quartz isn't running a casting bar for the Instant cast spells you are asking a person to synchonize between a bar that they are already familiar with and are used to operating and a clock type motion on their casting bar. I was trying to see if for an instant cast spell if you could cast your Fireball, time the click of the Fireblast and then spam Fireball while the GCD runs. But the testing actually led to other questions that really should be looked at and the mechanics nailed down before looking at what happens at the interaction between 2 separate spell mechanics.

One thing I did notice during my Ice Lance spam is that there is indeed a delay between pressing the button and the spell actually firing, BUT that delay did nothing to increase the cast time mechanics. I think that delay is just normal server latency between client and server and it appears worse then we are used to since the GCD is already running and we are focused on that instead of looking for a new casting bar. Since the GCD starts from your client it is running when the client is told by the server that the spell cast, whereas for a "cast time" spell the new casting bar starts and the spell fires simultaneously on instruction from the server.

Manly, if you wouldn't mind could you also run a test where you Fireblast -> timed cast Fireball -> timed cast Fireball -> Fireblast -> spam cast Fireball (until the cast bar starts) -> timed cast Fireball -> timed cast Fireblast -> spam cast Fireball...repeat. The spamming should be with something like 0.02 keypress intervals on the G15.

Do it on the PTR and with no haste gear and at least 1 point in Improved Fireblast (2 might be better to remove that conditional) and we should be able to see a little better if it a human timing flaw or something intrinsic to the new system.
#1764SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
As for the weaving aspect, one of the things that makes that testing very unreliable is the human factor.
I believe this statement is incorrect. The human factor will be there when the Fireblast rotation is actually being used in a raid situation too, so it's an essential part of the equation. The goal here is to preview in a controlled environment what we're likely to see in a raid scenario out of this method of DPS. The figures we get back are actually idealized since there's no distractions, we're just spamming spells on an unmoving target.

In terms of discovering the true underlying behavior of the casting system, then yes the human factor gets in the way, and so does our fluctuating latency. But the real goal, at least to me, was to see if latency affected Fireblast rotation differently from Fireball spamming, and if so was it enough to overcome the modest DPS gain.
#1765SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Duplicate post due to Firefox timing out. My apologies.
#1766SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Here's how the new casting mechanics work: whenever you press a button, the client checks that you meet the requirements (enough mana, in range, etc.) against the data it currently has (what you see on screen). These are immediate checks; if they fail, no GCD is invoked, and you get an instant error message.

If, however, you pass the client-side checks, the request is sent to the server, where the server runs many of the same checks (ostensibly to prevent hacking of the client), and the result of these checks (success or failure) is sent back to the client.

In the event of a casting time spell, the casting bar appears only after the server's confirmation is received by the client--this is how Quartz measures instantaneous latency. In the event of an instant, your instant visually fires only after receiving server confirmation; you can confirm this visually by watching the yellow outline on the button--it only disappears after a short amount of time, the GCD was already cycling.

If you fail the server-side checks, the client aborts the GCD, and the server's error message appears.


Now then, since the client-side GCD starts the instant you press the button, it is always a true 1.5 seconds, not affected by latency. For casting time spells, all that is different between 2.3 and 2.2 (or should be) is that the client no longer checks against whether you're in the middle of a cast or not--thus, if you pass all other checks, your request is sent to the server anyway, where a casting check is invoked. Thus, there is no need for a spell queue in this system--rather, the server becomes the master arbiter of whether you're still casting or not (and thus, whether you could start casting a new spell).
#1767SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
So average Latency per rotation is 333ms, which is much higher than the 92ms per Fireball average I got on Fireball spam. Any way you slice it, it's Fireblast and the GCD getting in the way that's killing it. From my testing the GCD is NOT ending early and allowing you to start your Fireball on time, it is delaying the next Fireball every time.
Thank you for the additional testing.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the results aren't that much better then pure spam in regards to latency. Its not rotation vs a single spell request, its rotation vs 2.5 spell requests.

So that comparison should be 333ms vs 230ms in regards to whether or not it's advantageous to incorporate the rotation. So if one of the proponents of the rotation wouldn't mind incorporating that into their numbers we will truly be able to see if it is worth incorporating on a regular basis.

As for what you specifically are seeing, you are getting 92ms of lag with every spell request and since the rotation is 3 spell requests that works out to 111ms vs 92ms which is certainly within the range of uncertainty due to the small sample size. I'm just not seeing enough of a difference between those 2 values to say that it is blizzard's system that is adding additional time when switching between instant cast and cast timed spells.


Edited to add - very succinctly said Murphid, thank you.
#1768SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Just for reference before this confuses some people. Lower-than-cast-time-fireballs are *normal*. Its a side effect of the local timestamps. Here is a simple display showing the explanation:

0000 - fireball cast client side
0100 - fireball starts server side
...
3100 - fireball ends server side
3101 - new fireball cast begins server side
3400 - fireball end received by client (ie: combat logs)
...
6101 - new fireball completes server side
6201 - new fireball completes client side

In this case, the latency in the first fireball is delayed, causing the next fireball to 'seem' to cast faster than its cast time.
#1769SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Saying that it's for 2.5 spells is a bit misleading, because there's no such thing as "half a Fireball" really. What it really comes down to is with Fireblast Rotation 333ms per 7.833ms of DPS time is spent purely on latency. That's 4.25% vs 2.9% (92ms per 392ms) for Fireball spam, or 1.35% more of your DPS time consumed by latency on Fireblast Rotation.

Now that doesn't seem like much but depending on your gear that can totally eclipse the advantage of Fireblast. If you're running no haste and only about 1200 spellpower Raid buffed, then Fireblast is still worth it. But it does lower the ceiling a bit.

You also have to balance it against other factors such as having to be within 26 yds vs. 36 yds, losing DPS because Fireblast may not be up when you have to reposition (and we all know there is a ton of repositioning now) and of course, higher mana consumption for those who sometimes find themselves without a shadowpriest or shaman.

Regarding queue or no queue, it's possible there isn't one of any sort but personally I find that I can reliably hit my next Fireball earlier on my casting bar than I could previously use /stopcasting. Previously I'd wait until I was just into the red zone, and now I can do it a bit before. This is definitely anecdotal and not something I'm going to swear by, but it seems to me that there is a small grace period.

I suppose the way this could be tested is to have a G15 or something pinging requests every 100ms or maybe less, and check the combat logs for when the "Spell failed" messages stop each time.
#1770SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lhivera
What is the correct way to calculate mean time between procs? The way I've been doing it in the TCoM is definitely not correct (I calculate how many events required for the chance to have procced to exceed 50%).

I seem to recall being told that the correct calculation is simply (Interval between events) / (chance to proc per event). For instance, Ashtongue trinket with 30% crit rate Frostbolts would be 2.5 / (0.3 * 0.5) = 16.67 seconds.

Can anyone clear me up on this? Thanks!
#1771SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
Saying that it's for 2.5 spells is a bit misleading, because there's no such thing as "half a Fireball" really. What it really comes down to is with Fireblast Rotation 333ms per 7.833ms of DPS time is spent purely on latency. That's 4.25% vs 2.9% (92ms per 392ms) for Fireball spam, or 1.35% more of your DPS time consumed by latency on Fireblast Rotation.

So, you are saying fireball's timer is 3 seconds + 92ms for casting time, but you are using haste in your first calculations of fireball spam laetncy to make this a very inaccurate statement. The haste would make fireball 2.87ish like you mentioned. To be honest, you should understand this concept if you don't want people to keep bringing it up. If you were correct we wouldn't need to bring it up to invalidate your theory.
#1772SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Vannik View Post
So, you are saying fireball's timer is 3 seconds + 92ms for casting time, but you are using haste in your first calculations of fireball spam laetncy to make this a very inaccurate statement. The haste would make fireball 2.87ish like you mentioned. To be honest, you should understand this concept if you don't want people to keep bringing it up. If you were correct we wouldn't need to bring it up to invalidate your theory.
I'm pretty sure haste doesn't reduce or increase latency, ergo why I continued to use the 92ms figure even for full length casts. Please direct your derogatory tone elsewhere, it's not at all helpful.
#1773SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Ilmater
Please don't hate me, but I've done all the TC I care to on mages, I just have a quick question that is probably somewhere in here, but I really don't want to search for:

For frost mages after 2.3, is +dmg still favored over +crit rating?

Also, can someone link to the new 2/47/11 spec?
#1774SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
What is the correct way to calculate mean time between procs? The way I've been doing it in the TCoM is definitely not correct (I calculate how many events required for the chance to have procced to exceed 50%).

I seem to recall being told that the correct calculation is simply (Interval between events) / (chance to proc per event). For instance, Ashtongue trinket with 30% crit rate Frostbolts would be 2.5 / (0.3 * 0.5) = 16.67 seconds.

Can anyone clear me up on this? Thanks!
Yeah, it should just be time/chance. This is rather intuitive: you expect it to take 2 coin flips to see a head (or a tails). You expect it to take 6 die rolls to see a 4 (or any other number).

As I'm beginning to discover, a rigorous proof of this is a bit more difficult, but I do believe this is the case.
#1775SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
Originally Posted by Ilmater View Post
Please don't hate me, but I've done all the TC I care to on mages, I just have a quick question that is probably somewhere in here, but I really don't want to search for:

For frost mages after 2.3, is +dmg still favored over +crit rating?

Also, can someone link to the new 2/47/11 spec?
In general, yes.

Arawethion made a useful spreadsheet here - [Mage] Relative Stat Scaling Mini-Spreadsheet - if you just want something very quick and simple for comparisons. Lhivera's Theorycraft - Theorycraft-o-Matic - is also very useful. It uses a more complex model and tries to get an optomized DPS number. It will also display comparisons for gear.

The values of crit/haste/hit/dmg vary based on their current values. A general formula of hit > dmg >= haste > crit is true, but the actual values constantly change.
#1776SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
It depends on if procs can overlap or not. My brain hurts at the moment. But don't forget that you need a better formula if procs can overlap.
#1777SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Vannik
Originally Posted by ebbv View Post
I'm pretty sure haste doesn't reduce or increase latency, ergo why I continued to use the 92ms figure even for full length casts. Please direct your derogatory tone elsewhere, it's not at all helpful.
If your spell cast is 3 seconds long and there is 92 ms of lag. (3.092-3 = .092) which is what your numbers were quoting, but you had haste on . . . if your spell casts are 2.87 seconds long (because of the haste you had) 3.092 - 2.87 =! .092.

Do you see how haste makes your fireballs cast faster? The new number for the 3 seconds should be your modified haste-related spell time on fireball.

Sorry if I sound degrading , but I do not understand how this logic is wrong. You also were the first to have a condescending tone. I digress; if you can explain the flaw in my logic here, that'd be fantastic. As it stands right now you're subtracting the total tooltip time minus your total casting time, which to me sounds inaccurate. If the game can que a new spell up 2.87 seconds after the first one, it doesn't seem logical to not include the decreased spell time by the math you are doing (total latency between spells). You would figure that the latency would be the total spell time subtracted by the hardset code in the game of when the spell is finished, and a new one could be casted.

If I am wrong, which I may be, then I apologize. If I'm not, I'm sorry it took 5 posts to show you how haste effects your spellcasting.

P.S. I assumed you had a typo when you said 92ms of 392ms of cast time is 2.9%, i concluded you meant 3.092s

Last edited by Vannik : 12/07/07 at 7:55 PM.
#1778SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
1 - [(1 - procChance)^(duration / castTime)] = uptimePercentage

Basically it's the inverse of the chance for the trinket to not be active.
#1779SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Vannik View Post
If your spell cast is 3 seconds long and there is 92 ms of lag. (3.092-3 = .092) which is what your numbers were quoting, but you had haste on . . . if your spell casts are 2.87 seconds long (because of the haste you had) 3.092 - 2.87 =! .092.
No, my friend. The 92ms figure was from my previous post, where the 2.87s cast time was taken into account. You are way off base here. And yes you are being incredibly insulting for no reason, which is especially bad because you are the one who is confused and wrong.

To be clear: my first round of "tests" (I hesitate to call them that because they were so short) were wearing haste gear with 2.87s cast times and I took that it into account. My more recent test was with no haste gear and 3.0s cast times because people didn't like the haste gear.
#1780SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Vannik are you not understand a few of ebbv's posts or something?

With straight Fireball spam, he had an average of 92ms delay between all the Fireball tests.
With a 3 Fireball/Fireblast rotation, he had an average of 333ms delay because of the GCD incurred by the GCD.

Now when you factor in the bug of Ignites not stacking when Fireblast and Fireball crits at the same time, and the fact that at a certain level of gear, a Fireblast crit will do about 1/3 that of a Fireball. Combine those two flaws of that cast rotation, and you'll see that it is in fact, not worth using a Fireblast rotation past about a T4 content level. But then again, this varies depending upon effective crit rate too.


On a completely different note, has anyone crunched the numbers yet with a full Haste set of gear, 10-15% or more, at the T6 gear level, with a 35%+ crit rate raid buffed, where does the dps end up if you stager Bloodlust, IV, Skull, rather than popping them all at once to get the rolling bugged ignites going? Should have like 2.2ish second cast fireballs at this point.
#1781SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Vannik are you not understand a few of ebbv's posts or something?

With straight Fireball spam, he had an average of 92ms delay between all the Fireball tests.
With a 3 Fireball/Fireblast rotation, he had an average of 333ms delay because of the GCD incurred by the GCD.

Now when you factor in the bug of Ignites not stacking when Fireblast and Fireball crits at the same time, and the fact that at a certain level of gear, a Fireblast crit will do about 1/3 that of a Fireball. Combine those two flaws of that cast rotation, and you'll see that it is in fact, not worth using a Fireblast rotation past about a T4 content level. But then again, this varies depending upon effective crit rate too.


On a completely different note, has anyone crunched the numbers yet with a full Haste set of gear, 10-15% or more, at the T6 gear level, with a 35%+ crit rate raid buffed, where does the dps end up if you stager Bloodlust, IV, Skull, rather than popping them all at once to get the rolling bugged ignites going? Should have like 2.2ish second cast fireballs at this point.
Your first parsings have ignore 20% of your long casts. Let's neglect completely how you may have had a different ingame latency between days and times of testing things.

You said "Ignoring the first set, the last 4 still each took an average of 635ms longer than we'd expect to complete the rotation. That is to say that our 7.24sec rotation becomes 7.875sec rotation in reality, and that means that 8% of your cast time is being eaten up by latency."

you can't have a 7.24 second rotation, it's capped at 7.5. I think people arn't worried about the haste, they are worried that you're adding increased lag because of the cooldown. if you go buy your first set of data, which i would prefer since it was all taken at the same time, 7.875-7.5 = .375 / 7.5 = 4.7%. fireball spam gave you 2.9%. Now if you include your new data WHILE STILL hitting the GCD (which is why people said a 3/1 rotation would be better: 333ms => 4.2%

IF you're still getting clipped by GCD then of course you'll do more dps with fireball spam. If you're stacking x ammount of haste, of course you will do more dps with fireball spam, because as haste increases the 2x1 rotation decreases in theoried value.

I'm not being derogatory, but if the gcd is effecting your next cast, it will obviously increase your latency. We all know this.

The math in your first test was caluclated wrong, competely. it wasn't a 7.24 second rotation. I'm sorry but it was the first post from you on this topic, and it was wrong, so yes it'd be good to get clarification rarther than "this is what it is".

Your second test you said still clips your GCD as well, so, to eliminate this from the equation, try a 3xfireball fireblast rotation and see if you still get this discrepency. This will validated you completely.

Edit: I'd like to note that my original intent of this post of the rotations was to try to figure out why people said "with t6 level gear you'd be better off fireballing." because with 0 haste (possible if you gear soley dmg/crit) this may not be the case. 5% increase dps with fireblast - 2% ms lag => fireball/fireblast still wins with 0 haste.
#1782SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ebbv
Originally Posted by Vannik View Post
Your first parsings have ignore 20% of your long casts. Let's neglect completely how you may have had a different ingame latency between days and times of testing things.

You said "Ignoring the first set, the last 4 still each took an average of 635ms longer than we'd expect to complete the rotation. That is to say that our 7.24sec rotation becomes 7.875sec rotation in reality, and that means that 8% of your cast time is being eaten up by latency."

you can't have a 7.24 second rotation, it's capped at 7.5. I think people arn't worried about the haste, they are worried that you're adding increased lag because of the cooldown. if you go buy your first set of data, which i would prefer since it was all taken at the same time, 7.875-7.5 = .375 / 7.5 = 4.7%%. fireball spam gave you 3.1%. Now if you include your new data WHILE STILL hitting the GCD (which is why people said a 3/1 rotation would be better: 333ms => 4.2%
Yes, it was capped at 7.5 due to only 1/3 Imp Fireblast, which is why I redid it with 3/3 Imp Fireblast and 3.0sec Cast Fireballs. So everything you're saying here is irrelevant. This was all discussed on previous pages.

IF you're still getting clipped by GCD then of course you'll do more dps with fireball spam. If you're stacking x ammount of haste, of course you will do more dps with fireball spam, because as haste increases the 2x1 rotation decreases in theoried value.

I'm not being derogatory, but if the gcd is effecting your next cast, it will obviously increase your latency. We all know this.
You can't avoid waiting for the GCD, a 3/1 rotation does nothing against this. The 3/1 rotation was to account for 1/3 Imp Fireblast. Again you are the one who is confused and not understanding what's been discussed already.

The math in your first test was caluclated wrong, competely. it wasn't a 7.24 second rotation. I'm sorry but it was the first post from you on this topic, and it was wrong, so yes it'd be good to get clarification rarther than "this is what it is".

Your second test you said still clips your GCD as well, so, to eliminate this from the equation, try a 3xfireball fireblast rotation and see if you still get this discrepency.
Again, 3/1 does not avoid the GCD, because whenever you hit Fireblast you have to wait for the GCD.

I'm going to just ask you to stop responding at this point because you are wasting a lot of space in this thread. If you have further questions feel free to PM me.
#1783SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Vannik
Didn't know you moderated the boards, but you seem to be getting quite angry when people question your math. I understand the GCD will effect the fireball after the fireblast. . .

I'll PM you sir, but please, don't tell me I am wrong when I am not. I admit the way you calculated fireball latency wasn't as clearly set up as your fireblast rotation, so I assumed you did both wrong. (you proved one, not the other, the one proved was incorrect, so logically. . . ) Comparing such small parses coupled with different times of logging in could definately add +12 mslag /second that you get with the GCD effect on fireblast rotation.

Please, next time you have a problem with someone when they prove you are incorrect, don't take so much offense to it, and explain your math. Some of us are actually people with advanced degrees in the sciences and arn't very dumb and like intelectual conversations without people getting angry when they are questioned. I recommend you never get a Ph.D.

PM incoming

P.S. Like my initial post that started this conversation, which is why ebbv posted all this to begin with, I did all my calculations to prove that +Dmg isn't what makes the rotation for fireball spam, it's dependent on haste. All this conversation has said is that i need to add 0.012 ms/sec of casting, which still with no haste, and taking into effect 10% of fireblast ignites going out due to bug, it's still favoring the 3/1 rotation.

Last edited by Vannik : 12/07/07 at 9:46 PM.
#1784SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
I don't get why people keep saying this. One aspect of the "fix" to the casting mechanics is that it should turn 1.5s casts into true 1.5s casts. Thats why the GCD occurs whenever you request a spell.

I think the real problem is that we are all relatively proficient at using Quartz and /stopcasting so that we can aim for "button up" right when the casting bar hits the red but since Quartz doesn't run with an instant cast spell we lose that frame of reference and our "button up" occurs with a slight delay.

Just did some testing on the PTR. Cast 20 Fireballs and 28 for each of the other spell sets.

Casting with Quartz and aiming for "button up" at the red
Fireball - average 3.046
Scorch - 1.602


Spamming cast button as fast as I could
Scorch - 1.56
Ice Lance - 1.593


With all the sets I had several casts under the 1.5s mark which leads to an interesting question; is the lag due to me or the mechanics of the new system?

Fastest Casts (no haste gear)

Fireball - 2.719
Scorch - 0.969

Scorch Spam - 1.312
Ice Lance Spam - 1.375

Being able to cast under the supposed minimum casting time also seems like it should be worth exploring to see if it is real or just due to the data being recorded on my client and the latency between my client and the server causing the discrepancies.

So does anyone want to pull out a G15 and go after Dr Boom with Ice Lance and Scorch spam again (Manly)?
refer to post 1787 - this one was inaccurate.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/08/07 at 2:24 PM.
#1785SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Rounced
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I can assure you that instant cast spells will give you latency issues - and I am using the G15 spam cast methodology. My average fireball cast is very close to the true 3s fireball - obviously not counting the initial latency during the start of chain casting.

Just to be sure - I went on live realms and tested this - using a g15 with a very small delay - it took 5 minutes for me to get an entire rotation behind. I have a 180 ping on live at the moment. And coincidentally 7.5s over 39 fireblast rotation sets is 192ms on each fireblast.

Similarly I did a test with just fireball spam - and in that same 5 minutes I was about 1.5s behind. Take 200ms off for the start of the chain and that a 13ms delay per fireball - which matches pretty well since my keystroke delay is about double that.

Edit: I also made sure to take off all haste gear during the test - And also, I think maybe you have instants and 1.5s channeled spells a bit confused .
I'm a bit confused as to what if anything you are establishing there.

5 minutes to do what? 1.5s behind what? 200ms and 13ms over what number of casts and with what keystroke delay??? What the heck is "G15 spam cast methodology"?

are you using a G15 to spam cast Fireball?!?!? Have you read any of the thread previous to the release of 2.3??? Where they showed that spam casting using a G15 on a spell with casting time should destroy your casting time since you will be introducing a GCD with every "key press" and have the spell request only sent to the server once the server responds back that the spell completed, which completely removes any advantages from the new casting system. If you were still getting true 3 second casts using a G15 to spam the server then everything that so many people proved during the testing for 2.3 has just been completely invalidated and I guess everyone better run out and buy a G15 ASAP and set it for a very small delay and just spam away.

(if that isn't what you are doing then I apologize for my sarcastic response but I really can't follow what you are saying you did from your post)

My spam casting was only to test with instant cast and 1.5s spells and the results were clearly within the realm of uncertainty (1.56s average for Scorch and 1.593s average for Ice Lance) to show that the instant cast mechanics are detrimental to its use in a rotation. There seems to be an average delay per spell cast request and that may influence whether the rotation is a dps boost or not but nothing that I have seen leads me to conclude that incorporating an instant cast spell gives any additional latency over the simple additional lag involved in requesting any spell.


Please take a little time to make your post legible and be sure that it actually shows what you are saying when you "prove" something. Otherwise you are doing nothing more then saying "it looks like to me that there is a delay and [b]I know[b] that it is fact because I can see it" when there has been no proof of any kind so far that conclusively shows any of it. You might as well have just jumped into the thread and said "Cars go fast" for all the relevance your testing had in establishing anything as proof.

Until someone does some testing with a couple thousand fireball-ice lance rotations, and compares it to straight fireball chaining and straight ice lance chaining, I will continue to have serious doubts that there really is additional lag involved in that particular mechanic. Your "5 minutes for me to get an entire rotation" with a g15 definitely hasn't done much to change that particular perception.


One last thing, you say you tested this on the live realms, there are supposedly some additional refinements coming to the casting mechanics in 2.3.2 and that was why I did my testing on the PTR. Since 2.3.2 is literally right around the corner maybe you should move your testing there so that it will be relevant once the patch hits instead of being completely outdated and more useless then it already seemed to me.

Last edited by Rounced : 12/08/07 at 11:35 AM.
#1786SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Mana vs. Damage

With the recent changes - talents, gems, flame caps (3m cooldown) - mana management has suddenly become more interesting in a min-maxing scenario.

"But there is no mana issue!" - Well, there is, but in a more subtle way. Can you spec out of all mana talents, use flame caps, destruction potions, molten armour, no evocation and still last through a fight? Maybe with a very good shadow priest, but what if you don't get one on Sharaz/Gurtogg?

There are quite a few means of recovering mana, but which one to chose in which situation?
Let's take the following scenario:

A deep fire spec as base, Fireball spam. T6 level gear, 350 spirit raid buffed (100mana/tick or 250mp5 when not casting), 12k mana (for Evocation, a Z'A staff can push that to 13k).

I take a 6 minute boss fight, uninterrupted casting. That way, you can use your 2m CDs 3 times, or 3m CDs 2 times. That fight length is a multiple of these cooldowns, so nothing can get a benefit from cooldown coming up early.
The actual length of the fight shouldn't matter too much to the model, but I think that one is a pretty decent model.


How much is spell hit worth? At T6 level gear, people generally grab their spell hit from gear and gem for damage, which is generally accepted as the best choice.
Seeing that T6 gloves are usually socketed with 12 damage instead of 6dam/5hit+2dam bonus, 5 hit is not as good as 12-8=4 damage. I'll just set the value of 1 spell hit to 4/5=0.8 damage.


Regarding talents and talent choices - Arcane Meditations means you lose Elemental Precision, Arcane Concentration means you lose Icy Veins. A fire spec needs 42 points to maximise PWF, Critical Mass, Fire Power, Pyromaniac, Combustion, Molten Fury, Empowered Fireball.
To get Clearcasting and Icy Veins, one would lose more in fire talents than the Tri-Spec gains.



Talents

Elemental Precision
3% hit translates to 37.8 hit rating or 0.8*37.8 = 30 damage. 3% cost reduction is 12.75 mana less per cast, or +21mp5.

Icy Veins
20% haste for 20s every 180s => 2.2% haste averaged. Makes it ~35 haste rating averaged, or 39 damage and -12mp5.

Arcane Concentration (Clearcasting)
Saves ~40 mana per cast, or +66.5 mp5.

Arcane Meditation
Returns 30%*250mp5 = +75mp5 while casting.

Master of Elements
Assuming 35% crit chance, it saves 425*30%*35% = 45 mana per cast, or +74 mp5.


Armour/Evocation

Mage Armour returns 30%*250mp5 = +75mp5 while casting.

Molten Armour gives 3% crit ~= 68 crit rating ~ 51 damage and +6mp5 from Master of Elements.

Evocation with 2/5 T6 gives you 75%*12k = 9k mana at the expense of 10s cast time. That means a 9000mana/6min = +125 mp5 at the cost of 10s/6min = -2.77% haste = -43.6% haste rating = -49 damage, +15mp5.
So, using Evocation is a +140 mp5, -49 damage change.

Using Evocation in the last moment of Heroism makes it -38dmg +11mp5 from the time lost casting, or +136mp5 at the cost of -38 damage.
Then again, you'd want Heroism when the boss hits 20%, which is too late to use Evocation.


Potions

Mana Potions return +100 mp5, or +140mp5 with the Alchemist's Stone (few mages are alchemists though).

Destruction Potions give 120 damage and 2% crit for 15 seconds on a 120 second cooldown. That's +19 damage and +0.5mp5 from Master of Elements.


Gems/Flame Caps

Mana Gems return +100 mp5, or +125 mp5 with the Serpent-Coil Braid.

Flame Caps give 80 damage for 1 minute on a 3 minute cooldown, or +26.6 fire damage average.


Trinkets

Icon of the Silver Crescent averages at +69 damage, Hex-Shrunken Head at +88 damage, an ideal DM:Crusade is +80 damage.
Thus, I'll just assume a static +80 damage trinket to compare the other two mana trinkets to.

Serpent-Coil Braid gives 30 crit rating, 12 hit rating, 25mp5 and 225 damage for 15 seconds every 2 minutes. I take 12 hit as 12*0.8 = 9.6 damage (see above).
This adds up as +60 damage and +28 mp5 together with Master of Elements.

The Alchemist's Stone gives +15 to all stats and 40mp5. The 15 stats yield about +5 damage (crit and IDS), 248 raw mana, or 450 mana with evocation, and +0.5mp5 from crit.
So, a total of +5 damage and +44mp5 to +47mp5 averaged over the fight.


Blessings

Blessing of Wisdom gives you +41mp5 or +49.2mp5 if talented.

Blessing of Kings gives you ~35 spirit and ~60 intellect. This is ~19 damage, +1.5mp5 from crit, 900 mana, or 1615 mana with Evocation (and some spirit ticks), +24mp5 total.


Summary/Comparison

This is a list of choices you can make to maintain your mana.
It's ordered by efficiency, by the amount of mp5 you gain per point of sacrificed damage.

1) 5.27 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Potions over Destruction Potions gives you +99.5 mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

2) 3.70 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Gems over Flame Caps gives you +100 mp5 at the cost of -27 damage

3) 2.86 mp5/dmg - Evocation gives you +140 mp5 at the cost of -49 damage.

4) 2.03 mp5/dmg - Arcane Concentration instead of Icy Veins yields +79mp5 at the cost -39 damage.
5) 1.80 mp5/dmg - Arcane Meditation instead of Elemental Precision yields +54 mp5 at the cost of -30 damage.

6) 1.40 mp5/dmg - Serpent-Coil Braid gives you +28 mp5 at the cost of about -20 damage.
7) 1.35 mp5/dmg - Mage Armour gives you +69 mp5 at the cost of -51 damage.
8) 1.36 mp5/dmg - Talented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +25mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

9) 0.89 mp5/dmg - Untalented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +17mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

10) 0.63 mp5/dmg - The Alchemist's Stone gives you +47 mp5 at the cost of -75 damage.


This means if you're min-maxing to the extreme, you'd chain mana potions as first priority, and mana gems as second priority.
Using Evocation is a clear third priority, and respeccing to 10 or 18 arcane are choic 4 and 5, both with comparable returns when you can get the hit from somewhere else.

After those, using Serpent-Coil Braid, Mage Armour and Improved Blessing of Wisdom instead of Kings (if you lack paladins for both) are the next choice.

A normal Blessing of Wisdom is a weaker choice after that, and the Alchemist's Stone significantly weaker.
#1787SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
I'm a bit confused as to what if anything you are establishing there.

5 minutes to do what? 1.5s behind what? 200ms and 13ms over what number of casts and with what keystroke delay??? What the heck is "G15 spam cast methodology"?

are you using a G15 to spam cast Fireball?!?!? Have you read any of the thread previous to the release of 2.3??? Where they showed that spam casting using a G15 on a spell with casting time should destroy your casting time since you will be introducing a GCD with every "key press" and have the spell request only sent to the server once the server responds back that the spell completed, which completely removes any advantages from the new casting system. If you were still getting true 3 second casts using a G15 to spam the server then everything that so many people proved during the testing for 2.3 has just been completely invalidated and I guess everyone better run out and buy a G15 ASAP and set it for a very small delay and just spam away.

(if that isn't what you are doing then I apologize for my sarcastic response but I really can't follow what you are saying you did from your post)

My spam casting was only to test with instant cast and 1.5s spells and the results were clearly within the realm of uncertainty (1.56s average for Scorch and 1.593s average for Ice Lance) to show that the instant cast mechanics are detrimental to its use in a rotation. There seems to be an average delay per spell cast request and that may influence whether the rotation is a dps boost or not but nothing that I have seen leads me to conclude that incorporating an instant cast spell gives any additional latency over the simple additional lag involved in requesting any spell.o

Please take a little time to make your post legible and be sure that it actually shows what you are saying when you "prove" something. Otherwise you are doing nothing more then saying "it looks like to me that there is a delay and [b]I know[b] that it is fact because I can see it" when there has been no proof of any kind so far that conclusively shows any of it. You might as well have just jumped into the thread and said "Cars go fast" for all the relevance your testing had in establishing anything as proof.

Until someone does some testing with a couple thousand fireball-ice lance rotations, and compares it to straight fireball chaining and straight ice lance chaining, I will continue to have serious doubts that there really is additional lag involved in that particular mechanic. Your "5 minutes for me to get an entire rotation" with a g15 definitely hasn't done much to change that particular perception.


One last thing, you say you tested this on the live realms, there are supposedly some additional refinements coming to the casting mechanics in 2.3.2 and that was why I did my testing on the PTR. Since 2.3.2 is literally right around the corner maybe you should move your testing there so that it will be relevant once the patch hits instead of being completely outdated and more useless then it already seemed to me.
Sorry if my post may have been a bit incoherant - as it was written on 35 hours of awake time .

What I meant to say was basically this - to test latency, I did a /send(myfireballkey) sleep(3015) - and it never missed a single fireball - so unless my computer clock is off - that's how long my average fireball takes.

doing the same thing with fireblast last night I was needing to increase the delay for fireblast - however this morning I realized It has more to do with when the spell was coming off cooldown that was in fact introducing latency - when attempting with (send(fb) sleep 3015)*3 + send(fireblast) sleep 1525 type of automation It was easier to see I was in fact wrong - and there does not seem to be latency introduced on instans - when chaining them, as i had previously stated. I've went back and removed both posts to prevent confusion.

Edit - Unfortunately using automation when the /who 70 isn't full vs at raid time with /who 70 warrior black temple being half full - makes it impractical to raid with, but perfect to test with in netherstorm when my latency doesn't shift more than 30ms at a time.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/08/07 at 4:59 PM.
#1788SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Mana vs. Damage

With the recent changes - talents, gems, flame caps (3m cooldown) - mana management has suddenly become more interesting in a min-maxing scenario.

"But there is no mana issue!" - Well, there is, but in a more subtle way. Can you spec out of all mana talents, use flame caps, destruction potions, molten armour, no evocation and still last through a fight? Maybe with a very good shadow priest, but what if you don't get one on Sharaz/Gurtogg?

There are quite a few means of recovering mana, but which one to chose in which situation?
Let's take the following scenario:

A deep fire spec as base, Fireball spam. T6 level gear, 350 spirit raid buffed (100mana/tick or 250mp5 when not casting), 12k mana (for Evocation, a Z'A staff can push that to 13k).

I take a 6 minute boss fight, uninterrupted casting. That way, you can use your 2m CDs 3 times, or 3m CDs 2 times. That fight length is a multiple of these cooldowns, so nothing can get a benefit from cooldown coming up early.
The actual length of the fight shouldn't matter too much to the model, but I think that one is a pretty decent model.


How much is spell hit worth? At T6 level gear, people generally grab their spell hit from gear and gem for damage, which is generally accepted a s the best choice.
Seeing that T6 gloves are usually socketed with 12 damage instead of 6dam/5hit+2dam bonus, 5 hit is not as good as 12-8=4 damage. I'll just set the value of 1 spell hit to 4/5=0.8 damage.


Regarding talents and talent choices - Arcane Meditations means you lose Elemental Precision, Arcane Concentration means you lose Icy Veins. A fire spec needs 42 points to maximise PWF, Critical Mass, Fire Power, Pyromaniac, Combustion, Molten Fury, Empowered Fireball.
To get Clearcasting and Icy Veins, one would lose more in fire talents than the Tri-Spec gains.



Talents

Elemental Precision
3% hit translates to 37.8 hit rating or 0.8*37.8 = 30 damage. 3% cost reduction is 12.75 mana less per cast, or +21mp5.

Icy Veins
20% haste for 20s every 180s => 2.2% haste averaged. Makes it ~35 haste rating averaged, or 39 damage and -12mp5.

Arcane Concentration (Clearcasting)
Saves ~40 mana per cast, or +66.5 mp5.

Arcane Meditation
Returns 30%*250mp5 = +75mp5 while casting.

Master of Elements
Assuming 35% crit chance, it saves 425*30%*35% = 45 mana per cast, or +74 mp5.


Armour/Evocation

Mage Armour returns 30%*250mp5 = +75mp5 while casting.

Molten Armour gives 3% crit ~= 68 crit rating ~ 51 damage and +6mp5 from Master of Elements.

Evocation with 2/5 T6 gives you 75%*12k = 9k mana at the expense of 10s cast time. That means a 9000mana/6min = +125 mp5 at the cost of 10s/6min = -2.77% haste = -43.6% haste rating = -49 damage, +15mp5.
So, using Evocation is a +140 mp5, -49 damage change.

Using Evocation in the last moment of Heroism makes it -38dmg +11mp5 from the time lost casting, or +136mp5 at the cost of -38 damage.
Then again, you'd want Heroism when the boss hits 20%, which is too late to use Evocation.


Potions

Mana Potions return +100 mp5, or +140mp5 with the Alchemist's Stone (few mages are alchemists though).

Destruction Potions give 120 damage and 2% crit for 15 seconds on a 120 second cooldown. That's +19 damage and +0.5mp5 from Master of Elements.


Gems/Flame Caps

Mana Gems return +100 mp5, or +125 mp5 with the Serpent-Coil Braid.

Flame Caps give 80 damage for 1 minute on a 3 minute cooldown, or +26.6 fire damage average.


Trinkets

Icon of the Silver Crescent averages at +69 damage, Hex-Shrunken Head at +88 damage, an ideal DM:Crusade is +80 damage.
Thus, I'll just assume a static +80 damage trinket to compare the other two mana trinkets to.

Serpent-Coil Braid gives 30 crit rating, 12 hit rating, 25mp5 and 225 damage for 15 seconds every 2 minutes. I take 12 hit as 12*0.8 = 9.6 damage (see above).
This adds up as +60 damage and +28 mp5 together with Master of Elements.

The Alchemist's Stone gives +15 to all stats and 40mp5. The 15 stats yield about +5 damage (crit and IDS), 248 raw mana, or 450 mana with evocation, and +0.5mp5 from crit.
So, a total of +5 damage and +44mp5 to +47mp5 averaged over the fight.


Blessings

Blessing of Wisdom gives you +41mp5 or +49.2mp5 if talented.

Blessing of Kings gives you ~35 spirit and ~60 intellect. This is ~19 damage, +1.5mp5 from crit, 900 mana, or 1615 mana with Evocation (and some spirit ticks), +24mp5 total.


Summary/Comparison

This is a list of choices you can make to maintain your mana.
It's ordered by efficiency, by the amount of mp5 you gain per point of sacrificed damage.

1) 5.27 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Potions over Destruction Potions gives you +99.5 mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

2) 3.70 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Gems over Flame Caps gives you +100 mp5 at the cost of -27 damage

3) 2.86 mp5/dmg - Evocation gives you +140 mp5 at the cost of -49 damage.

4) 2.03 mp5/dmg - Arcane Concentration instead of Icy Veins yields +79mp5 at the cost -39 damage.
5) 1.80 mp5/dmg - Arcane Meditation instead of Elemental Precision yields +54 mp5 at the cost of -30 damage.

6) 1.40 mp5/dmg - Serpent-Coil Braid gives you +28 mp5 at the cost of about -20 damage.
7) 1.35 mp5/dmg - Mage Armour gives you +69 mp5 at the cost of -51 damage.
8) 1.36 mp5/dmg - Talented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +25mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

9) 0.89 mp5/dmg - Untalented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +17mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

10) 0.63 mp5/dmg - The Alchemist's Stone gives you +47 mp5 at the cost of -75 damage.


This means if you're min-maxing to the extreme, you'd chain mana potions as first priority, and mana gems as second priority.
Using Evocation is a clear third priority, and respeccing to 10 or 18 arcane are choic 4 and 5, both with comparable returns when you can get the hit from somewhere else.

After those, using Serpent-Coil Braid, Mage Armour and Improved Blessing of Wisdom instead of Kings (if you lack paladins for both) are the next choice.

A normal Blessing of Wisdom is a weaker choice after that, and the Alchemist's Stone significantly weaker.
I'll agree with most of the estimations used - except for the hit one.
While there is a lot of hit on tier6 level gear it should still be taken as face dps value. The idea is to get rid of hit items while losing the least face value on an item. Using my personal raid buffed stats for comparison - I break each piece down into +dmg, similar to your method of comparison.

For me - face value 1 dmg =~ 0.54 hit =~ 1.2 crit ~= 0.75 haste(this assumes full buffs + shaman totem)
---------------------------
Focused Mana Bindings
19/0.54 + 42 =~ 77 dmg

Cuffs of Devastation
14/1.2 + 34 + socket (+12) =~ 58 dmg
-----------------------------
Ruby Drape of the Mysticant
18/0.54 + 30 =~ 63 dmg

Cloak of the Illidari Council
25/1.2 + 42 =~ 63 dmg

(don't piss of to many healers but) Shroud of the Highbourn
32/0.75 + 23 = 66 dmg
---------------------------
Blue Suede Shoes
18/0.54 + 56 =~ 89 dmg

Slippers of the seacaller
29/1.2 + 44 + sockets(+24) = 92 dmg
-------------------------------------
For this one I'll take int in cause there's a large gap

Ring of Ancient Knowledge
31/0.75 + 39 + 4dmg(20 int)=~ 84 dmg

Ring of Captured Storms(no stats)
19/0.54 + 29/1.2 + 42 =~ 101 dmg

Mana-Attuned Band(no stam)
18/0.54 + 29/0.75 + 34 + 4(19 int) = 121 dmg
-------------------------------------
Translucent spellthread necklace(no stats)
15/0.54 + 24/1.2 + 46 = 94

Hellfire Encased Pendant
24/1.2 + 51 + 4(17 int) = 75
---------------------------------

Those are just some of the comparisons for my personal gear. If you are looking to throw away hit, take the lesser face value loss - such as council cloak or seacaller slippers.

If by chance you have a skull of guldan - you will probably end up tossing most of the hit items for their alternatives, but the ones you keep should be clear.

Although - If by your mp5 calculations, you were giving up ele precision - You'd have to take some of the hit items back - The point I guess is that your hit calculations should still be taken at face value.
#1789SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
I must agree; the +hit valuation is very low. Perhaps it is meant to account for the ease of going over the hit cap, but it is still quite low and not well-founded in the mathematical value.

That said, this...

For me - face value 1 dmg =~ 0.54 hit =~ 1.2 crit ~= 0.75 haste(this assumes full buffs + shaman totem)
...I must scratch my head at, unless you mean 1 point of raw damage and not +damage.
#1790SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
...I must scratch my head at, unless you mean 1 point of raw damage and not +damage.
I was using the stats of 1600 spell, 280 crit rating and 31 haste - I did mean 1 pt of +spell dmg vs 0.54 hit rating vs 1.2 crit rating vs 0.75 haste rating.

Using both my own spreadsheets and Lhivera's calculator - I get these comparisons. I haven't found much err in Lhivera yet.

Edit: I was also considering icy veins in the haste calculations.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/08/07 at 8:38 PM.
#1791SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I'll agree with most of the estimations used - except for the hit one.
While there is a lot of hit on tier6 level gear it should still be taken as face dps value.
Obviously, it all depends on your current gear. If you don't have proper trinkets, SCBraid may be your best trinket, and gives you a chunk of mana back in addition.

Illidari Cowl, rest T6, Belt of Blasting, Tempest/Chronicle, Skull, Solarian Wand gets you +14.4% hit.
So without Elemental Precision, you have to get some +hit from elsewhere, so +hit has a larger benefit.


The whole idea was to give a general scheme of the mana regen mechanics and their hidden damage cost.
Of course it's going to depend on your stats, and more even on the gear you have and the gear you can switch in.

You used a 6dmg/5crit in your gloves, so you value 5 hit < 5 crit in your current setup


Note: The point is not about how much +hit worth it, the point is how mana regeneration mechanics decrease your damage output.


Edit: Yes, +hit has a certain value, but it seems to me that you overvalue it. If I was you and had to drop Elemental Precision for whatever reason, I'd have a 3% DPS loss. But, I'd just get my Belt of Blasting and a Solarian Wand (okay, I don't have one as it never dropped - you see it all depends on the gear you have, but imagine I had one) and I'd end up losing ~6 damage in my belt slot and ~4 damage (damage/crit equivalents) in my wand slot, which is about ~0.5%.

So, 3% elemental precision would only be worth 0.5% DPS in that case.
It hard to put a value to hit that, I just set something that seemed kind of valid.

Illidari Cowl + T6 Legs + 2*dmg/sta + socket: 83 sta, 78 int, 29 spi; 145 dmg, 76 crit, 41 hit
Kazrogal Legs + T6 Hat + 2*dmg/sta + 2*dmg: 69 sta, 68 int, 56 spi; 157 dmg, 63 crit, 31 hit
Kazrogal Leggings slightly ahead if you ignore hit, Illidari Cowl ahead if you consider hit.

Last edited by Roywyn : 12/08/07 at 11:16 PM.
#1792SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
You used a 6dmg/5crit in your gloves, so you value 5 hit < 5 crit in your current setup
Ehh, that doesn't sit well with me. The real DPS effect +hit has is mathematical, not based on what players value. Even if additional hit has no value due to the cap, losing hit below the hit cap still has a negative impact on DPS. You can't use what the players choose as a guideline because people are stupid.

Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I was using the stats of 1600 spell, 280 crit rating and 31 haste - I did mean 1 pt of +spell dmg vs 0.54 hit rating vs 1.2 crit rating vs 0.75 haste rating.

Using both my own spreadsheets and Lhivera's calculator - I get these comparisons. I haven't found much err in Lhivera yet.

Edit: I was also considering icy veins in the haste calculations.
1 +dmg = .54 haste is simply low compared to typical values. Same for haste, in my opinion.
#1793SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Obviously, it all depends on your current gear. If you don't have proper trinkets, SCBraid may be your best trinket, and gives you a chunk of mana back in addition.

Illidari Cowl, rest T6, Belt of Blasting, Tempest/Chronicle, Skull, Solarian Wand gets you +14.4% hit.
So without Elemental Precision, you have to get some +hit from elsewhere, so +hit has a larger benefit.


The whole idea was to give a general scheme of the mana regen mechanics and their hidden damage cost.
Of course it's going to depend on your stats, and more even on the gear you have and the gear you can switch in.

You used a 6dmg/5crit in your gloves, so you value 5 hit < 5 crit in your current setup
Currently I am hit capped - but points dropped below the cap (say in ele precision) as you have stated is dps loss - You must take hit as face value in your calculations.

Edit: I for Picked up the mana-attuned band today, however I most likely won't be using it until another council cloak or seacaller slippers drops tt. (tbh I could craft the haste bracers and use the band and gain dps - but meh)

Also I notice you are assuming Headpiece to be the off piece, which is a dps loss vs elements legs even taking the extra hit at face value AND factoring in the blue gem meta requirements benefiting the socket bonuses.

Another thing - We don't all have skulls drop every kill :P

Edit again: I also believe the haste for evocation would be calculated more like this in your scenerio
10s / 360s = 0.027777s/s that need to be made up via haste.
0.0277777s/s * 3s fireball = 0.0833333s / fireball that need to be made up via haste
assuming you had 0 haste to begin with -
a 2.9166666666s fireball needs to be achieved

cast time = (base cast)/(1+haste%)
2.9166666 = 3/(1+haste%)
haste% = 3/2.9166666 -1
haste% = 0.0286 (deceimal)
2.86% haste = 44.9 haste rating. You can then do your damage comparison from there

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/09/07 at 4:37 AM.
#1794SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
1 +dmg = .54 haste is simply low compared to typical values. Same for haste, in my opinion.
For somebody raiding ssc calculating for say 1200 + dmg

it would be more like

1 dmg = 0.71 hit = 1.55 crit = 0.96 haste.

But since we're calculating for raid dmg, I thought I'd use my fully buffed stats to chose my raid gear :P.
#1795SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Searix
Something that you guys brought up that needs more investigation: Using macros/G15's to spam fireball cast. If i recall, the idea of using them was discarded because we assumed blizzard was going to come up with a solution that doesn't "spam their server" with queries, and thus the global cooldown ordeal on PTR. However, didn't they later recind that, and now it's back to the old system of faster spamming fireball = more dps? I'm going to test it and edit it in, unless i see evidence to the contrary

Edit: Added in PTR testing data
Trial 1: "My normal" casting speed in raids
12/9 01:58:42.671 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1996 Fire damage.
12/9 01:58:45.453 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3113 Fire damage.
12/9 01:58:48.515 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2047 Fire damage.
12/9 01:58:51.156 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3131 Fire damage.
12/9 01:58:54.437 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1994 Fire damage.
12/9 01:58:57.156 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3041 Fire damage.
12/9 01:59:00.125 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1993 Fire damage.
12/9 01:59:02.953 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2070 Fire damage.
12/9 01:59:05.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1963 Fire damage.
12/9 01:59:08.656 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3093 Fire damage.

AVG: 2.887, expected fireball cast time (Yes i used haste): 2.84

DPS lost to latency: 1.65%


Trial 2:"Spammed it so hard my arm felt it"

12/9 02:07:06.140 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3194 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:08.921 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1947 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:11.734 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1941 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:14.593 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3021 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:17.750 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3211 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:20.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1945 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:23.546 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2034 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:26.187 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3259 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:29.156 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3120 Fire damage.
12/9 02:07:32.140 Your Fireball was resisted by Dr. Boom.

AVG: 2.889

DPS lost to latency: 1.69%


Trial 3:"Mouse wheel casting"(Bound mousewheel up and down to fireball, went constantly up and down in a rubbing motion, it took me a couple minutes to adjust to doing it)

12/9 02:15:51.640 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3178 Fire damage.
12/9 02:15:54.281 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3179 Fire damage.
12/9 02:15:57.265 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1928 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:00.062 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1910 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:02.875 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3060 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:05.671 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2035 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:08.562 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 2070 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:11.328 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1998 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:14.218 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 3211 Fire damage.
12/9 02:16:17.296 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1987 Fire damage.

AVG: 2.851

DPS lost to latency: 0.38%

I took a high school AP stats class, i know how stats work in a decent degree, and i can attest that i didn't doctor or subvert the data, but by that note i'd like test results outside of my own on this.

I leave the diagnosis to others

Last edited by Searix : 12/09/07 at 4:25 AM.
#1796SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
For somebody raiding ssc calculating for say 1200 + dmg

it would be more like

1 dmg = 0.71 hit = 1.55 crit = 0.96 haste.

But since we're calculating for raid dmg, I thought I'd use my fully buffed stats to chose my raid gear :P.
I don't doubt it. It's just interesting how quickly the equivalences shift, especially since we usually emphasize that these equivalences don't change very much for simple gear changes or upgrades. Then again, it's an order of magnitude difference in terms of the changes we're talking about, so it's not wholly surprising, either.
#1797SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Edit: Added in PTR testing data

AVG: 2.887, expected fireball cast time (Yes i used haste): 2.84

DPS lost to latency: 1.65%


Trial 2:"Spammed it so hard my arm felt it"


AVG: 2.889

DPS lost to latency: 1.69%


Trial 3:"Mouse wheel casting"(Bound mousewheel up and down to fireball, went constantly up and down in a rubbing motion, it took me a couple minutes to adjust to doing it)


AVG: 2.851

DPS lost to latency: 0.38%

I took a high school AP stats class, i know how stats work in a decent degree, and i can attest that i didn't doctor or subvert the data, but by that note i'd like test results outside of my own on this.

I leave the diagnosis to others
Well what I find interesting about your testing is that it worked that way on the PTR. What I'm guessing Blizzard has done in an attempt to "fix" the current melee issues (as well as the caster issues for people spamming 1.5s spells) is to revert their fix back to something that does allow you to spam the server.

If they had implemented the "fudge" factor (small server-side queue) then all your spam methods should have the basically the same dps loss to latency and since there is a discrepancy there I think they simply removed the GCD starting whenever you ask the client to do something in order to try and resolve the melee issues.

Guess it's back to the G15 spam methods for chain casting.
#1798SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0andastra
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
I don't doubt it. It's just interesting how quickly the equivalences shift, especially since we usually emphasize that these equivalences don't change very much for simple gear changes or upgrades. Then again, it's an order of magnitude difference in terms of the changes we're talking about, so it's not wholly surprising, either.
I've actually seen the equivalences of spell haste shift quite a bit. I don't flask or use much in the way of consumables on the early fights on MH/BT anymore. I've noticed that using flask + oil shifts the equivalent of spell haste to me from roughly 1.05 damage to 1.2.

Going from roughly T5 to T6 or getting the 4pc T6 bonus could cause quite a shift on spell haste equivalency.
#1799SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by andastra View Post
I've actually seen the equivalences of spell haste shift quite a bit. I don't flask or use much in the way of consumables on the early fights on MH/BT anymore. I've noticed that using flask + oil shifts the equivalent of spell haste to me from roughly 1.05 damage to 1.2.

Going from roughly T5 to T6 or getting the 4pc T6 bonus could cause quite a shift on spell haste equivalency.
Well, it's certainly not difficult to quantify the absolute or relative changes in these equivalences for a change in the variables.

The usual equivalence is, of course...

E(u+1/1576*z)= E(u+(m/r+d)*1/1576*1/(1+z)*d)
For m base damage, r +damage coefficient, d +damage, z haste. This notation is used for absolute clarity, even though it's a bit awkward. u represents an initial (baseline) set of stats. For lack of typical unit vector notation, z and d represent the unit vectors in the haste and +damage directions. That is, E, your expected DPS, is a scalar function of a vector--the vector of all influences on DPS, including most of your stats.

We can rewrite this in a somewhat less awkward way...

∆E(u, 1/1576*z) = ∆E(u, (m/r+d)*1/1576*1/(1+z)*d)
But what we really need is a function more like...

F(u, ∆u) = ∆d*d such that E(u+∆u) = E(u+∆d*d
And in fact, what is of more interest is the relative change in this equivalence as d (not d) increases.

R(u1, u2, ∆u) = F(u2, ∆u)/F(u1, ∆u)
Which, if all variables but d are held constant, we should be looking at...

(m/r+d2)/(m/r+d1)
...as the relative increase in the value of other stats compared to +damage. Note that this is uniform for all other stats (haste, hit, crit), so this does not alter the balance between them (haste becomes worth no more crit or hit, etc.). This also does not involve any multipliers--hence, 4/5 Tier 6 should not affect it in a one-spell sense.


Now, of course, when you get to a multi-spell rotation, one has to take into account how different multipliers and effects change how much of your DPS comes from each element of the rotation.
#1800SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Gaspar
Sancus, Manly, Pintofbrew, etc. would you mind lending a hand in the general US Mage forums in the thread titled, "Arcane still dominates, even more 2.3.2."

I know you probably don't want to, but I'm furthering the cause.

On a separate note, was there a definitive yea or nay on the issue of inserting a Fireblast in rotations or leaving it out as concerned to latency and GCD?
#1801SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
The cutoff line when a 2-3 Fireball/Fireblast rotation is no longer viable has not been definitely found yet, but I assume it's somewhere in there T5 level of gear, if not before.
#1802SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Grecasi
Very short fights it's fine (though the dps gain is questionable at best, 1-3%), but at lower levels then t5 you'll have mana issues well if you plan on trying it on a bossfight. For general bossfights it's impossible to get anything good from it in reality.
#1803SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Gaspar View Post
Sancus, Manly, Pintofbrew, etc. would you mind lending a hand in the general US Mage forums in the thread titled, "Arcane still dominates, even more 2.3.2."
Though I question the value of posting on WoW forums, given we're very near the point Blizz announced the "tell us what you want fixed for WOTLC" I'd quite love to post. Unfortunately, I'm on EU and as such I won't be able to.

As for fireblast, hate monkey is about right, but there is no conclusive evidence to back it, mainly because the way the server handles instants is not well understood in the current incarnation of Live.

Edit: Dog's Trousers man, what a shitty thread... Every time I venture onto WoW forums I come back with a sinking feeling of dread. "Arcaen scalez bett0r weeth +dmg". Next post: "LoL ur armory u hav +700, u so nub". Reply "ZOMG STUP1D PvP GEER". Ad nauseum.

May I advise steering clear of the official forums, unless you want to literally whip your staff out and duel the other children in the playground.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 12/13/07 at 9:44 PM.
#1804SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
Originally Posted by Gaspar View Post
Sancus, Manly, Pintofbrew, etc. would you mind lending a hand in the general US Mage forums in the thread titled, "Arcane still dominates, even more 2.3.2."

I know you probably don't want to, but I'm furthering the cause.

On a separate note, was there a definitive yea or nay on the issue of inserting a Fireblast in rotations or leaving it out as concerned to latency and GCD?
What I concluded is that if you have any haste gear, the 2fireball/fireblast will get clipped on both ends by the cooldowns. I'd use the fireballx3/fireblast if the fight didn't require me to use any pot timers. The DPS gains from consumables you lose if you have to gem/mana pot makes the fireblast a waste. And as your haste increases the viability of fireblast drops. This is all still speculation though. You also gain the ability to save fireblast for when you have to move, which is nice as well.

I wouldn't say it's based on a certain tier level of gear though, I'd say it's more coorelated on the +haste gear you have equipped!
#1805SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
I think we concluded that ball/blast rotations needed to be investigated further before they were officially endorsed by EJ. Discretion on how exactly instants were queued compared to channeleds WRT the new lag-handling mechanics are making establishment of said tests hard.

Even so, I'd advise against running comprehensive tests before Blizz decides on how exactly they're going to make information-handling work correctly. It seems to me every couple of weeks there's a slight tweak. Multiple micro-tweaks is the new fad it seems. One need not look past the flurry of tweaks Hemorrhage has received in the last weeks.
#1806SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
OK - So I finally got on a reasonably stable ptr to confirm that spamming keys (with g15) is viable in 2.3.2.

The results below are taken from a 16 ms delay on keystrokes with 0 haste gear equipped.

12/14 23:37:27.468 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1000 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:30.453 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1009 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:33.421 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 999 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:36.484 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1047 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:39.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1051 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:42.515 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1017 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:45.609 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1611 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:48.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1059 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:51.609 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1614 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:54.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1044 Fire damage.
12/14 23:37:57.718 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1041 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:00.609 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1071 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:03.765 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1076 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:06.656 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1668 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:09.734 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1670 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:12.671 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1076 Fire damage..
12/14 23:38:15.656 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1058 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:18.671 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1600 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:21.734 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1057 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:24.703 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1076 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:27.718 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1046 Fire damage.
12/14 23:38:30.656 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1674 Fire damage.

We see an average delay of 8.95 ms on each fireball - considering the ptr was showing 200 ping for me. I'd say this is pretty good. 0.3% latency is alright in my books.
#1807SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Here's the test results running the same setup as above but with a 3 fireball / 1 fireblast rotation.

12/15 00:45:49.921 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 998 Fire damage.
12/15 00:45:53.015 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 998 Fire damage.
12/15 00:45:55.125 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 99 Fire damage.
12/15 00:45:56.109 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1043 Fire damage.
--- 4.497s between fireballs
12/15 00:46:00.406 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1608 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:03.578 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1059 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:05.656 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 157 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:06.718 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1565 Fire damage.
--- 4.469s between fireballs
12/15 00:46:11.187 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1612 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:14.125 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1052 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:16.078 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 109 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:17.046 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1662 Fire damage.
----4.266s between fireballs
12/15 00:46:21.312 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1049 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:24.515 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1648 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:26.921 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 113 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:27.812 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1049 Fire damage.
----4.422s between fireballs
12/15 00:46:32.234 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1029 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:35.296 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1072 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:37.234 Your Fire Blast crits Dr. Boom for 163 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:38.328 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1055 Fire damage.
---- 4.359s between fireballs
12/15 00:46:42.687 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1033 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:45.984 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1623 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:47.984 Your Fire Blast hits Dr. Boom for 107 Fire damage.
12/15 00:46:48.953 Your Fireball crits Dr. Boom for 1626 Fire damage.
---- 4.312s between fireballs
12/15 00:46:53.265 Your Fireball hits Dr. Boom for 1067 Fire damage.

6 complete rotations - expected time 10.5s * 6 = 63s
Actual time taken = 63.344s
latency = 0.54%
Slightly higher than my fireball spamming - but certainly not high enough variance to suggest that fireblast is adding your ping worth of latency as it did pre 2.2.

It seems to me that the spamming of the fireblast actually delays the finishing fireball by about 100-200ms, but I'm gaining that 100ms back by the fireball afterwards as you can see by all the intervals being sub 4.5s

Icelance spam test results.

12/15 01:13:47.515 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 344 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:49.328 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 538 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:50.515 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 362 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:52.062 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 361 Frost damage..
12/15 01:13:53.890 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 538 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:55.125 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 375 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:56.718 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 358 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:58.156 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 364 Frost damage.
12/15 01:13:59.828 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 379 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:01.312 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 356 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:02.781 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 360 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:04.328 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 551 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:05.890 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 559 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:07.234 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 366 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:08.765 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 362 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:10.250 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 360 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:11.875 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 568 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:13.468 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 572 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:14.781 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 367 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:16.328 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 365 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:17.937 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 580 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:19.375 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 375 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:21.187 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 357 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:22.406 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 378 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:24.015 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 373 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:25.375 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 355 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:26.890 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 378 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:28.437 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 362 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:29.968 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 361 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:31.437 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 573 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:32.890 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 371 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:34.468 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 557 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:36.015 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 359 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:37.421 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 560 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:38.937 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 363 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:40.156 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 356 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:41.796 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 359 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:43.390 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 376 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:44.843 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 354 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:46.296 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 376 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:47.937 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 370 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:49.546 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 374 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:50.828 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 560 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:52.546 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 365 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:53.828 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 363 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:55.390 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 376 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:56.890 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 376 Frost damage.
12/15 01:14:58.421 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 361 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:00.062 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 381 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:01.468 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 357 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:02.953 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 366 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:04.546 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 560 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:06.109 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 552 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:07.531 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 360 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:08.984 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 373 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:10.703 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 370 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:12.171 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 366 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:13.828 Your Ice Lance hits Dr. Boom for 366 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:15.046 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 554 Frost damage.
12/15 01:15:16.625 Your Ice Lance crits Dr. Boom for 580 Frost damage.

Expected time - 88.5 seconds
Actual time - 89.11seconds.

Average cast time = 1.51s
Latency = 0.69%
Slightly higher latency% but the latency per cast is still sub 10 ms.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/15/07 at 2:38 AM.
#1808SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Acustar
I haven't checked the PTR, but any word on Frostbite not procing from Frostbolts being fixed?
#1809SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Lleauric
I apologize if this has been asked yet.... but.

Quag's Eye vs. Ashtongue Talisman of Insight. Am I missing something here, or is the Quags eye a superior trinket to the ATI?

With both having a 45 second internal cooldown, What is the real difference between 10% chance to proc on all casts and 50% chance to proc on criticals only? (Im no math wiz by any means, but I "think" that person with 30% chance to crit will have about a 15% chance to proc on any cast with the ATI.)

This would make the QE the superior trinket then as it has +37 Spell Damage as the 45 second cooldown makes them both about the same as far as procs over the long term.

Very odd itemization.

Maybe someone better than I with Math can point me in the right direction. Hopefully we can somehow get a buff for the trinket from Blizz if it is shown to be as poor and redundant as it seems to be.
#1810SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Guaicow
Is hit from Elemental Precision still bugged granting 6 hit instead of 3 to frost/binary spells?
#1811SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
AToI does _not_ have an internal cooldown unless added on PTR.
#1812SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Eusheka
Originally Posted by Acustar View Post
I haven't checked the PTR, but any word on Frostbite not procing from Frostbolts being fixed?
In 500 Frostbolt casts i had 3 frostbite proc's.

In another 250 Frostbolt casts i had No Judgement of Wisdom proc's.

So its still broken on the EU Ptr at least.
#1813SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
AToI does _not_ have an internal cooldown unless added on PTR.

No cooldown, was just on the PTR and got it to refresh itself with scorch spam.
#1814SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Experimenting with a few things on the PTR:

Serpent Braid/Skull are the uber combo, they're on the same cooldown, stack, and they're both godly.

40/0/21 looks VERY strong, but with icy veins and drums and skull i'm already at 1.61 seconds, heroism would put my WAY under, which would cause problems, fire with all the haste is just over 1.5-1.6

2 minute/3 minute pairings need to be re-examined. I'm guessing there's at least a chance that it'll finally be better to pair the 2.

Even not pairing 2/3 minute timers, Icy Veins ALWAYS popping with AP on 40/0/21 might even push it over deep fire/veins, at least 10/48/3

Edit: Clarification
#1815SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ollepe
I dont know how to test if Elemental Precision is still bugged.

Originally Posted by Guaicow View Post
Is hit from Elemental Precision still bugged granting 6 hit instead of 3 to frost/binary spells?
I have no idéa how to test this. Can anyone clarify how to test it?
#1816SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Fizzl
Originally Posted by ollepe View Post
I have no idéa how to test this. Can anyone clarify how to test it?
Remove your talents.
Get about 125 hit.
Do 100 Frost bolts on Dr Boom.
Do 100 Fireballs on Dr. Boom.
You should see about the same amount of misses.

Get Elemental Precision.
Do 100 Frost bolts on Dr Boom.
Do 100 Fireballs on Dr Boom.
You should see more misses from the fireballs.
#1817SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0LiquidHAL
Originally Posted by Fizzl View Post
Dr Boom.
.
I don't think Dr. Boom would work on resist tests, he's only level 68. Even with no +hit or talents a player has 98% chance to hit against a mob 2 levels lower. Against a mob two levels higher, your resist cap is still only 5%. Enough to test if there's a difference, but not enough to test the 6% value that precision is theoretically giving frostbolt. You'd need a level 73 mob, or a sub-70 character to test it.
#1818SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Qbert
So what does everyone think of Rank 14 Fireball/Frostbolt being on the PTR and the possibilities if it goes live? Obviously it would be a bigger boost to Fire PvE DPS and a further blow to Arcane DPS. As much as I'd like to see it go live, the cynical mage in me thinks there won't be a chance.
#1819SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0LiquidHAL
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
So what does everyone think of Rank 14 Fireball/Frostbolt being on the PTR and the possibilities if it goes live? Obviously it would be a bigger boost to Fire PvE DPS and a further blow to Arcane DPS. As much as I'd like to see it go live, the cynical mage in me thinks there won't be a chance.
The first thought that went through my mind was spell upgrade tomes in Sunwell like we had in AQ20.
#1820SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
I doubt it. The pre-mades weren't exactly given the right skills, as can be seen with the Seed of Corruption bug for warlocks.
#1821SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Qbert View Post
So what does everyone think of Rank 14 Fireball/Frostbolt being on the PTR and the possibilities if it goes live? Obviously it would be a bigger boost to Fire PvE DPS and a further blow to Arcane DPS. As much as I'd like to see it go live, the cynical mage in me thinks there won't be a chance.
rank 14 fireball would give glaive rogues a run for their money.

.... well maybe if they only got a resto shaman!
#1822SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kir
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Experimenting with a few things on the PTR:

Serpent Braid/Skull are the uber combo, they're on the same cooldown, stack, and they're both godly.
Did you mean 'not' on the same cooldown?

Yea, I would imagine serpent braid will be a little bit better with the gem buffs. 25% more of a super mana potion amount of mana would help with mana issues if you don't have a shadow priest, or could swich to using molten over mage armor with it etc..

But, I can't imagine it's a better DPS boost then a hex shrunken head or even Icon of the silver crescent. Even if you can't stack them.
#1823SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
Currently i see three possibilities for rank 14 fireballs and the like on the PTR:

a) mistake, i'll be taken away
b) mages get a buff by increasing their main nuke from level 66 to level 70
c) all classes get their main nukes (or heals) increased to level 70

Option a) is most likely, because it would be too good, since we got buffed two patches in a row.
In favor of b) is that hardly a class has their main nuke such low level (shamans 67 I think, I can be off on this statement).
If blizzard were to implement c) in contrast to their previous statements, then we can expect some sort of librams that drop somewhere...
#1824SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sackobones
I think for blizzard the easiest way to balance the game for casters is to release new spells or alter the spells themselves rather than fool with the mechanics around our spells.

Adding in an Arcane Blast Rank2 and a Rank 11 Arcane Missle would adjust how arcane performs. Rank 14 fireball and frostbolt how those specs perform. With careful testing they can easily fix dps issues with classes by just adding new spells or changing features on spells.

Its easier than doing sweeping talent reviews imho.
#1825SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
The issues are with scaling, not with the base values.

Ex: fixing arcane is pretty much as simple as a buff to empowered arcane missiles.
#1826SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0chase
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
The issues are with scaling, not with the base values.

Ex: fixing arcane is pretty much as simple as a buff to empowered arcane missiles.
Scaling can get out of control quickly. Upping base values is like adding a fixed amount of +dmg (to school), more scalpel than A-bomb.

While I agree that simply upping base values is rather boring, (Is your damage purple, red or blue?) it is very static and easy to predict for balance purposes.

At any rate, I believe it is as simple as a flawed pre-made creation.

The question that begs to be asked is "Are they using max ranks on the internal server for testing balance?". If so, we got the short end of the stick.
#1827SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0andastra
The problem with fixing base spell values is, how do you make something competitive in T6 and in the future Sunwell content without making it overpowered in T4 content? I'd rather my damage scale slowly and steadily as I get gear upgrades rather than scale badly with gear upgrades with a few huge new rank upgrades here and there.
#1828SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0macbeet
Originally Posted by andastra View Post
The problem with fixing base spell values is, how do you make something competitive in T6 and in the future Sunwell content without making it overpowered in T4 content? I'd rather my damage scale slowly and steadily as I get gear upgrades rather than scale badly with gear upgrades with a few huge new rank upgrades here and there.
Think of a linear formula for scaling:

Damage = scaling factor * gear + basic damage

Now arcanes problem is that the scaling factor (read: the talents) is underpowered compared to fire and frost. Therefore it performs ok for bad to medium equipped mages at level 70, but falls behind later on. A perfect scaling will put the corresponding functions for all major Speccs on top of each other for all gear levels. Of course this is not a perfect linear function, but then again, as long as they remain the same to a certain extent, all spccs will be considered "viable".

Now if Blizzard were to adjust the talents in the arcane tree, it might become necessary to lower the basic damage to avoid the problem you metioned.
#1829SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
The "main" problem with arcane is that it lacks a role. It has been the "shadow-priest" dump mana spec (pre 2.3 arcane and t5 fireball/arcane blast combos), but as time has passed it's simply just "there". Fire is the dps tree, frost is the survivability tree (and maybe even leading dps tree with 40/0/21), and arcane lacks any purpose.

I just don't get it with blizzard, what is the purpose of talents? Why are some trees specifically made for PvP (Arms, Demo), some are made for PvE (Fire, Destruction, Feral), some that do "ok" at both but you need to respec still if you want full efficiency (Frost, Restoration, Holy (Paladin)), and some that just plain excel at both (Beast Mastery).

Anyways after getting that rant out my point remains, arcane currently doesn't have a function. If it's the leading dps tree all it does it make PvE mages respec to it and then fire becomes the gimp tree. I think blizzard realizes this and have thusly nerfed arcane until they find a suitable role.
#1830SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Anyways after getting that rant out my point remains, arcane currently doesn't have a function. If it's the leading dps tree all it does it make PvE mages respec to it and then fire becomes the gimp tree. I think blizzard realizes this and have thusly nerfed arcane until they find a suitable role.
It may seems like arcane got nerfed, but there was no nerf to arcane tree itself. The only nerf comes in the form of a CD added to Mystical Skyfire Diamond (which was the biggest nerf to arcane through itemisation). In fact, arcane received 15% more mana regen.

Arcane was supposed to be the number 1 burst DPS tree, which was true until T6 levels when other classes can do much more sustained DPS which can even rivals AB spam. The biggest problem there was that arcane failed to scale. 2x T5 was required to make AB viable, and AM spam is still way underpowered.
#1831SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
It may seems like arcane got nerfed, but there was no nerf to arcane tree itself. The only nerf comes in the form of a CD added to Mystical Skyfire Diamond (which was the biggest nerf to arcane through itemisation). In fact, arcane received 15% more mana regen.

Arcane was supposed to be the number 1 burst DPS tree, which was true until T6 levels when other classes can do much more sustained DPS which can even rivals AB spam. The biggest problem there was that arcane failed to scale. 2x T5 was required to make AB viable, and AM spam is still way underpowered.
(And the TLC nerf.)

What makes this tree the burst dps tree? PoM? Frost combo does the same damage on 1/8 the cooldown. Which leaves it to it's PvE burst where shatter combos don't work, why/when would you need a burst dps talent? I'm talking 5-8 seconds vs. 20 seconds, Combustion + cools + fire talents makes up for AP PoM's burst after 20-30.

Let me ask you this, if you were given empowered arcane missiles and 20% arcane blast free, say as part of the 2 peice t6, would anyone still spec arcane?
#1832SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
(And the TLC nerf.)

What makes this tree the burst dps tree? PoM? Frost combo does the same damage on 1/8 the cooldown. Which leaves it to it's PvE burst where shatter combos don't work, why/when would you need a burst dps talent? I'm talking 5-8 seconds vs. 20 seconds, Combustion + cools + fire talents makes up for AP PoM's burst after 20-30.
Yeah, I missed out the TLC, which is reliably 7%++ of my overall damage as arcane. Out of curiosity, I spec arcane for the 1st time since 2.3. It still have its place in terms of burst damage and its damage on thrash mobs is really hard to rival (IMO, thrash mobs matters since we spend more time on them when every boss is already on farm. Clearing thrash faster = overall less time spent). I have some wwstats of arcane performance, although the fights were really badly done.

Bugged Shade of Akama - 2899 DPS (took more than 1 minute to kill due to inexperience with dealing bugged akama)
Teron Gorefiend - 1412 DPS sustained (definately inferior to deep fire, but I link it here just for reference)
Thrash Mobs - 1513 DPS on thrash, take into consideration that I have sheep duty (not sure if sheeping affects dps on wwstats)

Anyway, my point is that Arcane is still good burst damage at high mana cost, which was what arcane is supposed to offer.

Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Let me ask you this, if you were given empowered arcane missiles and 20% arcane blast free, say as part of the 2 peice t6, would anyone still spec arcane?
Well, I won't take it. It still scales horribly in T6.
#1833SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dollar
It looks like the fireball/frostbolt ranks are indeed a mistake.

Quote from: Hortus
This is not a bug, it's a mistake made when creating the pre-mades. The spells are not sufficiently different then the rank 13 versions so we will not be making updates to the templates to remove them.
Edit: Source: WoW Forums -> [BUG?] Rank 14 fireball / frostbolt
#1834SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
The issues are with scaling, not with the base values.

Ex: fixing arcane is pretty much as simple as a buff to empowered arcane missiles.
Sadly the issue is always with both. If you fix the "scaling," as you term it, then you invalidate the balance of spells at lower gear levels in favor of higher gear levels.

What is important is the relative DPS gap between specs and spells. We often speak of deep Fire, for example, out-DPSing deep Frost by, say, 5%. If the two specs have good scaling and balance, then that gap should always be 5% as gear levels increase.

One cannot increase only the scaling of Arcane without considering whether this keeps the DPS gap the same from one gear level to the next or causes it to shrink or grow. Whether it shrinks, grows, or stays the same is intimately tied to the base damage.
#1835SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Qbert
Originally Posted by Dollar View Post
It looks like the fireball/frostbolt ranks are indeed a mistake.

Quote from: Hortus


Edit: Source: WoW Forums -> [BUG?] Rank 14 fireball / frostbolt
Oh humbug.
#1836SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
It's actually pretty much entirely tied to the scaling coefficient. Talent builds can tell us how each spell scales up with a point of 'stat', which is generally spell damage. If the scaling coefficient is exactly the same for each build, they will keep their comparative value from 0 spell damage all the way to 10000 spell damage.

Mind Mastery does not scale at all, which is a huge problem for arcane. Intellect is not a viable progression stat. It would be kinda neat if it was. Assuming, of course, they changed drinking to recover a percentage of mana. =p
#1837SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Guaicow
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
and maybe even leading dps tree with 40/0/21
when there is another mage specced deep frost (18/0/43 or something like that) putting up Winter's Chill right? because without that, that spec blows.
#1838SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dryssa
Regarding testing Elemental Precision, what I'd suggest is finding yourself a tank and healer and flying out to Nagrand to test on Reth'hedron the Subduer, the level 73 elite demon wandering around on the Twilight Ridge at the west.
#1839SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Experimenting with a few things on the PTR:

Serpent Braid/Skull are the uber combo, they're on the same cooldown, stack, and they're both godly.

2 minute/3 minute pairings need to be re-examined. I'm guessing there's at least a chance that it'll finally be better to pair the 2.
What makes Serpent-Coil Braid that much more powerfull now? At a full T6 level, the hit provided by the Braid is wasted, the crit is very minimal, and the use of the gem provides less damage than the Hex trinket.
_____

Well heres the problem with such effects, 2min/3min cooldowns, whether to stack or use on the cooldown, as fire. For frost, there are other inhibitors that need to be factored in along side, pushback, supported WC.

When your raids dps gets better, your chance to use consumables goes down.
I'll take Teron Gorefiend for example, as fire.

At about a 23,000 raid dps mark, you lose the ability to use the 3 minute cooldowns at the start of the fight and have them up at the end. At a 28,000 raid dps mark, you start to push the use of a 2 minute cooldown at the start and have it up at the end.

The highest dps gain for consumables for fire is when paired with a bosses health sub 20%. No matter what your usage is before 20%, if you do not have cooldowns or consumables up for a 20% burst, you have failed to maximize your dps.

For Frost, you need far more testing, testing that Dr. Boom cannot provide to conclude.

Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Mind Mastery does not scale at all, which is a huge problem for arcane. Intellect is not a viable progression stat. It would be kinda neat if it was. Assuming, of course, they changed drinking to recover a percentage of mana. =p
When they devalue the mana from Int down to 1, boost the Int on items like they did with stam, and nerf the mana gains of VT to a static value, or to a much lesser value, the quality of Int will go up, effectively making the talent a much more beneficial gain.
#1840SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
When they devalue the mana from Int down to 1, boost the Int on items like they did with stam, and nerf the mana gains of VT to a static value, or to a much lesser value, the quality of Int will go up, effectively making the talent a much more beneficial gain.
Have you heard of this being planned, or is it just educated speculation (either is fine, just curious)?
#1841SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Speculated as to make the Mind Mastery talent give more meaning.
#1842SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Speculated as to make the Mind Mastery talent give more meaning.
Sounds good. I'm hoping for an overhaul of the arcane tree, not necessarily just individual talents. I'm tempted to agree with the thought stated earlier that arcane is a "filler" spec, until Blizz finds a use for it, but rationality says that arcane will be broken for a good, long time.
#1843SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Muphrid
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
It's actually pretty much entirely tied to the scaling coefficient. Talent builds can tell us how each spell scales up with a point of 'stat', which is generally spell damage. If the scaling coefficient is exactly the same for each build, they will keep their comparative value from 0 spell damage all the way to 10000 spell damage.

Mind Mastery does not scale at all, which is a huge problem for arcane. Intellect is not a viable progression stat. It would be kinda neat if it was. Assuming, of course, they changed drinking to recover a percentage of mana. =p
No, I fear you miss my point.

Let us imagine, for the sake of example, that at some gear level, Arcane builds deal 800 DPS and Fire builds 900.
DPS gap: Fire deals 12.5% more DPS

Let us imagine that both builds receive +1 DPS for every +1 spell damage after all modifiers and buffs.

Now let's consider adding 200 spell damage. Arcane deals 1k DPS, Fire 1.1k.
DPS gap: 10%

A dwindling % DPS gap favors Arcane. Even though both receive the "same" DPS benefit from spell damage, the scaling is inherently unequal.


Now, the stat that increases the most with increasing gear level is +spell damage by far, which means scaling in relation to spell damage is the most important figure involved in determining the scaling of builds, but other stats should not be forgotten. Mind Mastery scales with crit and hit, for example.

It is exactly in response to this complicated mess of stats scaling each other and the complete and utter lack of uniformity between items of equal item level and maximum relative benefit (in other words, item points are spent based on an arbitrary formula and not in a manner related to how useful they are) that I have suggested massive modifications to the system.

Edit: it's easy to see, though, that the reason Mind Mastery doesn't scale is because +spell damage is the primary stat of every piece of gear at every level of gear. When's the last time you saw an item without +spell damage? That's right, never. This very quickly devalues the benefit from Mind Mastery: the most +spell damage you have, the more it takes for an equal percentage benefit.

If, instead, item points were more evenly distributed between the primary dps stats, Mind Mastery would be no different than talents that give percents of crit or hit, which do not lose percentage benefit due to increases in +damage. Instead, all of these stats would devalue at roughly comparable rates.

It is, however, rather telling that Mind Mastery, for all its flaws, is one of the biggest DPS increasing talents mages have available, certainly at low gear levels, but increasingly eclipsed at high gear levels by flat percentage multipliers.

It is my opinion, though, that a talent that decreases or increases in potency relative to other talents is a bad talent and not well designed. But then again, I apply this philosophy to the entire scaling system.

Last edited by Muphrid : 12/18/07 at 11:35 PM.
#1844SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
What makes Serpent-Coil Braid that much more powerfull now? At a full T6 level, the hit provided by the Braid is wasted, the crit is very minimal, and the use of the gem provides less damage than the Hex trinket.
In what respect? Using almost the best t6 i still find myself short of the cap switching to ruby cape, braid, and tirsifal wand. Of course it's wasted if you're not using the hit, that's what makes it such a good trinket
#1845SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
In what respect? Using almost the best t6 i still find myself short of the cap switching to ruby cape, braid, and tirsifal wand. Of course it's wasted if you're not using the hit, that's what makes it such a good trinket
Using all but the Sword from Archimonde, and the Skull from Illidan, and the ring from ZA, using an inferior wand, with an elemental shaman, I'm a a total of 15.5%~ hit, which can be seen with my armory. A perfectly built mage will have 166 hit rating. A not-so perfect mage will have even more due to different pieces of gear- cloak, boots, and belt for a lesser geared mage all provide hit. So at the T6 level, if you're using those gears, the braid is a complete waste, and even at the t4 level, its highly unusable to the alternative pieces. This may make sense or not if my thoughts are clear through my sickness.
#1846SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Plankel
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Using all but the Sword from Archimonde, and the Skull from Illidan, and the ring from ZA, using an inferior wand, with an elemental shaman, I'm a a total of 15.5%~ hit, which can be seen with my armory. A perfectly built mage will have 166 hit rating. A not-so perfect mage will have even more due to different pieces of gear- cloak, boots, and belt for a lesser geared mage all provide hit. So at the T6 level, if you're using those gears, the braid is a complete waste, and even at the t4 level, its highly unusable to the alternative pieces. This may make sense or not if my thoughts are clear through my sickness.
We don't have an elemental shaman, so that is 3% hit down the drain I need to get from gear instead. I assume it is the same for Searix. Ironically I have too much hit right now, but that is because I have nearly all of the sup-optimal pieces with a lot of hit, replace one of those and I will have to plug some +hit gems in (or braid if I had it) till I get the skull.

Last edited by Plankel : 12/19/07 at 5:44 AM.
#1847SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
An ele shaman is atleast something I and I'd say most mages cannot build their gear around, not to mention warlocks have superior scaling with an ele shaman (more ISB uptime, better scaling of SB over fireball, no hit talent etc etc).
#1848SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
An ele shaman is atleast something I and I'd say most mages cannot build their gear around, not to mention warlocks have superior scaling with an ele shaman (more ISB uptime, better scaling of SB over fireball, no hit talent etc etc).
With Icy Veins i think we might be above warlocks, dunno.

As to my gear, in terms of hit:
Head: Tempest, 27
Neck: Translucent, 15
Shoulders: Tempest, 0
Cloak: Illidan healing, 0
Chest: Tempest, 13
Bracers: Nimble, 0
Gloves: Spellfire, 0
Belt: Spellfire, 0
Legs: Tempest, 20
Feet: Blue Suede, 18
Ring1: Exalted Hyjal, 0
Ring2: Haste ring, 0
Trinket1: Braid, 30
Trinket2: Skull, 25
Weapon: Zhar'doom, 0
Wand: Tirisfal, 12

12.7% hit, just under hit cap, but using blue suede, tirisfal, and translucent. (Yes working on upgrading spellfire peices).

Unless i'm mistaken, the perfect set has braid in it, could be wrong though
#1849SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0BrTarolg
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
With Icy Veins i think we might be above warlocks, dunno.
I highly doubt it. By definition, warlocks do more damage than mages, given the same gear level. This is a multitude of reasons, but judging from the t6~ gear level, it basically revolves around succu + shadowpriest giving 30% damage, plus ISB(+20%~), and shadow and flame being 20% coef, aswell as the fact SB is 3 second base cast (so bane and shadow and flame have an increased effect) meaning that there is not a chance that a mage will ever outDPS a similarly geared destro warlock.

An extra 1-2% damage from veins isnt going to change that.
#1850SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0epiphenom
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Trinket1: Braid, 30
Unless i'm mistaken, the perfect set has braid in it, could be wrong though
Braid is 12 hit, and 30 crit.

Anyway, I'd imagine the "perfect" set would cap out like this (leaving out zero-hit slots)

Head: Cowl of the Illidari High Lord (35)
Chest: Tempest (13)
Gloves: Tempest (20)
Legs: Tempest (20)
Trinket1: Skull of Gul'dan (25)
Weapon: Tempest of Chaos (17)
Off-hand: Chronicle of Dark Secrets (17)
Wand: Wand of the Forgotten Star (11)

That's 158 rating, and you can pick up what's left with a Veiled Pyrestone somewhere, or any kind of shaman on a regular basis in your group. A Zhar'doom setup picks up any two out of Belt of Blasting (23), Translucent Spellthread Necklace (15) and Ring of Captured Storms (19) to cap out. I don't think the Braid is needed at any point.
#1851SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dersuuzala
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
With Icy Veins i think we might be above warlocks, dunno.

As to my gear, in terms of hit:
Head: Tempest, 27
Neck: Translucent, 15
Shoulders: Tempest, 0
Cloak: Illidan healing, 0
Chest: Tempest, 13
Bracers: Nimble, 0
Gloves: Spellfire, 0
Belt: Spellfire, 0
Legs: Tempest, 20
Feet: Blue Suede, 18
Ring1: Exalted Hyjal, 0
Ring2: Haste ring, 0
Trinket1: Braid, 30
Trinket2: Skull, 25
Weapon: Zhar'doom, 0
Wand: Tirisfal, 12

12.7% hit, just under hit cap, but using blue suede, tirisfal, and translucent. (Yes working on upgrading spellfire peices).

Unless i'm mistaken, the perfect set has braid in it, could be wrong though
I am not sure if I can agree on that, if you mean we cannot work around capping hit with other than the braid(you are writing it has 30 hit rating and I can only see 12). There are tons of options where you can cap it and only remain on 1 top 2 "old" items(read T5 lvl of items).

I did a "Dream Gear" topic on my guilds mage forums, with a intention to make the best gear possible while going for staff/head from Illidan(love those 2 items). I didn't go thru all the possible options but I tested few things and working around hit can be a bit time consuming if you want it proper =)

Here is the gear compilation I found my satisfaction in:

Head: Cowl of the Illidari High Lord With Chaotic Skyfire Diamond and 12 spelldamage gem

Neck: Hellfire-Encased Pendant

Shoulders: Mantle of the Tempest With red/blue gem(Glowing Tanzanite) 6spelldamage/6stamina and a yellow one giving 8 to hit(which gives socket bonus of 4 spelldamage)

Back: Cloak of the Illidari Council

Chest: Robes of the Tempest with three +12 spelldamage gems

Bracers: Bracers of Nimble Thought

Gloves: Gloves of the Tempes with one +12 spelldamage gem

Waist: Cord of Screaming Terrors with two +12 spelldamage gems

Leggs: Leggings of the Tempest with one +12 spelldamage gem

Feet: Slippers of the Seacaller with one red/blue 6spelldmg/6sta gem and one yello +8 to hit gem granting a +4 spelldmg socket bonus

Ring1: Band of the Eternal Sage

Ring2: Ring of Ancient Knowledge

Trinket1: The Skull of Gul'dan

Trinket2: Hex Shrunken Head

Wand: Wand of the Forgotten Star

Weapon: Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer with sunfire enchant ofcourse =)

note: I am using the shoulder and feet item to fill up hitrating gap and also to make sure the Meta gems gets the proper amount of blue gems it requires to work. By doing this I not only reach hit cap, I also make meta gem work and activate 2 socket bonuses). Also you see the Lurker belt and solarian wand as the "old" items to work in the correct ammount of +hit. Anyway, this is just a rather quick gear compilation I did and I am sure it can be adjusted alot better.

This brings me to:
505 intellect
313 spirit
519 stamina
1157 spelldamage(all schools)
1258 firespell damage
318 crit rating
164 spellhit rating
114 spell haste
#1852SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Dersuuzala View Post
I am not sure if I can agree on that, if you mean we cannot work around capping hit with other than the braid(you are writing it has 30 hit rating and I can only see 12). There are tons of options where you can cap it and only remain on 1 top 2 "old" items(read T5 lvl of items).

I did a "Dream Gear" topic on my guilds mage forums, with a intention to make the best gear possible while going for staff/head from Illidan(love those 2 items). I didn't go thru all the possible options but I tested few things and working around hit can be a bit time consuming if you want it proper =)

Here is the gear compilation I found my satisfaction in:

Head: Cowl of the Illidari High Lord With Chaotic Skyfire Diamond and 12 spelldamage gem

Neck: Hellfire-Encased Pendant

Shoulders: Mantle of the Tempest With red/blue gem(Glowing Tanzanite) 6spelldamage/6stamina and a yellow one giving 8 to hit(which gives socket bonus of 4 spelldamage)

Back: Cloak of the Illidari Council

Chest: Robes of the Tempest with three +12 spelldamage gems

Bracers: Bracers of Nimble Thought

Gloves: Gloves of the Tempes with one +12 spelldamage gem

Waist: Cord of Screaming Terrors with two +12 spelldamage gems

Leggs: Leggings of the Tempest with one +12 spelldamage gem

Feet: Slippers of the Seacaller with one red/blue 6spelldmg/6sta gem and one yello +8 to hit gem granting a +4 spelldmg socket bonus

Ring1: Band of the Eternal Sage

Ring2: Ring of Ancient Knowledge

Trinket1: The Skull of Gul'dan

Trinket2: Hex Shrunken Head

Wand: Wand of the Forgotten Star

Weapon: Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer with sunfire enchant ofcourse =)

note: I am using the shoulder and feet item to fill up hitrating gap and also to make sure the Meta gems gets the proper amount of blue gems it requires to work. By doing this I not only reach hit cap, I also make meta gem work and activate 2 socket bonuses). Also you see the Lurker belt and solarian wand as the "old" items to work in the correct ammount of +hit. Anyway, this is just a rather quick gear compilation I did and I am sure it can be adjusted alot better.

This brings me to:
505 intellect
313 spirit
519 stamina
1157 spelldamage(all schools)
1258 firespell damage
318 crit rating
164 spellhit rating
114 spell haste
First, switching one of the purples with the +12 in the head nets you an extra +1 spell damage :P just tossing that out there

Couples pro's/con's in hex vs. braid assuming you get full use of the +hit

Hex:
-Higher non use dps (5.28 for me, assuming flask, food buff, and weapon oil for my gear)
-Longer duration use(Pairs perfectly with Skull)
-Can be used at hit cap

Braid:
-Higher +damage on use for the duration, for a shorter length (5 seconds). Gives the added benefit of helping your "big combo" more while it's up (EX: Arcane Power/Combustion, both 15 seconds or less, as is destruction potion)
-600 mana more per Mana Emerald hit

Very close, with the advent of "super combos" (Veins/AP/Destruction Potion/Skull/Hex|Braid/Heroism) i'm not sure if hex is highest dps, considering the 600 extra mana PER mana emerald (meaning 1800 free mana by 4:10-4:20 minute mark), and the ability that lets you not go mage armor, super mana, or having to evocate based on the fight's length.
#1853SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dersuuzala
Well what braid would give me considerig its mana gain, is a freeup on Mana pot cooldowns for dest pots, specilly once 2.3.2 hits live. But not sure if there actually is a dps gain using braid over hex. Will have to dig thru Vontres dps sheet again
If mana is an issue then it might be the proper choice, but mana aside I think Flame caps can fill in its "boost" pretty well.
#1854SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Why Cord of Screaming Terrors over the Belt of Blasting?

Also why would you want to stick to Zhar'doom over going with Tempest/Chronicle?

Pretty sure 42 damage, 11 crit, 34 hit > 24 stam, 13 int, and 55 haste.

That 34 hit would also mean you could skip the socket bonuses on shoulders and feet and stick 12 damage gems in all 4 of those sockets. Then stick purple gems in helm and legs and you gain 43 damage while keeping your meta gem active. I think you will end up being 20 hit over the cap so then you could swap into the belt from Supremus or from Anatheron and be just a few point below the hit cap.
#1855SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
An ele shaman is atleast something I and I'd say most mages cannot build their gear around, not to mention warlocks have superior scaling with an ele shaman (more ISB uptime, better scaling of SB over fireball, no hit talent etc etc).
Somewhat ironically, I know that logically warlocks should get better scaling with e.shaman due to +3% crit -> more ISB uptime and a lot more dps, but in practice I have seen time and time over that they get more dps from resto shamans due to decreased lifetap time. Of course, this varies from fight to fight (ie: would they have had to lifetap in the first place?).
#1856SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
You guys are forgetting a ring, [Mana Attuned Band]. 18
[Leggings of Channeled Elements] 18
[Cowl of the Tempest] 13 [Glyph of Power] 14
[Robes of the Tempest] 13
[Gloves of the Tempest] 20
[Tempest of Chaos] 17
[Chronicle of Dark Secrets] 17
[The Skull of Gul'dan] 25
[Wand of the Forgotten Star] 11

Total of 166 Spell hit.
#1857SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
An ele shaman is atleast something I and I'd say most mages cannot build their gear around, *snip*
I agree with this. Part of why arcane was so gimmicky (and I hate to beat the red-headed stepchild again) was because of all the extraneous factors. But arcane isn't my point here, planning gear around assuming you'll always have an ele shammy or spriest or <insert character here> is just irresponsible. In my opinion, your gear shouldn't rely on others, you should be a self contained bubble of happy dps.
#1858SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Customs
With this gear setup, you will lose 4pcT6. Which is a significant DPS increase in itself.
#1859SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Customs View Post
With this gear setup, you will lose 4pcT6. Which is a significant DPS increase in itself.
Shoulders are the peice you're forgetting
#1860SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Serpent coil EVEN taking the hit as face value dps is NOT better than crusade OR Hexlord trinket.

For me Serpent would be equivalent to 73 face value damage
vs ~78-79 on crusade
vs ~88 dmg on hex shrunken head

and of course the skull for me
8 fireballs at 175 haste = 2.4s saved (assuming 0 haste to begin with) to make matters simple assume straight fireballs for the haste calculation.....
is equivalent to 2.94s fireballs averaged = 32 haste rating (which for my gear) = 42.7 dmg + 55 dmg base = 97.7 dmg b4 hit is considered.

Edit: I guess you could also try to argue that using the braid frees up Destruction pots - which of course would be flawed logic since mana pot / flame cap is > dps than destro pot / mana gem

The other argument would be that you didn't have a shadow priest and needed the xtra mana - of course playing with no shadow priest in your group is NO TIME TO EPEEN!

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/20/07 at 6:24 AM.
#1861SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Ah sweet, proving a point using flawed theorycrafting is the way to go...
The dmg values you use are based on a worst-case condition, whereas current tc takes into account fight duration to adjust the proper worth of activable trinkets. Vontre's spreadsheet has supported this for months already.

And haste potions only gives melee haste, not spell haste.
#1862SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Dustwhisper
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Somewhat ironically, I know that logically warlocks should get better scaling with e.shaman due to +3% crit -> more ISB uptime and a lot more dps, but in practice I have seen time and time over that they get more dps from resto shamans due to decreased lifetap time. Of course, this varies from fight to fight (ie: would they have had to lifetap in the first place?).
I have noticed the same but on the other hand it's the same arguments warlocks in my old guild loooveed to use in return "restoshaman manaspring gives you more mana back and totem helps us with more ISB". I would probably dare to say the perfect dps castergroup would be ele shaman + sp + 3 destrolocks with an afflictionlock having malediction in another group.

Btw manly something you have to answer me on because it's bugging the living shit out of me for ages now. Seeing as you probably could've had every item in the game in your bags by this point, why have you chosen Leggings of the channeled elements + 4p t6 over Cowl of the illidari high lord and 4p t6? From everything I've seen on lhiveras, vontre's and swapping around and calculating I always find Cowl + 4p to be ~12dps or so better than leggings. I even find Vestments of the seawitch + 4p t6 to be 2 or so dps over leggings.
#1863SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Ah sweet, proving a point using flawed theorycrafting is the way to go...
The dmg values you use are based on a worst-case condition, whereas current tc takes into account fight duration to adjust the proper worth of activable trinkets. Vontre's spreadsheet has supported this for months already.

And haste potions only gives melee haste, not spell haste.
Sorry I meant Destruction potions.

And while I realize TC can take into account fight durations. Everything but the Darkmoon card has the same cooldown.

Edit: You of course are insinuating that during say a 3 minute fight you would see a maximum uptime on the use trinkets. While you might also consider that I could make a very similar argument for a 4 minute fight where popping 2 flame caps and using a different trinket would most definately pass up the braid, even taking into account both braid uses being popped with combustion. So please take your nose and turn it up elsewhere - because the only "FLAW" in my theory crafting is that the comparison involves the darkmoon card which is not a use trinket.

Also the argument of best and worst case scenerios on 3,4,5 minute fights is also VERY DEPENDENT on how consistent your guild's raid dps is from week to week.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/20/07 at 6:44 AM.
#1864SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
Originally Posted by Dustwhisper View Post
I have noticed the same but on the other hand it's the same arguments warlocks in my old guild loooveed to use in return "restoshaman manaspring gives you more mana back and totem helps us with more ISB". I would probably dare to say the perfect dps castergroup would be ele shaman + sp + 3 destrolocks with an afflictionlock having malediction in another group.

Btw manly something you have to answer me on because it's bugging the living shit out of me for ages now. Seeing as you probably could've had every item in the game in your bags by this point, why have you chosen Leggings of the channeled elements + 4p t6 over Cowl of the illidari high lord and 4p t6? From everything I've seen on lhiveras, vontre's and swapping around and calculating I always find Cowl + 4p to be ~12dps or so better than leggings. I even find Vestments of the seawitch + 4p t6 to be 2 or so dps over leggings.
Look again ! hahaha

No seriously I just like to keep switching gear around. It's almost a challenge to go below hit cap. Not that it matters really, but the real reason for this is mostly that I get from time to time random PMs asking me questions about things like 'why are you using -20 res (I prefer the old naming nomenclature over +20 spell penetration) enchant over -2% threat'. So as a result I switch gear around from time to time to keep them guessing. If you see me switch to arcane some day its probably just to see what kind of question I get from that move rather than actually using it for raiding. I mean if they fix it and it becomes the best pve dps spec I will sure switch to it, but as long as it isn't the case I will enjoy proving arcane mages wrong.

The only thing I need is the najentus boots from BT. I somehow managed to lose every single roll on all the previous drop, and I am now the last one to not have them. At least I am guaranteed to get the next one. My current gear selection was originally intended to use a dmg/hit gem on the gloves which would bring me exactly to 166 hit rating, but the problem is that once I get the naj boots I lose the hit rating from boots of blasting, which I will have to fix with swapping in belt of blasting. This will give 161-18+23=166 which puts me back to 166 hit rating again, but without having to resort to hit gems. So because of that I did not bother putting a yellow gem on my current gloves. I should put a dmg/crit gem ideally but I don't really feel like asking gurgthock because I will have to ask for 4 red gems once I get najentus boots so I can gem boots + regem belt of blasting.

Anyway, my gear aside, the main different between 4pct6+[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] vs 4pct6+[Leggings of Channeled Elements] is that the cowl gives more hit rating, and makes CSD much easier to enable (ideally you would put cowl+pants blue gem and all red+yellow on glove). So if you end up above hit cap (like, say, with tempest of chaos), then youre better off with hyjal pants since they have less hit but damage more spread elsewhere. If you 'struggle' to get hit cap then the cowl is much better. In short, the cowl is better as long as you make use of the extraneous hit.

Last edited by manly : 12/20/07 at 12:08 PM.
#1865SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Sorry I meant Destruction potions.

And while I realize TC can take into account fight durations. Everything but the Darkmoon card has the same cooldown.

Edit: You of course are insinuating that during say a 3 minute fight you would see a maximum uptime on the use trinkets. While you might also consider that I could make a very similar argument for a 4 minute fight where popping 2 flame caps and using a different trinket would most definately pass up the braid, even taking into account both braid uses being popped with combustion. So please take your nose and turn it up elsewhere - because the only "FLAW" in my theory crafting is that the comparison involves the darkmoon card which is not a use trinket.

Also the argument of best and worst case scenerios on 3,4,5 minute fights is also VERY DEPENDENT on how consistent your guild's raid dps is from week to week.
I get your point that they all have the same cooldown, but nevertheless the odds are much higher that the fight duration is not a multiple of 2 min, which makes every activable trinket much better in practice than crusade.
#1866SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I get your point that they all have the same cooldown, but nevertheless the odds are much higher that the fight duration is not a multiple of 2 min, which makes every activable trinket much better in practice than crusade.
Also, not sure if anyone has noticed but using AP, Veins, Skull, Braid, Destruction Pot, is ~206.7% trinketed DPS for the duration (tested via vontre's dps chart turning off used effects) with 40/0/21 next patch without heroism (Which unfortunately puts you under

And, for fire next patch, Veins, Skull, Braid, Destruction Pot, Combustion (i modeled at 1.5 extra crits over 15 seconds, or 25% more effective fireballs (it's less than 30% due to higher crit rate with destruction pot and haste, so really somewhere ~25%, used 25% to model) is ~199.2% trinketed dps for the duration, ~291.2% at <20% with heroism.

The implication of this is that activated trinkets are can be 3 times as effective during their use.

On a side note: Frostbolt caps at 66.67% haste (at which it's <1.5 second spell), aka 1046.7 haste, veins, heroism, and skull only leave you with 86 haste before you get to cap (using drums that leaves me with 6, and i use zhardoom/crafted bracers). Oh well.

Btw Vontre's spreadsheet assumes 100% haste is the cap for both fireball and frostbolt, when it should be 100/66.7
#1867SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
On a side note: Frostbolt caps at 66.67% haste (at which it's <1.5 second spell), aka 1046.7 haste, veins, heroism, and skull only leave you with 86 haste before you get to cap (using drums that leaves me with 6, and i use zhardoom/crafted bracers). Oh well.

Btw Vontre's spreadsheet assumes 100% haste is the cap for both fireball and frostbolt, when it should be 100/66.7
I would of hoped people were smart enough to know that a 100% hasted Frostbolt is a 1.25s cast, and is "too fast", but in reality that fast of a cast for a spell that has no pushback protection is almost worth it. Almost.
#1868SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
I have one question about haste rating. A while ago, someone mentioned that haste rating may be applied to the base cast time, not on the cast time after talent is applied, which we all seems to assume. Is there any verification on this? Has anyone done any conclusive test to verify it?
#1869SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
It's done after talented cast time is calculated.

It's really simple to prove too. Equip an item with haste, take the original cast time, and divide by the haste.

(Cast Time Talented)/(1+haste) the haste is in decimal form, so if its 2% haste, .02. If the number you get, rounded, is the same as the tooltip, then it's right.

This is back several pages, prolly 20-30 pages ago this was done.
#1870SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0BrTarolg
Originally Posted by Imbar View Post
I agree with this. Part of why arcane was so gimmicky (and I hate to beat the red-headed stepchild again) was because of all the extraneous factors. But arcane isn't my point here, planning gear around assuming you'll always have an ele shammy or spriest or <insert character here> is just irresponsible. In my opinion, your gear shouldn't rely on others, you should be a self contained bubble of happy dps.
Well, thats all handy dandy, but if you don't have a shadowpriest with the mage you can be damned sure he isnt going to last longer than 4-5 minutes~ on a boss before he goes OOM, chaining SMP. Maybe it's because i havn't progressed far enough yet (sigh stuck in a guild which doesn't even 25 man anymore T.T) but i carry bags of SMP and i still run out of mana chaining everything whilst the rest of the group is still happily DPS'ing. I'm even resorting to wearing a gladiator wand for the DPS when OOM, and getting wandspec and magic attunement.
Ele shaman however, is purely a luxury for me. Same for resto shamans.

But from theorycraft alone, I cannot understand why people would bring more than one mage to a raid unless there is a requirement for it (sheep, buff, portals, water). And sad thing is, whilst i've tried my best to farm the best possible kara+5 man gear for 25 man so I can get into a progressing guild, most replies i've gotten are "we are full on mages", noting that they will always take less mages (to the point of 1-2 max per raid) than locks. (Thus i'm trying my hand at pvp I suppose). Have one mage max, and you can keep all the locks happy by gibing them all the mana, so less lifetap, less CoE and more DPS.

So I cannot help but build myself around a shadowpriest, as without one i'm dead doing a max of 300 dps~ wanding - considering in the guild i'm in atm we reguarly take fights to 8 min or more.
#1871SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
I would of hoped people were smart enough to know that a 100% hasted Frostbolt is a 1.25s cast, and is "too fast", but in reality that fast of a cast for a spell that has no pushback protection is almost worth it. Almost.
I was talking more pve, but you still can't go over cap in arena without equipping every peice of haste gear, getting hero, popping skull and veins
#1872SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Searix, keep in mind a few things:

1- 40/0/21 is bugged on Vontre's spreadsheet and has really high dps because it counts WE being active... This might affect your numbers a good deal, depending on whether or not that got fixed (which to my knowledge it didnt)
2- Vontre's spreadsheet does not appropriate models +% faster cast mixed with haste ratings. This used to not be a problem with only bloodlust being a %, but with icy veins it won't produce accurate results. % modifiers are multiplicatives, and haste ratings are additive.

with this said you might wanna try Vontre' simulator instead.
#1873SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Searix, keep in mind a few things:

1- 40/0/21 is bugged on Vontre's spreadsheet and has really high dps because it counts WE being active... This might affect your numbers a good deal, depending on whether or not that got fixed (which to my knowledge it didnt)
2- Vontre's spreadsheet does not appropriate models +% faster cast mixed with haste ratings. This used to not be a problem with only bloodlust being a %, but with icy veins it won't produce accurate results. % modifiers are multiplicatives, and haste ratings are additive.

with this said you might wanna try Vontre' simulator instead.
Dude.. my simulator is still being worked on.. and is not open to public viewing.. and is not actually a simulator.

Also Manly the water elemental counting for 40/0/21 was a bug in my UNRELEASED SIMULATOR, not in the spreadsheet, which is working fine. And the current spreadsheet build doesn't even have Icy Veins in it, at all. I still need to update it.
#1874SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Sad thing, just when I was starting to accept 40/0/21 as being viable :P
#1875SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Massael
Manly if you don't mind me asking, how many mages do you typically run with in your raids and what groups do you build around them? I ask because your locks are already geared at the level where we can start to discuss group composition changes for shamans/boomkins (if you use one).
#1876SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 pewsey
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Sad thing, just when I was starting to accept 40/0/21 as being viable :P
I'm going against all form of convention and actually calling it viable. I've been swapping back and forth between 40/0/21 and 10/48/3 for the past month. We're in Hyal/BT and I put out almost the same numbers. Much of this I'm convinced is due to the EP +3% hit bug that frostbolt is getting, which makes a staggering difference in what I can gear.

At my level of gear (T4-T5 pieces), +hit is a bit of a missing stat, so I've got gems + a pair of "+hit gloves" which I swap out my T5 for to get to the hit cap on fire.

The main reason that I found it viable is the trinketable nature of Arc/Frost, with AB spam and AP frostbolts _at the right time_, I could control when I did damage.

Sure, fire has that sustained love, but my encounters don't have me standing still for 5 minutes nuking some poor static mob to death.

Yeah, I got WWS parses to back all this up.
#1877SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
We typically run with 2 mages. 3 from time to time, but it really isn't the norm. Thing is, if you were to go for the absolute best stacking, ignoring all else, you want ideally 3+ warlocks and 1-2 mages. There isn't much incentive to bring mages because we don't provide group buffs. Again, we're talking pure TC here -- in practice, in EJ, it is mostly a matter of who is available on the night x of raiding and somewhat vaguely a factor of attendance. As a result, we typically run with 2 warlocks and 2 mages. This means COE is very rare. I like to believe my DPS remains competitive despise this obvious lacking buff, but I guess that is mostly a matter of perspective.

What you need to understand is that what you ask cannot really be answered in a generic way. Warlocks do totally nuts DPS given that they don't need to lifetap (and given cod/coa). As such, your RDPS will affect the number of lifetaps they end up doing, as well as fight duration (or if you prefer, the boss HP). Assuming a standard warlock composition of 1 aff lock + x destro locks, the more warlocks you have, the more your ISB uptime should go up. Of course, this means increased rdps, particularly the more warlocks you have. Strictly speaking, crit should really help a lot destro locks, as such e.shaman/moonkin is logically the next step in raid stacking. However, beyond that, you need to think about your raid as a whole. Assuming you run with just 1x e.shaman, and just 1x s.priest, the logical conclusion is grouping them together. The next logical step is to give mages the s.priest because mages simply cannot dps without mana (although, admitedly, at t6 levels it isn't as required as it used to be). Mages are unable to lifetap and do something else than waiting for cooldowns to be ready for more mana. Thing is, in my experience, locks gain just as much dps from a resto shaman than an e.shaman due to decreased lifetap time. However, all of this assumes that the warlock would end up doing a considerable amount of lifetapping. If the warlock doesn't lifetap because rdps is too high, or fight duration is too short, then obviously e.shaman is better.

Here is my crude attempt at theorycrafting mana consumption for warlocks. Be aware that I don't claim to know well the class and its intricaties, but the numbers should give a good guesstimate nevertheless.

assuming 0 haste: 420 mana / 2.5 s
buffed mana pool: 10-11k
2400 mana / 2min (super mana potions)
41 mp5 from BoW (or 45 if improved, but let's ignore that)
--------------------
time to oom: ~80 seconds (32 casts)

24% mana from mana tide / 5min
--------------------
gain: +15.5s (+2625 mana, 6.25 casts)

37 mana / shadowbolt with JoW
--------------------
gain (on 32 casts): +7s (+1184 mana, 2.80 casts)

1000 dps s.priest = 250 mp5
1200 dps s.priest = 300 mp5
--------------------
gain (on 32 casts): +23.75s (+4000 mana, 9.5 casts)
gain (on 32 casts): +28.75s (+4800 mana, 11.5 casts)


So in other words, fight duration will greatly affect the number of lifetaps they might have to do. The number of time spent lifetapping (ie: number of GCD lost equalled in terms of dps loss) needs to be above the gains from the e.shaman.

This is mostly an endless debate and I fear that I cannot really give you a clear cut answer to this. What I am trying to show you is mostly that, given a fight long enough (and keep in mind, those numbers are for fully unhasted warlock, which is probably not the case), your warlocks will probably be lifetapping with no s.priest. Resto shaman makes this less of a pain. To be quite honest, I think it boils down mostly to who you have in your guild. Sure, if you want the perfect raid setup for a boss X, then you should have everyone in the raid be a leatherworker, probably run 5+ shamans, and most likely run with a bunch of rogues. Or 1 mage and 2+ destro locks. The math behind it is very complex, but no matter what TC dictates, TC will not take into account specifics of a given fight which will make certain classes/specs rise or sunk in dps. Case in point: generally our hunters gets really solid dps on teron, but you can't say they maintain their rank on other fights. The same applies to all classes. I like to believe that mages are rather 'versatile' in that matter and tend to do rather decently in most contexts where we are doing a dps tasks, but then again I suppose you could say the same of every class.

And as for what EJ does, we generally have 1-2 s.priest with 1 e.shaman. S.Priest always goes with e.shaman and mages, then destro locks. If not, then destro locks gets resto shaman (+leatherworker) and s.priest if available.

Last edited by manly : 12/21/07 at 7:08 PM.
#1878SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
Originally Posted by pewsey View Post
I'm going against all form of convention and actually calling it viable. I've been swapping back and forth between 40/0/21 and 10/48/3 for the past month. We're in Hyal/BT and I put out almost the same numbers. Much of this I'm convinced is due to the EP +3% hit bug that frostbolt is getting, which makes a staggering difference in what I can gear.

At my level of gear (T4-T5 pieces), +hit is a bit of a missing stat, so I've got gems + a pair of "+hit gloves" which I swap out my T5 for to get to the hit cap on fire.

The main reason that I found it viable is the trinketable nature of Arc/Frost, with AB spam and AP frostbolts _at the right time_, I could control when I did damage.

Sure, fire has that sustained love, but my encounters don't have me standing still for 5 minutes nuking some poor static mob to death.

Yeah, I got WWS parses to back all this up.
I will take the devil's advocate position. Hyjal favors mostly arcane due to short fights. Although with the recent fire/frost buffs the numbers should be somewhat very close. In other words, arcane in hyjal is in loosely what we could refer to 'a best case scenario' for dealing its DPS. Problem is, it takes the best case scenario, for arcane, to match fire/frost dps. I am not saying your dps will 'stink' as arcane spec, but mostly that the further you move into BT the more fight lenghts will increase somewhat drastically and you will see the very effects of poor DPM. Yes you can still get somewhat 'close' numbers, but you don't really have any advantages as arcane besides:

1- EP being bugged, making it easier to gear up for it
2- having 'burst' dps
3- reduced threat

Now here is the thing. Those are, in my view, the only advantages that arcane has right now. However, I can also prove to you that all 3 of them are not good arguments when you look deeper into it.

1- Sure, EP is bugged. Problem is, regardless of whether or not it is bugged, fire/frost dps should be matching arcane dps for the most part, and outdo it the better your gear gets.
2- Arcane burst dps is the argument I personally love to hate. For all intent and purposes, water elemental 'burst' dps is far far better than arcane power. This is particularly evident to see in Vontre' unreleased simulator that draws a nice graph where you see the evolution of dps in time during a fight. You can really see a huge spike when WE are being activated, and a very narrow spike for AP.
3- Reduced threat. If you have threat problem with fire/frost spec, its probably because you're on gurtogg (ie: threat pushbacks). In actual practice, this is the only place where threat might even come into play, and in that case you can invis and the issue is no more.

And yes, I also have WWS parses to back me up as well. Sadly, I doubt going that route will be productive. I know that no matter what I tell arcane mages they will not change much their opinion on the spec. It can work, for sure, but that doesn't mean I would recommend it generally. Every spec have pros and cons. I personally believe that every 'pros' of arcane specs are really overrated, and that arcane spec number of 'cons' is also a lot higher than the other specs.

edit:
after some thinking, I did find a good reason to spec arcane. AOE. That is pretty much it.

Last edited by manly : 12/21/07 at 7:24 PM.
#1879SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 pewsey
I'm not so much convinced that it's a devils advocate position, it's more about context.

Please don't think I'm advocating arc/frost as "better", it makes little theoretical/mathematical sense that it's competitive. I'm a very reluctant frost mage ;-)

I'm merely pointing out that in real world scenarios, for the encounters that I'm doing, with the gear I have available to me, and the bugs that currently exist with EP makes arc/frost competitive with deep fire.

That's a crapton of caveats to make it competitive. I'm a TC at heart, so I understand the math behind things, but I also understand that a model of events doesn't always match reality (or game reality in this case) and I strive to find out _why_ arc/frost is competitive to fire, when by all indication fire should be ahead.

I've already specced back to deep fire in my bi-weekly quest to try new things out, my "I've got WWS to back it up" wasn't a "you're all wrong, die in a fire", it was a "if you're arc/frost or deep fire where I am, they're both viable, and given normal random factors in encounters pump out very, very similar numbers".

Personally, I believe the 3% EP bug is the leading cause of this discrepancy, and the sooner it's fixed, the better.

Oh, and if you've got access to gear greater than T5, and +hit ceases to be a significant issue, then I can't see how arc/fire or arc/frost would even be close. I think I'm just at the sweet spot which I believe is an important thing to inform people of, given that there are almost certainly more mages at my position, than at full T6.

Last edited by pewsey : 12/21/07 at 7:29 PM. Reason: Added paragraph about T6 gear
#1880SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Well, my take on the matter was that arcane is giving you good numbers mostly due to (hyjal) short fight durations.
#1881SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vannik
In regards to the braid for the +hit on it, couldn't you just use something else like hex and get +15 spell hit rating to gloves? I am sure most people have +20 dmg, but if it is that big of an issue, you can calculate the difference of hex trinket and +15 hit or braid and +20 dmg for the glove enchant. Just putting it out there.
#1882SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
A couple notes on 2.3.2 40/0/21 vs. 0/50/11

1) CSD helps more with the above frost spec, base 225% crit vs. base 210%, which is a lot at t6 level
2) Veins and combustion don't line up well, after the first they're either desynced, or you're playing with 15-20 seconds icy veins "dead" time, 40/0/21 Veins and ap will ALWAYS line up (and have trinkets exactly lined up if popped every time they're up)
3) On the issue of equivalent talents:
Assumptions: 1150 damage, EP brings you to hit cap, 800 int after +15% int talent, ~35% crit
Arcane Power = Combustion (AP is actually slightly better with t6 crit rate)
Arcane Potency = Pyromaniac
Arcane Instability = Critical Mass
Mind Mastery = Empowered Fireball
Piercing Ice = 6% of Fire Power
Winter's Chill = 11-12% of Imp Scorch's +15%
So that leaves us with...
40/0/21: Spell Power, Ice Shards, Cold Snap, extra 3% hit from EP
0/50/11: Ignite, Molten Fury, 4% of Fire Power, 3% of Playing With Fire, 3% of imp scorch

Or VERY roughly: 231.75% crit co-efficient, Cold Snap, paired trinket combos vs. 216.3% crit co-efficient, ~11% more damage from talents, unpaired trinket combos

If you can further break that down you'll see which one's better, but the method is beyond me
#1883SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
A couple notes on 2.3.2 40/0/21 vs. 0/50/11

1) CSD helps more with the above frost spec, base 225% crit vs. base 210%, which is a lot at t6 level
2) Veins and combustion don't line up well, after the first they're either desynced, or you're playing with 15-20 seconds icy veins "dead" time, 40/0/21 Veins and ap will ALWAYS line up (and have trinkets exactly lined up if popped every time they're up)
3) On the issue of equivalent talents:
Assumptions: 1150 damage, EP brings you to hit cap, 800 int after +15% int talent, ~35% crit
Arcane Power = Combustion (AP is actually slightly better with t6 crit rate)
Arcane Potency = Pyromaniac
Arcane Instability = Critical Mass
Mind Mastery = Empowered Fireball
Piercing Ice = 6% of Fire Power
Winter's Chill = 11-12% of Imp Scorch's +15%
So that leaves us with...
40/0/21: Spell Power, Ice Shards, Cold Snap, extra 3% hit from EP
0/50/11: Ignite, Molten Fury, 4% of Fire Power, 3% of Playing With Fire, 3% of imp scorch

Or VERY roughly: 231.75% crit co-efficient, Cold Snap, paired trinket combos vs. 216.3% crit co-efficient, ~11% more damage from talents, unpaired trinket combos

If you can further break that down you'll see which one's better, but the method is beyond me

There are a couple of things wrong with that list.

1. Winter's Chill shouldn't belong in a discussion of 40/0/21. You get it from another mage and if that mage specs Fire or 40/0/21 or misses the raid then your dps misses him.

2. Even if Winter's Chill was present it's not that much of a dps increase. Running the numbers on Lhivera's script I'm showing it being equal to 7.5% not 11-12%.

3. Empowered Fireball scales a lot better then Mind Mastery. I have pretty decent gear and with 5/5 Arcane Mind I would have a little over 700int fully raid buffed which would give me 140 additional spell damage. Empowered Fireball would give 202 spell damage from the 1347 damage fire damage I have when raid buffed, add in Wrath of Air and it gives 217. Also, unless something changes, Empowered Fireball will continue to scale better then Mind Mastery all the way till the next expansion.

4. Arcane Instability > Critical Mass (that one being in your favor - gotta be fair) for the same reasons that applied to Winter's Chill versus Improved Scorch.
#1884SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
There are a couple of things wrong with that list.

1. Winter's Chill shouldn't belong in a discussion of 40/0/21. You get it from another mage and if that mage specs Fire or 40/0/21 or misses the raid then your dps misses him.

2. Even if Winter's Chill was present it's not that much of a dps increase. Running the numbers on Lhivera's script I'm showing it being equal to 7.5% not 11-12%.

3. Empowered Fireball scales a lot better then Mind Mastery. I have pretty decent gear and with 5/5 Arcane Mind I would have a little over 700int fully raid buffed which would give me 140 additional spell damage. Empowered Fireball would give 202 spell damage from the 1347 damage fire damage I have when raid buffed, add in Wrath of Air and it gives 217. Also, unless something changes, Empowered Fireball will continue to scale better then Mind Mastery all the way till the next expansion.

4. Arcane Instability > Critical Mass (that one being in your favor - gotta be fair) for the same reasons that applied to Winter's Chill versus Improved Scorch.
1. I personally have 2 mages who always raid and who are and will always be deep frost.

2. Pretty sure you're not entering in the ~231% frostbolt co-effiicient, i get 7.5% for 10/48/3 winter's chill

3. it's 25% not 20% so 175 damage, and your int's a bit low i have ~70 or so more than you, still loses out when fully raid buffed though

4. Again, i don't see what i'm missing but they should essentially be the same, 1% crit is an additional spell doubled in damage (assuming 200% crit) every 100 casts, 101 spells/100 casts = 1% dps increase, correct?
#1885SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
4. Again, i don't see what i'm missing but they should essentially be the same, 1% crit is an additional spell doubled in damage (assuming 200% crit) every 100 casts, 101 spells/100 casts = 1% dps increase, correct?
Pretend you have a 25% crit rate.

100 casts is equivalent to 125 non-crit hits.

Add 1% crit.

100 casts is now equivalent to 126 non-crit hits.

126/125 < 101/100
#1886SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Gecko
I have a question about specs in 2.3.2. Theorycrafting has shown that 2/47/11 is better dps than 10/47/3.

However why not drop the pyroblast, thus you wont have blastwave either. Drop dragon's breath, and the one point put into improved fire blast and throw the points into the arcane tree for 1 point into arcane concentration?

The way I see it those other spells aren't being used in a raid enviroment unless something went wrong with the exception of fire blast (to increase dps at the cost of dpm). So it at least appears to me that at no sacrifice to dps, you can save a tiny bit of mana.

Last edited by Gecko : 12/22/07 at 5:12 AM.
#1887SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Gecko View Post
I have a question about specs in 2.3.2. Theorycrafting has shown that 2/47/11 is better dps than 10/47/3.

However why not drop the pyroblast, thus you wont have blastwave either. Drop dragon's breath, and the one point put into improved fire blast and throw the points into the arcane tree for 1 point into arcane concentration?

The way I see it those other spells aren't being used in a raid enviroment unless something went wrong with the exception of fire blast (to increase dps at the cost of dpm). So it at least appears to me that at no sacrifice to dps, you can save a tiny bit of mana.
Well personally I would have a lot harder time killing parasites without db / bw

Not to mention the trash clears (esp hyjal) where aoe is required. I really don't think it'd be worth it for the ~ 20 mp5 I would gain.
#1888SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Pretend you have a 25% crit rate.

100 casts is equivalent to 125 non-crit hits.

Add 1% crit.

100 casts is now equivalent to 126 non-crit hits.

126/125 < 101/100
I've spent entirely to long brainstorming this, why is this. And, why is it only at infinity crit co-efficient that every 1% crit is worth 1% more dps?
#1889SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Gecko
I've never done Illidan and I never really thought of that, but on hyjal trash flamestrike spam tends to work well for me, though I do use Dragon's breath on occasion should I happen to pull aggro on a mob. So what I guess you're getting at is that a 6/44/11 can be viable for raids, however it isn't as practical as the 2/48/11, correct?
#1890SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Amarilia
Originally Posted by Gecko View Post
I have a question about specs in 2.3.2. Theorycrafting has shown that 2/47/11 is better dps than 10/47/3.

However why not drop the pyroblast, thus you wont have blastwave either. Drop dragon's breath, and the one point put into improved fire blast and throw the points into the arcane tree for 1 point into arcane concentration?

The way I see it those other spells aren't being used in a raid enviroment unless something went wrong with the exception of fire blast (to increase dps at the cost of dpm). So it at least appears to me that at no sacrifice to dps, you can save a tiny bit of mana.
Well there still are a lot of fights that involve some aoe in it. Hyjal and Illidan come to mind.
And while losing full arcance concentration will definately be noticeable, I don't believe dropping some versatility for a very small mana regen improvement is worth it.
#1891SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
I've spent entirely to long brainstorming this, why is this. And, why is it only at infinity crit co-efficient that every 1% crit is worth 1% more dps?
It's the opposite - at 0% crit one would see a 1% dps increase from 1% crit increase since 101/100 = 1.01

At 99% crit - 200/199 = 1.005. That's of course using a simple crit modifier (double damage)

A more wordy way to think of it would be this. when you increase spell damage or spellhit or spell haste - ALL of those things can also crit, But you can't Crit a Crit.

Edit - I may have misread what you posted - If you were talking about the crit modifier The % dps increase for 1% crit would go something like.

Your average fireball = FireballHIT + Critmodifier*(Crit%/100)

((FireballHIT + ((Crit%+1)/100)*FireballHit*CritModifier)/(FireballHIT + (Crit%/100)*FireballHit*CritModifier)-1)*100

Where say a fire Crit modifier would be 1.10 in that method of calculation

Obviously as Crit modifier tends to infinity - we get %dpsincrease = (((Crit%+1)/Crit%)-1)*100
Subbing in 25% crit we see that if the crit modifier was tending towards infinity - the %dps increase from 1% crit would be 4%.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/22/07 at 10:46 AM.
#1892SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Gecko View Post
I've never done Illidan and I never really thought of that, but on hyjal trash flamestrike spam tends to work well for me, though I do use Dragon's breath on occasion should I happen to pull aggro on a mob. So what I guess you're getting at is that a 6/44/11 can be viable for raids, however it isn't as practical as the 2/48/11, correct?
You drop 4 points in fire just to get some arcane +hit that you don't need and 1/5 clearcasting that is 15 mp5 at most?
I'd consider it a pretty bad deal.

If you need mana, get CC and drop IV. If you don't, get IV and drop CC. You can't have your cake and eat it there, really.
#1893SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
It's the opposite - at 0% crit one would see a 1% dps increase from 1% crit increase since 101/100 = 1.01

At 99% crit - 200/199 = 1.005. That's of course using a simple crit modifier (double damage)

A more wordy way to think of it would be this. when you increase spell damage or spellhit or spell haste - ALL of those things can also crit, But you can't Crit a Crit.
Crit co-efficient isn't crit %, yes it's also 1% dps at 0% crit, but also if your crit co-efficient is infinite (aka your crits do an infinite amount of damage), or in more general terms, going from 99-100% crit by adding 1% crit is a .99% dps increase if you crit for 100x what you hit, but only a .5% dps increase if you crit for 2x
#1894SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Crit co-efficient isn't crit %, yes it's also 1% dps at 0% crit, but also if your crit co-efficient is infinite (aka your crits do an infinite amount of damage), or in more general terms, going from 99-100% crit by adding 1% crit is a .99% dps increase if you crit for 100x what you hit, but only a .5% dps increase if you crit for 2x
I didn't get my post edited quickly enough :P I just finished submitting it - but I'll repost my edit down here for reference

--------
I may have misread what you posted - If you were talking about the crit modifier The % dps increase for 1% crit would go something like.

Your average fireball = FireballHIT + Critmodifier*(Crit%/100)

((FireballHIT + ((Crit%+1)/100)*FireballHit*CritModifier)/(FireballHIT + (Crit%/100)*FireballHit*CritModifier)-1)*100

Where say a fire Crit modifier would be 1.10 in that method of calculation

Obviously as Crit modifier tends to infinity - we get %dpsincrease = (((Crit%+1)/Crit%)-1)*100
Subbing in 25% crit we see that if the crit modifier was tending towards infinity - the %dps increase from 1% crit would be 4%.

Edit - Obviously I did not include other multipliers which would be divided out anyway :P

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/22/07 at 6:17 PM.
#1895SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I didn't get my post edited quickly enough :P I just finished submitting it - but I'll repost my edit down here for reference

--------
I may have misread what you posted - If you were talking about the crit modifier The % dps increase for 1% crit would go something like.

Your average fireball = FireballHIT + Critmodifier*(Crit%/100)

((FireballHIT + ((Crit%+1)/100)*FireballHit*CritModifier)/(FireballHIT + (Crit%/100)*FireballHit*CritModifier)-1)*100

Where say a fire Crit modifier would be 1.10 in that method of calculation

Obviously as Crit modifier tends to infinity - we get %dpsincrease = (((Crit%+1)/Crit%)-1)*100
Subbing in 25% crit we see that if the crit modifier was tending towards infinity - the %dps increase from 1% crit would be 4%.
I'm going to have to interject with my usual notation to try to make this clear.

E = h*q*(m+r*d)*(1+b*c)

E = average damage/cast
h = hit chance
q = damage multipliers
m = average base damage
r = +damage coefficient
d = +damage
b = crit bonus (e.g. b = 1.1 for Ignite only)
c = crit chance
To find the relative (percentage) increase in damage per cast (and thus, DPS) we have the following...

∆E/E = ∆c/(1/b+c)

∆E = change in damage/cast
∆c = change in crit chance
If we want to see where a 1% crit chance increase is a 1% DPS increase, we have...

.01 = .01/(1/b+c) -> 1/b+c = 1
With Ignite, that implies that c = 1-1/b = 1-1/1.1 = 9.09% crit. Below that, it's more than 1% DPS increase. Above that, less. As the crit bonus increases, the crossover point rises, trending toward 100% crit (but never reaching it for any finite crit bonus).
#1896SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
I'm going to have to interject with my usual notation to try to make this clear.

E = h*q*(m+r*d)*(1+b*c)

E = average damage/cast
h = hit chance
q = damage multipliers
m = average base damage
r = +damage coefficient
d = +damage
b = crit bonus (e.g. b = 1.1 for Ignite only)
c = crit chance
To find the relative (percentage) increase in damage per cast (and thus, DPS) we have the following...

∆E/E = ∆c/(1/b+c)

∆E = change in damage/cast
∆c = change in crit chance
If we want to see where a 1% crit chance increase is a 1% DPS increase, we have...

.01 = .01/(1/b+c) -> 1/b+c = 1
With Ignite, that implies that c = 1-1/b = 1-1/1.1 = 9.09% crit. Below that, it's more than 1% DPS increase. Above that, less. As the crit bonus increases, the crossover point rises, trending toward 100% crit (but never reaching it for any finite crit bonus).
I was just trying to explain the effects of the crit bonus tending to infinity :P
Don't need the other coefficients to explain that since they'd be divided out anyway
#1897SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Flouyd
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
A couple notes on 2.3.2 40/0/21 vs. 0/50/11

1) CSD helps more with the above frost spec, base 225% crit vs. base 210%, which is a lot at t6 level
2) Veins and combustion don't line up well, after the first they're either desynced, or you're playing with 15-20 seconds icy veins "dead" time, 40/0/21 Veins and ap will ALWAYS line up (and have trinkets exactly lined up if popped every time they're up)
3) On the issue of equivalent talents:
Assumptions: 1150 damage, EP brings you to hit cap, 800 int after +15% int talent, ~35% crit
Arcane Power = Combustion (AP is actually slightly better with t6 crit rate)
Arcane Potency = Pyromaniac
Arcane Instability = Critical Mass
Mind Mastery = Empowered Fireball
Piercing Ice = 6% of Fire Power
Winter's Chill = 11-12% of Imp Scorch's +15%
So that leaves us with...
40/0/21: Spell Power, Ice Shards, Cold Snap, extra 3% hit from EP
0/50/11: Ignite, Molten Fury, 4% of Fire Power, 3% of Playing With Fire, 3% of imp scorch

Or VERY roughly: 231.75% crit co-efficient, Cold Snap, paired trinket combos vs. 216.3% crit co-efficient, ~11% more damage from talents, unpaired trinket combos

If you can further break that down you'll see which one's better, but the method is beyond me
In other words: it all comes down to how much dmg you can deal with AP, IV, 2x Trinket and Destro Pot running.

With 2.3.2 I will give 40/0/21 (+ Winter's Chill) a try. We cant realy say how much more dmg these "paired trinket combos" are worth but at least it has the chance to be realy good
#1898SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
1. I personally have 2 mages who always raid and who are and will always be deep frost.

2. Pretty sure you're not entering in the ~231% frostbolt co-effiicient, i get 7.5% for 10/48/3 winter's chill

3. it's 25% not 20% so 175 damage, and your int's a bit low i have ~70 or so more than you, still loses out when fully raid buffed though

4. Again, i don't see what i'm missing but they should essentially be the same, 1% crit is an additional spell doubled in damage (assuming 200% crit) every 100 casts, 101 spells/100 casts = 1% dps increase, correct?

Taking the points in reverse order

4. Others have already addressed that point.

3. Sorry - I was a bit quick on the calculator but the main point if certainly valid. Current scaling as one's gear gets better keeps a relatively static quantity of Intellect while the amount of Spell Damage increases dramatically. This means that Mind Mastery is an incredibly powerful talent when you are in Tier 4 gear but rapidly loses strength compared to the Empowered Talents as you gear past that point.

2. Not sure exactly what you are saying with the "7.5% for for 10/48/3 winter's chill" but if you are saying that Winter's Chill is giving a 7.5% dps increase then that's exactly what I said in my post. 7.5% does not equal 10-11% and so winter's chill does not equal improved scorch.

1. Final point - YOU may have 2 dedicated Frost mages who are willing to boost YOUR dps above their own by playing Deep Frost and giving YOU winter's chill but that is not a common set of circumstances. Back before TBC there were WC bitches who would suffer through lower dps in order to boost the collective dps of the other frost mages. If you could show that having one Deep Frost mage and one 40/0/21 mage would be collectively better then 2 Deep Fire mages then you would be showing us something relevant to everyone. Even if it took 1 Deep Frost and 2 Arcane/Frost mages to exceed the dps of 3 Deep Fire Mages that would be worth theorycrafting over since it would be a new way to look at raid structuring.

Saying that 40/0/21 is superior to Deep Fire when supplied with Winter's Chill from another Mage is the equivalent of saying 40/0/21 is superior to Deep Fire while in a group with a shaman while the Deep Fire mage is not. You are making an assumption of a buff from another mage in your comparison without taking into account any decrease in comparative dps from that other mage.

If you want to have a real discussion of the 40/0/21 build and bring Winter's Chill into the picture then you have to average the dps of the Arcane/Frost mage AND the mage that is giving him the Winter's Chill buff and then compare that average to the other builds.


I really have nothing against either Deep Frost or Arcane/Frost. I think they are valid specs and they are worth discussing in this thread on theorycrafting, but if the mage is incapable of generating the buff without another mage then you have to involve that other mage in the discussion. A Deep Fire mage who doesn't have to refresh Imp Scorch will certainly do more dps then one who has to refresh his own buff. The real question should be whether that is relevant or not? Would having one mage keep up the debuff increase the collective dps of all the mages. That's the question that is worth theorycrafting, not the simple fact that if he didn't have to keep up the debuff he would do more dps.
#1899SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
So - I was thinking about hyjal trash today - and aoe caps etc. Of course crit is the ideal aoe stat when damage capped.
I was wondering if anyone has a darkmoon card: Wrath laying around to test this - Or if somebody knew how exactly the mechanic works with aoe'ing.

For instance - Say I was aoe'ing a pack of 10 mobs - would it be giving me an effective 170 crit rating on each aoe given that they all strike simultaneously? Or would it just be completely useless.
#1900SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
So - I was thinking about hyjal trash today - and aoe caps etc. Of course crit is the ideal aoe stat when damage capped.
I was wondering if anyone has a darkmoon card: Wrath laying around to test this - Or if somebody knew how exactly the mechanic works with aoe'ing.

For instance - Say I was aoe'ing a pack of 10 mobs - would it be giving me an effective 170 crit rating on each aoe given that they all strike simultaneously? Or would it just be completely useless.
If you're damage capped the only way to increase your damage is to go for spell haste
#1901SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
If you're damage capped the only way to increase your damage is to go for spell haste
I'm fairly certain that the cap is based on HIT damage and crits break the cap. I could be wrong though

Edit - Also I was referring to arcane explosion :P

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/23/07 at 7:39 AM.
#1902SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
I agree that if you want to consider 40/0/21 you need to consider the DPS of the frost mage buffing him too, as well as the fact fire mages buff eachother via less scorching and more fireballing (assuming they actually sync their scorches - does anyone actually do that with success btw?).
Remember a boss dies when the RAID deals enough damage to him, so the change to total raid dps is what should be considered when choosing a spec/spec setup.
#1903SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
If you're damage capped the only way to increase your damage is to go for spell haste
Actually there are TWO ways to increase your damage.

Etherealz is 100% correct. Critical Strike Rating definitely allows you to go over the AoE cap. It's actually the entire reason Deeper Arcane Builds are the best for AEing since their Critical Strikes with Arcane Explosion hit harder then any other build.

Spell Haste is the second way to break the AoE cap and that method only works with Flamestrike and Blizzard since Haste will have no effect on the GCD meaning it will do nothing for Arcane Explosion.

That's why a combination of Improved Flamestrike and Icy Veins would actually be capable of putting up numbers similar to those attained by a Deep Arcane build with Arcane Explosion. Since Flamestrike can go over the cap through both haste and crit.

Only real issue is the truly pathetic diameter of Flamestrike which greatly limits it's practical applications. Why they limit Blizzard to 8 yards, Flamestrike to 5 yards, Arcane Explosion to 10 yards and give Seed of Corruption 15 yards is beyond me. You would think standardizing all of them at 10 yards would make a lot more sense as well as being a much more balanced mechanic.

I'm still planning on my AE rotation of rank 1 Blizzard (1-2 seconds - just to get them all snared) -> Flamestrike (with it's crits activating Ashtongue Trinket) -> pop Icy Veins and max rank Blizzard -> Flamestrike -> Blizzard. Planning on wearing the Sextant and my Tier 4 helm (which still has the Mystic Skyfire in place) along with the Ashtongue and all the spell haste I own. No AE spell in the game will do more dps then Blizzard with Icy Veins, Ashtongue and a Focus proc from the Mystic Skyfire when you are capped. Even without the Focus proc it should still be very competitive with all other forms of AE.

The full snare of Blizzard (my build is 3/3 permafrost and 3/3 Improved Blizzard - well, it will be when 2.3.2 goes live) also lets Warlocks start seeding earlier meaning everything dies faster and we get purples even quicker. Only real issue is the mana consumption but should be acceptable given the new mana gems.
#1904SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
I agree that if you want to consider 40/0/21 you need to consider the DPS of the frost mage buffing him too, as well as the fact fire mages buff eachother via less scorching and more fireballing (assuming they actually sync their scorches - does anyone actually do that with success btw?).
Remember a boss dies when the RAID deals enough damage to him, so the change to total raid dps is what should be considered when choosing a spec/spec setup.
And there are mages out there that are and always will be pure frost, and if you have one which spec is best for dps
#1905SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0CHeeSY-CrAfT
Fixing your mage friend is the best option clearly!
#1906SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Mana vs. Damage

This is a list of choices you can make to maintain your mana.
It's ordered by efficiency, by the amount of mp5 you gain per point of sacrificed damage.

1) 5.27 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Potions over Destruction Potions gives you +99.5 mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

2) 3.70 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Gems over Flame Caps gives you +100 mp5 at the cost of -27 damage

3) 2.86 mp5/dmg - Evocation gives you +140 mp5 at the cost of -49 damage.

4) 2.03 mp5/dmg - Arcane Concentration instead of Icy Veins yields +79mp5 at the cost -39 damage.
5) 1.80 mp5/dmg - Arcane Meditation instead of Elemental Precision yields +54 mp5 at the cost of -30 damage.

6) 1.40 mp5/dmg - Serpent-Coil Braid gives you +28 mp5 at the cost of about -20 damage.
7) 1.35 mp5/dmg - Mage Armour gives you +69 mp5 at the cost of -51 damage.
8) 1.36 mp5/dmg - Talented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +25mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

9) 0.89 mp5/dmg - Untalented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +17mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

10) 0.63 mp5/dmg - The Alchemist's Stone gives you +47 mp5 at the cost of -75 damage.
Since the PTR characters accidentally had the new spell ranks, I checked the numbers on them, to see how good or bad downranking is, or how much the new ranks are worth it.

Arcane Missiles
The new rank equals +56 dmg, -43 mp5.
Downranking once equals -56 dmg, +53 mp5, twice equals -81 dmg, +81 mp5.

Frostbolt
The new rank equals +34 dmg, -22 mp5.
Downranking once equals -70 dmg, +44 mp5, twice equals +83 dmg, -59 mp5.

Fireball
The new rank equals +70 dmg, -56 mp5.
Downranking once equals -38 dmg, +21 mp5, twice equals +73 dmg, -42 mp5.


So, downranking for frost/fire specs is even worse than using an Alchemist's Stone, and downranking AM is just a tad better.
So, don't do it unless it's the last opportunity you have.
#1907SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Rounced
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
And there are mages out there that are and always will be pure frost, and if you have one which spec is best for dps
That's fine and I really have no issues with the Frost spec whatsoever (take a look at my Armory and you'll see why). The issue is that you are stating that 40/0/21 spec is very competitive but you are not making it clear that it is only when they are receiving WC from another mage. A deep frost mage in isolation will outdps a 40/0/21 mage. A 40/0/21 mage can outdps the Deep Frost mage and possibly a few other mage specs when they gain the benefit of WC from a Deep Frost mage. Fine thats all well and good but pair that 40/0/21 mage with a Fire mage and where are they on the charts.

Argue for the 40/0/21 spec all you want but without taking into account where it is getting the WC buff is not doing anyone in this thread any real service. Give us numbers showing that your 1 Deep Frost mage (for WC) when combined with 40/0/21 mages will as a group outdps similarily equipped Fire mages and you will really have shown everyone something and will probably cause many people to rethink their current prejudices against Frost.

Originally Posted by CHeeSY-CrAfT View Post
Fixing your mage friend is the best option clearly!
Unless you have something real to contribute that statement was nothing but a lot of hot air with no substance. I understand that you are trying to be funny but since the jury is still deliberating on this topic and no judgement is in sight as far as I can tell.

Hop on over to the Mage forums on the WoW general site and take a look at Faxmonkey's thread on Frost vs Fire. It might open your eyes a little bit and help you to keep in mind that in a thread on Theorycrafting, preconceived notions really have no place.

Last edited by Rounced : 12/27/07 at 1:21 PM.
#1908SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 manly
The problem with that thread on wowgen forums is that they worked some theorycraft, but oddly enough none of them are willing to point out the absurd amount of innacuracies they have when they turn up their charts.

Giving a half-truth is not much different than straight up lying. All the TC on that thread does not takes into account a lot of things such as cooldown stacking, bloodlust, trinkets, 4pct6, lag, metagem, pushbacks, (the possible but rare WE dying) and consumables*. Believe it or not, all their charts are graphed at 1200 spell damage. That's great for unbuffed numbers, but then they go and try and derive a conclusion from partial data that they claim to be, in fact, the full deal, which really it isn't.

As much as you point out that people have prejudice in that thread, I find it fairly funny that nobody seems to have noticed the very huge gaps in the TC that I just pointed out above. Yes, they hugely affect numbers. I personally elected to not post into that thread simply because the TC'ers have a pre-established opinion, and as such, it is an uphill battle to try and prove them wrong. Honestly, I don't really care anyway. I know the numbers first-hand, and I know they have a very distorted view of the reality. Yes, they have the general idea correct, that deep-frost gets a huge dps spike with WE out, but other than that its fairly deceptively lacking (their TC, not the deep frost dps).

As for me, I am impartial to whatever spec, but it does infuriate me that people spew that kind of drivel. I spec whichever gives the best DPS. I was the first in line to try AM spam the day 2.2 came out, even though the numbers weren't clearly in its favor. I have worked out the TC for many months now, and the maths points towards firespec, plain and simple, under any kind of high-end realistic scenario.

Last edited by manly : 12/27/07 at 6:53 PM.
#1909SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Manly, I completely agree with you that Fire spec has a bit of an edge. My point was that nothing is really that cut and dry and was more about the sarcastic nature of the post I was responding to.

That thread is a bit lacking in polish and could use a lot more math but it does present an interesting concept and one that surely has some validity.

When Vontre theorycrafted for 2.3 before the MSD nerf, he was showing Deep Frost and Deep Fire with very similar numbers. Well Deep Frost just got a pretty substantial buff, not only with Icy Veins but more with Cold Snap and that should be taken into consideration.

I have no numbers to back it up but I would bet that Deep Frost will beat Deep Fire on certain encounters due to those changes. The real difference is that Frost is much more spikey and a heck of a lot more dependent on it's cooldowns then Fire and when you combine that with the lack of push-back prevention you get a situation where Deep Frost can be better but rarely will be. Fire is reliable and Frost isn't but both are definitely viable for raiding.
#1910SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Well, I've never debated that frost was viable for raiding. What irks me is the innaccuracies in the given TC. They've got the big picture correct, that frost with WE out is a huge burst, but other than that their numbers are highly skewed because there are severals things that were left off. 1200 dmg in a raid scenario? I'm sorry, but wth. We assume full WC up with COE up, but no luck on buffs? I've made a rather complete list in my previous list just pointing out the obvious innaccuracies, and they really affect the curve a whole deal.

Personally, I prefer to call it theorybending more than theorycrafting. Omitting that many details is borderline inacceptable.
#1911SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Nurru
That post was better when I read it as Theoryblending
#1912SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
The numbers on that thread are not what you'd call perfected, nor are they presented for a t6 mage buffed - however if a thread like that makes some mages think about their class in more than just a 222222223222222223222222223 kind of manner - then I think it served it's purpose.

Edit: And there are also a LOT of stubborn people when it comes to that particular argument. There's still those that will swear up and down arcane > fire always. Hopefully some of the frost die hards reading that thread will realize that fire is going to out perform frost at the very least a majority of the time - thusly it is better.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/27/07 at 2:52 PM.
#1913SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Copernicus
It mostly depends on how much you want to tunnel down into the theorycrafting. For a quick overview I did for myself a while back (comparing just fireball vs frostbolt/waterbolt), Water Elemental with an uptime of around 50% was close to fire damage. I gave up on the theorycraft at that point because that timeframe didn't work for me and/or I had pushback/AE concerns.
#1914SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
I'll second that 1200 dmg being completely unrealistic - I remember I had exactly 1400 dmg when we were learning lurker... aka 1/4 TK 0/6 SSC. So assuming 1200 dmg in a raid would be way off. Granted from where I was to actually starting hyjal/bt you wouldn't get a lot more since most t5 isn't really more dps than the crafted gear. While I usually say that a small change of damage isn't really going to change which stats/talents are better, 200 dmg is already quite a difference. Same goes for buff stacking, when you evalulate just your use trinket multiplying combustion it's not really that much, but when you put it on top of bloodlust, icy veins and flame cap it starts getting significant.

Of course at the end what really matters is what spec does more dmg in a realistic scenario, and I think vontre's spreadsheet shows pretty well that fire wins hands down for overall damage done in a fight, and the "burst" difference for the few fights where it matters is not nescessarily favoring frost or arcane/frost.
#1915SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Kavan
Effective uptime of activatable trinkets

I finally took a look at how Vontre calculates his uptime and to my understanding the numbers he gets are overestimates.

Let d be duration of the effect, c cooldown and t length of fight. Let's analyze worst and best case scenario.

Under worst case the fight will end right before cooldown is ready again. This means that the trinket is activated n*d out of n*c, where n is number of activations. This means in worst case (n*d)/(n*c) = d/c uptime as is generally known.

Under best case the fight will end right after we used the trinket for the last time, so if we used trinket n+1 times it was activated for (n+1)*d out of n*c+d. Let's express this in terms of t.

n*c + d = t
n = (t-d)/c
uptime = (n+1)*d/t = ((t-d)/c + 1)*d/t = (t/c - d/c + 1)*d/t = d/c - d/c * d/t + d/t
Now if you look at Vontre's spreadsheet for example at Icon you'll see the formula used is d/c + d/t (Calculations!F92). From the above you can see that uptime is overestimated as it's higher than it can be in best case scenario.

Let's take an example of a 5 minute fight. Icon is 20 sec with 2 min cooldown. This means that true uptime is somewhere between 16.7% and 22.2% (d/c = 0.167, d/t = 0.067) while the spreadsheet would estimate it as 23.3% (actually the spreadsheet has wrong value for cooldown in the first place so that is off again, same for Hex).

So what is the correct estimate of uptime?

This depends on how exactly you model the fight, whether you take dps uptime into account and what kind of fight length distribution you assume to have. If you're ok with an approximations then you can express best case uptime as d/c + d/t * (1 - d/c). Then "average" uptime would be d/c + 0.5*d/t * (1 - d/c). Note that this estimate is very much arbitrary and is not much more than it is somewhere between best and worst case. That is as much as you can expect to do without settling on a specific fight length distribution.
#1916SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
For any 20 second duration trinket, over the 2 minute cd, you get a 16.7% uptime on the trinket.

Now Supremus/Akama aside, you wont use your trinket first till about 20-30 seconds into the fight, which could possibly lead to aggro pulling, so you cannot include that time into your trinket uptime percentage. Taking your 5 minute fight, you're now at a 4:30-4:40 duration fight, which means only the last 10-20 seconds of the fight are wasted with the trinket uptime. You now get two durations of a 16.7% uptime(20 seconds over 2 min cd), but a third duration of 75-82%(20 seconds over 30-40 second duration on the 2 min cd) uptime. With 3 activations, 60 second duration, and a 270-280 second fight time, thats a 22% uptime.

The main thing to look at is the beginning of the fight. If you blow cooldowns right at the start, you'll pull aggro and die, where as if you wait for established threat, 20-30 seconds into the fight, then blow you cooldowns, you get a much higher uptime. While this is risky for shorter and shorter fights as your raids dps increases, you have to model uptimes differently then too.
#1917SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
To be honest, usually I scorch until 5 are up, then 2-3 fireballs, then I am free to pop all cooldowns (besides lust). I've never really had aggro issues. I can see this changing with IV, but 20-30s sounds really really overstated to me,
#1918SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by manly View Post
To be honest, usually I scorch until 5 are up, then 2-3 fireballs, then I am free to pop all cooldowns (besides lust). I've never really had aggro issues. I can see this changing with IV, but 20-30s sounds really really overstated to me,
Can lower it to 10-20 seconds if you want. And then it drops down to 20-21% instead of 22%.

Personally I scorch till 5, Fireball for a bit looking at Omen to see how far I can push myself. If my first 3 fireballs crit, I cannot pop consumables as early, due to threat limitations. Different tanks and different days produce different numbers I guess.
#1919SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Prod
Meh. We get 2 misdirects on pure tanking fights immediatly, so I pop everything after 5 scorches and hope the fight lasts long enough to squeeze in that last cooldown. I can't count the number of times the boss has died as they.re coming up. It would be nice to be able to, without hours of theorycrafting, see how effective stacking your on use trinkets are at each step in the game. 10 seconds in, 70 seconds in, 130 seconds in, 190 seconds in, and so on to say 10 minutes or so. It's really difficult to compare 3 different types of trinkets (on proc, on use, static buff) for a 3 minute fight. I really feel the current spreadsheets fail at this. It's just really complex and situational.
#1920SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
You'll be sad to learn that cooldown stacking has been supported for many months now by vontre' spreadsheet. However, I do readily admit it doesn't allows to set on your own when you want cooldowns popped. But the TC does takes all of that into account.
#1921SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
I'll second that 1200 dmg being completely unrealistic - I remember I had exactly 1400 dmg when we were learning lurker... aka 1/4 TK 0/6 SSC.
I am seriously confused here. The mage with the highest fire damage in my guild, and also on the server according to Gankbang.com :: Armory - has only 1150 damage with 5/6 - 2/4. I am rated number 10 on that list with about 1050.

How the heck could you possibly have 1400 damage (to fire) at beginning of Tier 5 content? I would have read 1200 damage as being unrealistically high.
#1922SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
I am seriously confused here. The mage with the highest fire damage in my guild, and also on the server according to Gankbang.com :: Armory - has only 1150 damage with 5/6 - 2/4. I am rated number 10 on that list with about 1050.

How the heck could you possibly have 1400 damage (to fire) at beginning of Tier 5 content? I would have read 1200 damage as being unrealistically high.
The point is that you have to include raid buffs, and if you make your chart for 1200 damage, then you are not including raid buffs.
#1923SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
I am seriously confused here. The mage with the highest fire damage in my guild, and also on the server according to Gankbang.com :: Armory - has only 1150 damage with 5/6 - 2/4. I am rated number 10 on that list with about 1050.

How the heck could you possibly have 1400 damage (to fire) at beginning of Tier 5 content? I would have read 1200 damage as being unrealistically high.
Including having a shaman in my group and IMPDS - I'm over 1600 buffed (using darkmoon card)
Also considering the t6 bonus as manly pointed out earlier is another hit to frost scaling.
#1924SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Kavan
Originally Posted by manly View Post
You'll be sad to learn that cooldown stacking has been supported for many months now by vontre' spreadsheet. However, I do readily admit it doesn't allows to set on your own when you want cooldowns popped. But the TC does takes all of that into account.
I don't think this is correct. As far as I know the latest available version is 2.7.3.1 and I've digged quite deep into its workings. I'd be suprised I missed something like this. Can you point where specifically in the spreadsheet this is handled or which specific cooldowns you believe are handled for stacking? Maybe you're thinking about his simulator but that's not available for public as far as I know.

Last edited by Kavan : 12/29/07 at 12:16 PM.
#1925SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Including having a shaman in my group and IMPDS - I'm over 1600 buffed (using darkmoon card)
Also considering the t6 bonus as manly pointed out earlier is another hit to frost scaling.
That post seems to imply that Frost is dead, by comparison to Fire, for raiding.

Is it really though?

Sure the 4T6 bonus doesn't affect the Water Elemental but don't forget that the Elemental gets a lot more out of all the shaman raid buffs. Wrath of Air gives you 101 additional damage, it gives the Elemental 101 + 37.88 = 138.88 additional damage. Bloodlust is also amazing for a Frost mage, if timed right, since the Elemental gets it too.

There was this post by Vontre back before Icy Veins and the Cold Snap changes were announced. (10/12/07)

Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
THEORYCRAFT RESULTS WHOA

Hey, the sky isn't falling. I went ahead and assumed a 10% proc rate for our new MSD friend, and 0 ms casting latency thanks to blizzard's fix. Ok the scaling might help that out a lot. Anyway, I went ahead and did some comparisons using my new module. I'll be releasing a spreadsheet update too, but the spreadsheet is still limited to the "Patchwerk scenario", for the most part. Programatic approach tells the whole story. I'll have these calculations visible before too long.

Ok, how did I build this? Basically I included everything, shaman totems, bloodlust, etc. I did NOT include malediction. I DID include Molten Fury, and furthermor assumed that Bloodlust is popped during Molten Fury. I also assumed bloodlust would stack against arcane power and water elemental. Realistic, I think. For arcane damage, I added 72 spell damage, to represent the amount of spell damage you might gain for dropping hit gear. This number was derived by theoretically dropping 8 hit gems (64 hit rating) and replacing them with 8 spell damage gems (at 9 damage each). Guess this would be even better in BT gear? Hmm.

Anyway, I finally got around to making a complete calculation, which means everything included. Not just the extra buffs Bloodlust and Molten Fury, but also options for interruption, pushback, and target switching.

So the theorycraft simulations are not just stand still and spam fireball for 6 minutes, they account for scorching, buff ramping, timer effects, etc. I assumed there was a second fire mage to help with scorching, fairly common. This doesn't mean "scorch bitch" (a concept which is inherently retarded), this means help, as in the debuff goes up twice as fast. Awesome. No such luck for our poor frost simulation, though. He has to stack Winter's Chill on his own.

So how does our "Patchwerk scenario" look? Meaning standing still and doing your spells and scorches for 5 minutes. Pretty much like this:

Fire | fire1: 1821.98
Frost | frost1: 1837.29
Arcane | arcane1: 1651.97

Yeah, that's a big WTF. Apparently if the water elemental actually stays alive, and you never have to move or deal with pushback, frost fucking owns. Actually isn't a huge shock, considering how often the water elemental actually stays alive... so let's assume he dies about half the time, for starters. But we want to make this look even more realistic. So let's add some more encounter effects.

The first is simple enough: interruption. Not like a counterspell, but something that forces you to cancel a cast and move. Al'ar makes a flame patch and you need to go right fucking now. Sucks that you had 2 seconds on that frostbolt, wasted time there. Or in the case of AM, wasted mana, since you fire bolts at every second. Ok, cool, let's say there's an interruption every... 45 seconds. So to account for interrupt I added 3 seconds of downtime for moving, and half of the spell's casting time to represent the average lost casting time. This hurts fireball the most, because it has the most potential to lose casting time.

Fire | fire1: 1664.28
Frost | frost1: 1612.92
Arcane | arcane1: 1527.78

Ok, so it's counting the 3 seconds downtime as dps time, so we're looking at a reduction around the board. Fire gets hit the most, arcane gets hit the least.

Now let's throw in pushback. Say you get hit maybe 5 times for the ecounter... or once every 60 seconds. Pushback reduces your channel bar by 1 second, so it has a slightly lesser effect on fast spells like scorch. Frost has no pushback resistance at all, and arcane is flat out unaffected. This is the result:

Fire | fire1: 1652.48
Frost | frost1: 1598.76
Arcane | arcane1: 1527.78

Ok, last thing is target switching. Say it's add time, you have to kill adds. Great. Fire needs to ramp scorch, frost needs to ramp WC, arcane can just nuke away at full potential. So let's say you switch targets 6 times during the fight. This is how it looks:

Fire | fire1: 1631.65
Frost | frost1: 1589.72
Arcane | arcane1: 1527.78

Ok, so fire is basically still dominating these numbers. If you count malediction for arcane spec, the nice 2.7% damage increase brings it up to 1568. Still less than frost.

So I was wrong, the sky has, in fact, fallen.

This was taken for around 1200 spell damage, if you drop down to about 1000 it's a little more even and you can justify arcane spec for encounters with a lot of interruption, switching, or pushback. Overall though fire just scales too well. The only thing I haven't considered is mixing in blast spamming, which could be considerably better with zero latency. I doubt a mana dump will make up for it, but you never know. Time to start buying Flamecaps.
The post was made regarding the death of Arcane spec with the changes to the MSD. What I think is very interesting is that the numbers for Fire and Frost are so close to each other. In 2.3.2 Fire gained a couple of percentage points from having Icy Veins available but Frost gained pretty much double that due to the buff to Cold Snap allowing ~5% more uptime with the elemental and 50% more uptime for Icy Veins (using a 10 minute fight duration length as the model).

Those numbers from Vontre also didn't include the current bug with Elemental Precision.

It seems to me that if the 2 specs were that close before 2.3.2 then the buff to Cold Snap (and the bugged EleP) should push Frost that much closer, if not superior to, Fire spec. Pushback and Elemental fragility will, of course, change the numbers dramatically in actual practice but I'm really not seeing where Fire suddenly gained an obvious superiority over Frost, especially just based on the theorycrafting I've seen in this thread.
#1926SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
1150 spell dmg on armory
80 dmg flask
23 dmg food
42 dmg oil
101 dmg totem
--------
1396 dmg

and I'm probably missing something. Maybe the shaman was elemental which is even more dmg with 2/5 t4.
#1927SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Akron
You're missing Improved Spirit ;-)
#1928SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
That post seems to imply that Frost is dead, by comparison to Fire, for raiding.

Is it really though?

Sure the 4T6 bonus doesn't affect the Water Elemental but don't forget that the Elemental gets a lot more out of all the shaman raid buffs. Wrath of Air gives you 101 additional damage, it gives the Elemental 101 + 37.88 = 138.88 additional damage. Bloodlust is also amazing for a Frost mage, if timed right, since the Elemental gets it too.

There was this post by Vontre back before Icy Veins and the Cold Snap changes were announced. (10/12/07)



The post was made regarding the death of Arcane spec with the changes to the MSD. What I think is very interesting is that the numbers for Fire and Frost are so close to each other. In 2.3.2 Fire gained a couple of percentage points from having Icy Veins available but Frost gained pretty much double that due to the buff to Cold Snap allowing ~5% more uptime with the elemental and 50% more uptime for Icy Veins (using a 10 minute fight duration length as the model).

Those numbers from Vontre also didn't include the current bug with Elemental Precision.

It seems to me that if the 2 specs were that close before 2.3.2 then the buff to Cold Snap (and the bugged EleP) should push Frost that much closer, if not superior to, Fire spec. Pushback and Elemental fragility will, of course, change the numbers dramatically in actual practice but I'm really not seeing where Fire suddenly gained an obvious superiority over Frost, especially just based on the theorycrafting I've seen in this thread.
I generally tend to agree with vontre's numbers. Although, he didn't mention t6 4pc - and I'm assuming the 1200 dmg he mentioned was unbuffed damage, which is a little low - at least for me personally. Also I noted he made mention of flame caps in his conclusion, but I'm not sure if he included them in the calculations. And unless I'm wrong - I believe personal haste rating doesn't scale with the elemental, although you can minimilize your haste gear - I personally will be running with close to 90 haste, when i craft the bracers and swap in my za hit / haste ring - possibly closer to 120 haste depending on which cape drops first ><. I wanted to run with this setup now purely because, If I manage to snag a skull - I will be able to begin a 10th fireball inside icy veins comfortably. That said - the best trinket in the game doesn't scale as well with frost :P (again assuming I'm right about the elemental not haste scaling)
#1929SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galgara
I have been browsing trying to find if anyone had run the numbers on the most efficient chain casting method in 2.3 or 2.3.2 ie. G15 spam, cast sequence, or just pressing right before end of spell, but I have had no such luck finding these numbers. If someone could point me in the right direction or tell me there thoughts it would be much apreciated. Thank you
#1930SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by galgara View Post
I have been browsing trying to find if anyone had run the numbers on the most efficient chain casting method in 2.3 or 2.3.2 ie. G15 spam, cast sequence, or just pressing right before end of spell, but I have had no such luck finding these numbers. If someone could point me in the right direction or tell me there thoughts it would be much apreciated. Thank you
On the ptr for 2.3.2 - I found spamming the key via mousewheel / g15 to be the best method - I posted my combatlog a few pages back for icelance spam and fireball spam. Searix also posted similar results. This was a week or so ago though - but I assume it hasn't changed.
#1931SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galgara
thx, just went and checked it out, guess I will keep carefully timing it with quartz right now and then try mousewheel in 2.3.2. If anyone does any further investigation a pm would be much apreciated.
#1932SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
The short answer in regards to fire vs frost is "it depends". I'm still getting some better numbers for fire in my programatic (release coming very soon!) approach, as well as the spreadsheet, however frost can potentially perform very well. It's not as consistent though. Frost dps tapers off quickly as you move past the initial zomg timers section of a fight, as you push further and further past ~4m it drops off significantly. It also depends a lot on encounter effect, like not getting pushbacked to hell and back and not having the water elly bite the dust mere seconds after summoning.

All that being said, the numbers do come close and we can justify frost purely on the power of ice block, which is an incredibly useful tool. Oh wait... no that doesn't work like that anymore. And that's why frost spec is (imo) a dead raiding spec now, it no longer has that ace which would allow you to justify taking a build that is demonstrably worse dps.
#1933SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
While this isn't scientific, I am fairly sure from extended testing that G15 spamming does give better results than spamming 'on the red line'. And that is using a 'conservative' 50 cast/sec.
#1934SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Is there a practical way to do the G15 spam without actualy buying the G15 keyboard? (then again now I have a bigger desk I can actually consider buying out)
#1935SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Is there a practical way to do the G15 spam without actualy buying the G15 keyboard? (then again now I have a bigger desk I can actually consider buying out)
yes - you can create very simple scripts to spam 1 key when you press another. Nothing interacting with packets in the game etc, no more third party to WoW than say MSN - It's doing the exact same proceedure as a g15.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/29/07 at 8:03 PM.
#1936SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
yes - you can create very simple scripts to spam 1 key when you press another. Nothing interacting with packets in the game etc, no more third party to WoW than say MSN - It's doing the exact same proceedure as a g15.
To avoid the risk of getting a nasty trojan or virus do you have a safe one in mind?
#1937SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0koetjeka
To avoid the risk of getting a nasty trojan or virus do you have a safe one in mind?
Isn't it possible to "copy" the program you get with the G15 keyboard and change the G keys to the keys you use yourself?
I don't know if it's allowed though.
#1938SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galgara
for those of us who do not know, what exactly do u bind the macro key to on the g15? Just (my fireball key)?

Also, vontre (or whoever has an opinion) I am sure someone has thought of this but I could not find it, would a deep frost build with the 3% crit damage meta and a high crit rating (ie switching some +dmg for +crit gems) be any more viable now with the increased availablity of haste gear and the addition of IV (if they ever give it to us ;p ).
#1939SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
To avoid the risk of getting a nasty trojan or virus do you have a safe one in mind?
I code it myself :P

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/29/07 at 11:22 PM.
#1940SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
I don't want to be the party pooper here but I would just like to remind everyone that macroing stuff outside of wow macros is to be done at your own risk -- nobody knows when Blizzard will change their stance on the matter (it already is in a rather grey area to start with). I don't mind talking about it, but I would gently ask for anyone to not provide instructions on theses boards about how to do this. Mentioning a software by name is about as far as I think we should go, but please no links directly to software. If you must ask, ask in PMs.

While I have personally been a long time user of the G15, and yes, specifically because it does have repeated keystroke capabilities, I have always been doing so fully aware I might log on one day and find out I have been suspended.
#1941SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Originally Posted by galgara View Post
for those of us who do not know, what exactly do u bind the macro key to on the g15? Just (my fireball key)?

Also, vontre (or whoever has an opinion) I am sure someone has thought of this but I could not find it, would a deep frost build with the 3% crit damage meta and a high crit rating (ie switching some +dmg for +crit gems) be any more viable now with the increased availablity of haste gear and the addition of IV (if they ever give it to us ;p ).
Not really, those factors don't have a significant impact on the scaling. And my tests included all those anyway. Oh and crit gems suck, crit is a horrible stat to try and stack.
#1942SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
1150 spell dmg on armory
80 dmg flask
23 dmg food
42 dmg oil
101 dmg totem
--------
1396 dmg

and I'm probably missing something. Maybe the shaman was elemental which is even more dmg with 2/5 t4.
Okay, I get the point about the buffs. I still don't see where you got 1150 spell damage at the beginning of Tier 5 content. As I said, the top guy on the list (on my server, in my guild) has several more pieces from Tier 5 content than I do, and he stretches to get 1150 fire damage.

I used to have 1050 damage at the beginning of Tier 5 in my full DPS gear. Swap about 60 +hit for 60 +dmg for boss fights, which theorycrafting says is a good trade. Fully raid buffed, I would be about 1180 damage, as our elemental shaman was a rare and precious commodity. Since far more than 50% of raiding mages are at beginning of Tier 5 content or earlier, 1200 damage is a more than sufficient assumption.

The point I'm trying to get at with this is that theorycrafting about outliers is simply a spreadsheet exercise. More importantly, scoffing at theorycrafting that doesn't assume the outliers is not productive.
#1943SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
Okay, I get the point about the buffs. I still don't see where you got 1150 spell damage at the beginning of Tier 5 content. As I said, the top guy on the list (on my server, in my guild) has several more pieces from Tier 5 content than I do, and he stretches to get 1150 fire damage.

I used to have 1050 damage at the beginning of Tier 5 in my full DPS gear. Swap about 60 +hit for 60 +dmg for boss fights, which theorycrafting says is a good trade. Fully raid buffed, I would be about 1180 damage, as our elemental shaman was a rare and precious commodity. Since far more than 50% of raiding mages are at beginning of Tier 5 content or earlier, 1200 damage is a more than sufficient assumption.

The point I'm trying to get at with this is that theorycrafting about outliers is simply a spreadsheet exercise. More importantly, scoffing at theorycrafting that doesn't assume the outliers is not productive.
I beg to differ - Right after the patch where they buffed kara loot, and mindblade etc - I was already at 1100 unbuffed spell dmg. And now with the season three weapons available to pretty much everyone - I don't think 1200 buffed spell damage is really realistic.
#1944SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0koetjeka
It also depends on what talent build you take. For example: I am arcane specced with arcane mastery. Arcane mastery gives 0,25 x ~600int = 150 dmg. With this talent and T5 gear I have ~1450 arcane dmg raid buffed.
#1945SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vonwen
1200 unbuffed is still a lot, unless you exclusively gem with 12 dmg. Armory says I have 1119 unbuffed, with quite a decent gear though. And I'm sure as hell I didn't have 1200 unbuffed when I started T5 content.
#1946SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vhad
With WoWEquip I did a setup of very early t5 gear setup, tailor and enchanting assumed and it had 1151 fire dmg without crusader trinket in the calculation, no epic gems used. Shy of the hit cap but could easily be fixed with neck/trinket changes, maybe even ring.
#1947SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
galz - The World of Warcraft Armory

Only SSC/TK pieces are boots of blasting and T5 shoulders.
If I was still playing on US I would've regemmed for hit long ago, although the drop will be in the stam/crit department as just swapping the nightseyes and noble topazes to 5 dmg 4 hit would put me ~2-3 hit rating short of cap. So I would have same spell damage with slightly less stamina and crit and hit cap. If I had magtheridon's ring and I can just swap my dmg/crit and dmg/stam gems to 9 dmg instead having even more spell dmg. (the reason for the shitty gemming is that at the time I was running at a whopping 5k HP unbuffed and the HP from those pieces was the highest stamina gained per dmg lost, and hit gems didn't even exist back then either).
#1948SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
galz - The World of Warcraft Armory

Only SSC/TK pieces are boots of blasting and T5 shoulders.
If I was still playing on US I would've regemmed for hit long ago, although the drop will be in the stam/crit department as just swapping the nightseyes and noble topazes to 5 dmg 4 hit would put me ~2-3 hit rating short of cap. So I would have same spell damage with slightly less stamina and crit and hit cap. If I had magtheridon's ring and I can just swap my dmg/crit and dmg/stam gems to 9 dmg instead having even more spell dmg. (the reason for the shitty gemming is that at the time I was running at a whopping 5k HP unbuffed and the HP from those pieces was the highest stamina gained per dmg lost, and hit gems didn't even exist back then either).
Thanks for that - you can see, with a s3 weapon and swapping in darkmoon card : crusade you'd see him breaking into 1200 unbuffed spell pre 25man raiding.
#1949SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Thanks for that - you can see, with a s3 weapon and swapping in darkmoon card : crusade you'd see him breaking into 1200 unbuffed spell pre 25man raiding.
My point exactly. It's very easy to have that spell damage with hit cap, if you're simply not slacking (or quit playing on that server ).

Even on my fresh paladin (1 month at 70) I'm constantly surprised by how little healing/mp5/crit people have when they had been 70 for months...
#1950SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Baruk
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
galz - The World of Warcraft Armory

Only SSC/TK pieces are boots of blasting and T5 shoulders.
If I was still playing on US I would've regemmed for hit long ago, although the drop will be in the stam/crit department as just swapping the nightseyes and noble topazes to 5 dmg 4 hit would put me ~2-3 hit rating short of cap. So I would have same spell damage with slightly less stamina and crit and hit cap. If I had magtheridon's ring and I can just swap my dmg/crit and dmg/stam gems to 9 dmg instead having even more spell dmg. (the reason for the shitty gemming is that at the time I was running at a whopping 5k HP unbuffed and the HP from those pieces was the highest stamina gained per dmg lost, and hit gems didn't even exist back then either).
Sure, but I think we can agree on the point that it IS impossible pre T6 content if you're NOT tailor/enchanter....
I've pretty much anything that one can have from t5 content but I'm hovering at 1078dam in bossgear.
So even with flask/oil/food I'll not get past 1200
#1951SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Sorry to change the topic a bit but I had something very strange just happen and I was wondering if anyone can explain how this is even possible.

In a WSG and I cast a max rank Frostbolt on a Rogue who was just at the end of Cloak of Shadows (was hoping to hit as it faded but not sure if the timing worked out that way or not). I hit him and it hit for 200. No absorb or anything else in the combat log just a plain hit for exactly 200. How can that occur with a binary spell?

Is it possible that Blizzard has changed the rules regarding Binary spells and the partial resist aspect and made it so that instead of pure miss they get reduced by the target's resist rate? I know this is completely out of left field but I was that surprised by a hit that low and it got the marbles rolling and I'm just wondering if there is any way that could be what is happening?
#1952SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
Sorry to change the topic a bit but I had something very strange just happen and I was wondering if anyone can explain how this is even possible.

In a WSG and I cast a max rank Frostbolt on a Rogue who was just at the end of Cloak of Shadows (was hoping to hit as it faded but not sure if the timing worked out that way or not). I hit him and it hit for 200. No absorb or anything else in the combat log just a plain hit for exactly 200. How can that occur with a binary spell?

Is it possible that Blizzard has changed the rules regarding Binary spells and the partial resist aspect and made it so that instead of pure miss they get reduced by the target's resist rate? I know this is completely out of left field but I was that surprised by a hit that low and it got the marbles rolling and I'm just wondering if there is any way that could be what is happening?
Sounds like Cheat Death?
#1953SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Sounds like Cheat Death?
Yes! Thanks I hadn't seen that talent in practice before now I guess. Thought I was losing my mind.
#1954SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Baruk View Post
Sure, but I think we can agree on the point that it IS impossible pre T6 content if you're NOT tailor/enchanter....
I've pretty much anything that one can have from t5 content but I'm hovering at 1078dam in bossgear.
So even with flask/oil/food I'll not get past 1200
We could also agree that somebody in pre bt / hyjal content who is NOT a tailor isn't min/max'ing very well to begin with :P
#1955SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
We could also agree that somebody in pre bt / hyjal content who is NOT a tailor isn't min/max'ing very well to begin with :P
That can be taken further than that, and for each class too, and it wont ever end. This is not something that should be pushed on.
#1956SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0xiaoxin21
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
We could also agree that somebody in pre bt / hyjal content who is NOT a tailor isn't min/max'ing very well to begin with :P
In the same vein, we can also argue that somebody in BT/Hyjal should drop tailoring for leatherworking for drums or jewel crafting for the JC only gems, after enchanting your rings with +12 damage.

It crosses my mind more than once to do it as honestly speaking there isn't really any endgame items that tailoring provide that is BOP or tailoring only after you enter BT while drums provides a party buff that affects dps on every boss in the game.
#1957SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
In the same vein, we can also argue that somebody in BT/Hyjal should drop tailoring for leatherworking for drums or jewel crafting for the JC only gems, after enchanting your rings with +12 damage.

It crosses my mind more than once to do it as honestly speaking there isn't really any endgame items that tailoring provide that is BOP or tailoring only after you enter BT while drums provides a party buff that affects dps on every boss in the game.
That's true - but in either case the bt / hyjal mage is still well over 1200 unbuffed spell damage - my point was more towards 1 single post about dps values centered around 1200 spell damage in a comparison between frost and fire, of course since i mentioned the t6 bonus in my critique, I also proposed that 1200 unbuffed spell was a tad low, someone with 4 pc t6 likely is hovering around 1300 unbuffed or better. - and the argument was that most mages don't even have 1200 - of course - all mages 'could' achieve at least that - Also I would like to think that the large majority of the people that read and comprehend some of the charts and numbers posted on this board are well into 25 man progression anyway. But I could be way off base on that.

Last edited by Etherealz : 12/30/07 at 11:15 PM.
#1958SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
While dropping tailoring for LW (better than JC it seems, as the JC benefits are rediculessly low) looks like a good idea for the short-term BT farming, keeping in mind sunwell and WotLK will probably also have good BoP tailored items makes it not that great of an idea. Especially consdiering that to drop tailoring you pretty much need to be farming BT already anyway, so it's not like you'll use LW for progressing through BT.

If you have enough leatherworkers in a raid can you actually keep the haste buff up 100%? (which btw is another cooldown stacking to keep in mind unless you give all your drums to melee or whoever the LW is currently grouped with and it isn't you, as we all know most raids don't have 12+ leatherworkers).

I still don't see a reason to keep something like a gathering proffession, engineering or even alchemy, although I suppose you could argue for eng/alch as being possible for future upgrades. But tbh you see they tried giving those proffessions good items yet they still fail as proffessions for the min-maxer (unless you're a mage that will never raid SSC/TK then eng headpiece is more or less equal to enchanting).

Thinking about it leatherworking ATM might actually be superior to enchanting... My paladin still has an open profession (herbalism) so that's something to keep in mind when I get more gold ;p
#1959SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Well, heres what I've decided to do.

+24dmg vs 80 haste (5.07%) for 30 seconds every 2 min (and eats a GCD to activate). Both give arguably similar results in terms of dps boost when you consider cooldown stacking and particularly icy veins. However, leatherworking will also increase your group dps. If I had to chose, I think LW is the clear winner.

The other thing I've elected to do is to gather all the mats for grinding 0-375 leatherworking, and switch to leatherworking as soon as I will see the sunwell loot tables. Truth be told, I don't expect sunwell to give any BOP tailoring pattern that beats the best drop you can get from raiding. If you look at all professions, one of the only time where professions gave better gear than raid loot is frozen shadowweave boots for s.priests (better than naj boots) and that is about it. Everything else was inferior to other possible loots.

So what I am doing is basically hold on to see sunwell loot tables. If there is no incentive to keep tailoring, then I will switch to LW on the spot. Grinding 0-350 costs approx 1000g, not even including the gold you can make back form disenchanting the stuff made to level up. It is fairly cheap. Then you can make drums for much cheaper than flamecaps. If not, drums of battle often sell for 10g for 50 activations, because leatherworkers make a bunch to grind up to 375. I bought like 10 set of drums. It was cheap. The other thing is that grinding 375 enchanting is a lot more expansive than that.

Then I always have the option of dropping leatherworking and regrinding tailoring to 375. I mean it sucks, but its not really that bad. It is far cheaper than if I had taken enchanting.

The other reason that leads me to believe tailoring will never become interesting again is because I seriously doubt Blizzard will make another spellfire/shadowweave fiasco come WOTLK. I cannot imagine that they would give, again, 'overpowered' crafted gear. I really doubt tailoring will ever become required for raiding like it was on TBC launch. I know I won't be missing tailoring - at all.
#1960SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Otterpop
I apologize in advance for asking this when it has probably been covered previously in the thread, but I wanted to be absolutely sure about something before making changes to my character.

Elemental Precision is currently bugged to give an additional 3% spellhit to frostbolt only, correct?

This being the case, if I were to spec into any of the numerous flavors of build that use frostbolt as it's main nuke, what spellhit rating should I be shooting for? I would think it can be less than 164 (which is what I currently strive for being 10/48/3), but could someone thats not terribad at math advise me on the exact rating I would need?

Again, I apologize if this question is just crapping up the thread, just wanted to be sure I wasn't doing something stupid.

PS: I would also agree with Manly, that Blizzard will very likely try to avoid the fiasco they had with crafted epics and their relative power compared to other itemization at WOTLK release.
#1961SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Amrahil
Otterpop: You will need 12.62 x 10 = 126 Spell Hit Rating for 10% Spell Hit (maybe round up to 127 Spell Hit Rating just to be safe) , then Elemental Precision will provide the last 6% for your bugged Frostbolt.

And yes, I believe it will only work with Frostbolt.
#1962SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
When you think about it, even if they don't make another "baseline" tailoring set such as spellfire/fsw/spellstrike, we all know if blizzard wants they can take a proffession and make it give benefits you couldn't gain otherwise. Just like leatherworking all of a sudden got drums, and enchanting gave ring enchants, who knows what other proffessions will have in the future? Heck even some on-use herbs are only useable if you're a herbalist. Although I doubt gathering proffessions will get any really useful benefits, it is possible as well.
So if you're thinking about very long term, you'll never be able to justify re-leveling a proffession. But if you're looking at what is best *right now*, tailoring+LW and when you're in T6 enchanting+LW is the way to go.
Even if you're just getting into raiding now you should probably get tailoring, as the amount of time you'll be using those items will still be very long compared to the price to level+craft them. We all know how long it takes to get decked in T5/6 gear.
#1963SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Krazen
With tailoring, boots of blasting were solid BoP pieces (at the tier 5 level). Mantle of Nimble Thought was supposed to be a good BoP piece (at the tier 6 level). I wouldn't be surprised to see something in sunwell.

That said, you could probably craft the piece and drop tailoring after that.
#1964SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
In the same vein, we can also argue that somebody in BT/Hyjal should drop tailoring for leatherworking for drums or jewel crafting for the JC only gems, after enchanting your rings with +12 damage.
You can, but these are all weaker arguments than the tailoring one. You can organize these choices in terms of cost/benefit, tailoring pre-bt/hyjal provides the largest benefit for the cost, and to be honest, the benefit is so night and day that there's really no argument against it aside from "I'm lazy and don't want to play the game right". You should be tailoring at this level, period. Leatherworking is also good. If two people go leatherworking in your caster group, that's basically +40 average haste rating, which is something like +50 damage at that level. That's a lot of damage, and this is why I'm hoping to do this sometime before Sunwell. Enchanting is the next best thing to do after this, but it's only +24 damage that is temporary until you upgrade your rings(which you might never do if you can't enchant the next ones), and it's also going to cost you a lot more than the ~1k g that it costs to level leatherworking, so I'd say we're starting to get into the realm of "optional" cost/benefit with enchanting.

Jewelcrafting is just a retarded waste of time, the only really good gem you get from it is +14 damage, which is a whopping +2 damage compared to the BT gem. This temporary benefit is certainly not even remotely worth the cost.
#1965SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Tailoring sets are great for people who hate being alive. >>

If you're gonna do that, for the love of god at least pick up the stamina from the socket bonuses.
#1966SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
I just wish people would of read my post and not commented on the choice of professions to min/max your character. We can sit here and argue whether or not to drop professions when we've maxed our gear for the current raid zone, and it wont stop for pages and pages.

We can all agree that if you want to maximize your character, Leatherworking, Echanting, Tailoring, Jewelcrafting are all a must at some point, the problem with all of them is when you get the rare BoE/P patterns for each. Does dropping enchanting when you have ALL the formula's for LW for the drums sound like a wise investment? No.

Sancus does that boost to your dps make you ride the line of threat more though? There is always a line of where more dps means more threat limitations, and as of now, fight dependent, a full T6 geared mage will push the threat limit on many many fights.
#1967SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Tailoring sets are great for people who hate being alive. >>

If you're gonna do that, for the love of god at least pick up the stamina from the socket bonuses.
Screw that. I did bt/hyjal with 7.5k hp buffed and I LIKED IT. That's REAL MAGE RAIDING. Red gems all the way.
#1968SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Otterpop
Thanks Amrahil!

Also, good point on tailoring Krazen.
#1969SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Screw that. I did bt/hyjal with 7.5k hp buffed and I LIKED IT. That's REAL MAGE RAIDING. Red gems all the way.
My raiding experience is less advanced than that (pre-Hyjal) but I also ride about 8k buffed.
To quote Vontre's sig, "Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire."
If you can sack health to push out more damage, play smart, and not die, do it.
That's my idea of min/maxing, at least.
#1970SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Leialyn
Originally Posted by Imbar View Post
My raiding experience is less advanced than that (pre-Hyjal) but I also ride about 8k buffed.
To quote Vontre's sig, "Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire."
If you can sack health to push out more damage, play smart, and not die, do it.
That's my idea of min/maxing, at least.
In BT there are a lot of encounters where the whole group gets damage. Naj'entus watershield explosion + random spike can kill you (even with frostward), your dispellers are slow at Gorefiend and you catch fire ticks + shadow cloud, RoS phase3 is all about group damage and staying alive, Illidari council envenom can kill you even without any groupdamage if your healers are slow and you have low health.
I was raiding BT/Hyjal with Spellfire set as well and I'm now glad to have more hp on T6 ^^
#1971SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
For Najentus, you need a minimum 8.5k, 10k being the recommended number. Assuming raid buffed 8.5k min, getting to 10k is basically as easy as swapping in a piece of Gladiator armor or two.
#1972SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ainav
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Screw that. I did bt/hyjal with 7.5k hp buffed and I LIKED IT. That's REAL MAGE RAIDING. Red gems all the way.
To Max your damage is one thing, to have resurection timer is a complete different story.
Noone with 7.5k hp buffed in bt/hyjal can call himself a REAL MAGE!
#1973SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
The fact that with crafted gear and fiery wrath greens I had like 7k HP buffed makes me wonder how you even got to the point where you have 7.5k HP buffed. (I remember in true max dps gear pre-raiding I had 5k unbuffed HP which resulted iirc in somewhere around 7k with full party and raid HP support - cannot be bothered to calculate exactly how much nor do I remember how much above 5k I was as it definitely wasn't exactly 5000). On a side note people kept telling me "you'll die on this fight" and "you'll die on that fight" and the only fight I actually had to swap gear was aran, the rest was BS and doable with low HP. Illhoof may require some very minimal gear swaps if your healers are slow and you're really at 5k unbuffed).

Again I can't see how you clear BT with 7500 HP buffed unless you leveld your alt got some crafted/kara gear got in an ssc/tk run and got carried through BT... Just about any raid dropped epic seems to have enough stamina that even if you keep some of the tailoring gear you *should* be well over 7500 buffed. Or do you not run with 3 paladins in a raid for kings and/or lacking any other buffs?
#1974SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0xiaoxin21
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
The fact that with crafted gear and fiery wrath greens I had like 7k HP buffed makes me wonder how you even got to the point where you have 7.5k HP buffed. (I remember in true max dps gear pre-raiding I had 5k unbuffed HP which resulted iirc in somewhere around 7k with full party and raid HP support - cannot be bothered to calculate exactly how much nor do I remember how much above 5k I was as it definitely wasn't exactly 5000). On a side note people kept telling me "you'll die on this fight" and "you'll die on that fight" and the only fight I actually had to swap gear was aran, the rest was BS and doable with low HP. Illhoof may require some very minimal gear swaps if your healers are slow and you're really at 5k unbuffed).

Again I can't see how you clear BT with 7500 HP buffed unless you leveld your alt got some crafted/kara gear got in an ssc/tk run and got carried through BT... Just about any raid dropped epic seems to have enough stamina that even if you keep some of the tailoring gear you *should* be well over 7500 buffed. Or do you not run with 3 paladins in a raid for kings and/or lacking any other buffs?
You can get pretty low on HP on crafted gear and selected BT epics. There are rings without any sta(ring of gathering storms,mana attuned band,Translucent Spellthread Necklace) and also the crafted spellfire/spellstrike have minimal sta. Hatefury Mantle also have little sta.
#1975SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
I suppose it's not impossible but it definitely takes some kind of effort to keep your sta so low consdiering void reaver head, T5/badge pants and others all take you quite higher than the spellfire/spellstrike/fiery wrath stam level, you'd have to pretty much pick all those low/no-stam pieces and not upgrade spellfire/spellstrike to really be that low.
#1976SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Its possible to have 7.5k HP raid buffed in BT, but I would be surprised if the healers are happy with that. Its worse if the mage has 3/3 playing with fire in BT. I think getting over 8k HP buffed will often result in a net DPS gain for the raid. Personally, I like to have 9k HP for most raid bosses, and over 10k HP for some raid bosses. I play from oceanic zone with around 500ms latency, so I have less margins for error, and its harder to rely on the healers.
#1977SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Vontre
Fellas I'm pretty sure the 7.5k hp buffed comment was just sarcasm or exaggeration. That's a ridiculously low hp total for BT/Hyjal.
#1978SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Akron
Well, first of all this thread about Theorycraft and Stamina / survival / "skill" does not form part of statistics but rather a discussion apart. The need of Stamina is very debatable and it varies from fight to fight. However, having run through BT/Hyjal the only bosses in which at least a minimum of 8500 HP buffed cannot be considered 'recommended' are Kaz'rogal, Supremus and Shade of Akama. They also happen to be the easiest fights in the two zones. All the other fights have some sort of AoE raid damage. The convincing argument is that you don't need to sacrifice any damage at all or very little to get at least above 8500 (which is easy to get). Tier5/6 gear and other TK/SSC pieces will easily get you past that. The STA crutch lies in Spellfire/Spellstrike, which you can reliably dump once you have access to the T5 sets.
#1979SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
I don't know personally I've never geared specifically for stamina. The first few times we did najentus all I was changing was eating a 30 sta food instead of 23 dmg, and we used imp + frostward to make up for it. Same for pre-nerf archimonde. Then I put some more stamina for illidari council since I was tanking. That's it really.
#1980SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Etherealz
Yeah - I've taken imp over spriest b4 on naj when i was wearing spellfire gear :P But at that time I was in a guild with bad healers - So i wanted like 9.5k - Otherwise I would have spammed reds in tailor gear instead of the stam bonus.

not that most raid setups couldn't have both tho.

Last edited by Etherealz : 01/02/08 at 9:42 PM.
#1981SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Athenalyn
Please lock thread and Delete, or something 80 pages is too much to go through for a series of repeats and arguements.

Or break down into more specific threads, like, PvE PvP, then by talent tree, and then have the MAge Theory as a, which tree to to choose, I had to skip past alot of it but I'm sure there is alot of great info. but alot of stuff I'm not intrested in yet.
#1982SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Athenalyn View Post
Please lock thread and Delete, or something 80 pages is too much to go through for a series of repeats and arguements.

Or break down into more specific threads, like, PvE PvP, then by talent tree, and then have the MAge Theory as a, which tree to to choose, I had to skip past alot of it but I'm sure there is alot of great info. but alot of stuff I'm not intrested in yet.
There's alot of very useful information in this thread - I don't think there's much about pvp in here .... maybe I missed it.
#1983SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ainav
I have a simple rule : Always take items with stats (stamina/int) over items with no stats.
If i need to give some examples that will be like Ring of Ancient Knowledge over Najentus ring or Kael Thas neck over RoS neck and Anatheron Noose over Belt of Blasting etc.. Getting the socket bonus of most of the bt//hyjal items also gives you some extra stamina from the blue gem dmg//stam.
Like Winnie the pooh says "the more the better". And about all the people that are saying : "I dont care about my HP" I will repeat again good performance comes not only with dmg it comes with beeing able to survive always even if someone did a mistake.(pointing healers)
You will agree that in the end higher HP leaves more room for mistake both of you and your healers.
Ofcourse you will say "It doesnt matter aslong as I play perfect" but you cannot play perfect neither the rest of the raid can play perfect. So in the end of the day stamina as a PVE stat should be considered important raid performance wise it just gives more room for mistakes.
#1984SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Athenalyn View Post
Please lock thread and Delete, or something 80 pages is too much to go through for a series of repeats and arguements.

Or break down into more specific threads, like, PvE PvP, then by talent tree, and then have the MAge Theory as a, which tree to to choose, I had to skip past alot of it but I'm sure there is alot of great info. but alot of stuff I'm not intrested in yet.
I'm fairly certain everything in here is PVE Theorycraft. A simple search turns up [Mage] PVP Thread for PVP goodies.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, but I'd bet money it's in one of these two threads.
#1985SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Athenalyn
DANG IT! I just wrote a full long question and stuff and now its gone... ><

I went into my theory and everything!

Ok im not going to go fully into again but....


I tried to make a new Thread, called LVL 69 Mage. But I wasnt special enough.
Reason for that is, I'm almost 70 and dont have those gears, so the thread would take all the T4-6 items out of play. and also a guide as to which instances are needed for gears to get ready for Kara,

But here's what I've been doing and Out DPS'ing everyone I meet, (Minus 1 fire mage, but had to go back and repair twice) and always have mana,
During tank's charge, start spamming frost bolt rank1 untill 4 or 5 winters chill, then continue with full powered Frostbolt. With this you can start stacking Winters chill, with no hate, and using no mana @ +10% crit for the entire fight, and you can Either ice lance or rank 1 frostbolt if you had to stop and Winters chill is about to expire.


Use this macro to save space

/cast [modifier] Frostbolt(Rank 1); Frostbolt

hold down alt for rank1

For a frost mage to be decent at DPS, you really need almost your full tree speced out most talent set's Ive seen dont do that, and you also have to have a gear set up for a crit junkie. Fully speced Frost. all the goodies that have anything to do with crits, or dmg. I notice alot of Frost, arnt full Winter Powerhouse, but I feel that A frost mage really needs to be full frost, not 1/2 if you really want some arcane tree, then leave out things that have to do with you taking dmg, but if it says crit or dmg, or mana reduction, take it~!

I honestly feel that this is the Best DPS, and DPS technique for lvl'ing up in instances, because your threat is lower, better DPS per Mana. if you die 1/2 through the fight, your DPS is really gonna hurt

My other question is, can a bored mage who's willing to try something new, try this technique with thier T4-6 gears, opting for + crit over + dmg? and tell me how it went?

Please be nice on the bashing! I'm only lvl 65, my 1st char, and have been playing wow for only 2 months.

And thank you for this Awsomeness site! I love seeing new ways to maximize my potency

Edit. Since rotaions are talking about alot here, here;s my rotation

As the tank charges!
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank 12
Frostbolt rank 12
Water Ele
Frostbolt rank 12
Frostbolt rank 12 till water ele gone
cold snap
Water Ele
Frostbolt rank 12
forever till dead

Crit Rating 32% over all

Crit Rating after winterschill around 40%

I wish I could count on that freezing effect and shatter but honestly in an instance, it breaks before your 2.5 sec cast gets off
@ lvl 65
Regular hit 1010 crit for 2,200 and lacking on alot of gears.

Last edited by Athenalyn : 01/02/08 at 10:51 PM.
#1986SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Athenalyn please read [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread ... No r1 frostbolts will not increase your dps (at best you will do the same dps as the tank's threat allows, which doesn't matter if you stacked winter's chill in advance or not). No stacking crit will not increase your dps over stacking damage.No you don't need anywhere near 61 in frost to do max dps. Only extra damage/threat from frost is because of water elemental having seperate threat - which isn't a lot more dmg/threat but it's something. No frost does not have more damage/mana than fire, either.
#1987SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Athenalyn
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Athenalyn please read [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread ... No r1 frostbolts will not increase your dps (at best you will do the same dps as the tank's threat allows, which doesn't matter if you stacked winter's chill in advance or not). No stacking crit will not increase your dps over stacking damage.No you don't need anywhere near 61 in frost to do max dps. Only extra damage/threat from frost is because of water elemental having seperate threat - which isn't a lot more dmg/threat but it's something. No frost does not have more damage/mana than fire, either.
But seriously have you tried it? or just reading, and I'm talking about having a Full winters chill stack before a boss mob is down to 98% life. its faster then a wand.

but you need 57 points in frost, or your missing alot of +dmg and alot of + crit.

Has anyone attempted to go full out crit junkie?

Is there a max crit % ?

Last edited by Athenalyn : 01/02/08 at 11:02 PM.
#1988SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
The idea is that no matter what, you cannot do more dmg then the tank's threat / threat modifiers. Say if you have salvation and frost channeling, and the tank generated 1000 threat, you can do 1000 / (0.7*0.9) = 1587 damage (or 2063 if you go to 130% as range only get aggro at 130%). It really doesn't matter how you deal that damage, as long as it's frost damage and affected by the threat reduction. No matter how you play with it, you cannot do more damage than that. So if you're limited by the tank, slowing down via rank1 frostbolts, wanding or just /dance will have the same effect at the end. If you're not capped by tank threat anything that's not max rank is a waste of time.

While I hadn't tried stacking crit myself, every other nub I see around is stacking crit and his dps is horrible. Hope that's good enough of a test for you
#1989SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0JasonX
Athenalyn, just about everything you wrote here are wrong. Don't doubt the people here who tried to help you with helpful replies. I think you really need to read the thread that Galzohar linked for you, to get a basic understanding of how things works for a mage. In fact, try to get into a raid soon to see how things works out. You will find a lot of truth when you get into raiding.
#1990SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0xiaoxin21
Athenalyn, firstly even if what you posted is true, it does not belong to this thread. This thread is about the changes to mages after 2.3 and 2.3.2.

Secondly, what you say is wrong on many accounts. For pure damage to bosses. There are many redundant talents in frost that you would not need. Shatter and frost bite is not needed and so is quite a few frost talents.

Winterchill do not have to be 5/5 too depending on how many mages you bring that are frost. Even for 1 4/5 is enough to maintain the stack,although I did take 5/5.

Thirdly, crit is a suboptimal stat over hit/haste/spell damage if you read the other threads.
#1991SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Athenalyn
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
Athenalyn, just about everything you wrote here are wrong. Don't doubt the people here who tried to help you with helpful replies. I think you really need to read the thread that Galzohar linked for you, to get a basic understanding of how things works for a mage. In fact, try to get into a raid soon to see how things works out. You will find a lot of truth when you get into raiding.

Oh Please dont think that I am Doubting, I am very grateful for the help in these post, and your right! this is the TC for 2.3 changes. Its Just been off topic for the past... 60 pages But I'm also not one to belive everything said to me without people trying it. And have you tried it after the 2.3 changes? Are all changes stated in the update, or do you belive in hidden effects?

I also asked you to be nice, I am a girl and I do get emotional.

And "Thirdly, crit is a suboptimal stat over hit/haste/spell damage if you read the other threads." is Best for An Arcane / Fire Mage spec, not for a Frost. Frost is Critz So I would say Haste/Hit/Crit/spell Dmg for reg mobs, then switch out to Hit/Haste/crit/spell dmg for bosses. I seriously cannot belive someone who figures DPS against trash mobs requires that same gear as DPS'ing a boss.


I'm sorry I failed to mention that my tactic is for a LVL 65. @ lvl 70 it may not be the best thing, but @ lvl 65 people cannot belive the DPS I am doing. It is seriously Wowza I guess that was failed to mention. @ 70 it may change.

I was only asking for a 70 to do it with Tier gear, so that I may see if I need not to do it. or not, but yes Crit gear right now brings me from 8% default crit to 14% default crit and only lowers my + dmg by 20. not only 20 but... "Up to" 20

Last edited by Athenalyn : 01/03/08 at 12:02 AM.
#1992SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Athenalyn, you've made a grand total of 4 posts on these forums, all of them today, you joined a week ago.

What you have done is come here, throw around proven to be wrong numbers, disregard any advice given to you, and in return you attempt to flame us.

Is there a max crit % ?
Please, go read those threads again and realize that asking that type of a question, with no effort into reading those threads, shows you're not here to learn.

We don't care what you say is better when you provide no proof to support such.
#1993SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Athenalyn
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Athenalyn, you've made a grand total of 4 posts on these forums, all of them today, you joined a week ago.

What you have done is come here, throw around proven to be wrong numbers, disregard any advice given to you, and in return you attempt to flame us.


Please, go read those threads again and realize that asking that type of a question, with no effort into reading those threads, shows you're not here to learn.

We don't care what you say is better when you provide no proof to support such.
Ok this is my last post for the day then,

and how are you to say you are right, no matter what? your word is law?

I gave out good advise for under lvl 70 mages and you toss it in my face. Saying I'm wrong and flaming? I guess this is A 70 only forum?

Here's my points. You know that if you Frostbolt the mob as the tank starts hitting it, you are gonna pull the mob to you. So why not use that time, stacking up Winters Chill, and once the tank has threat, agro, what ever. Your crit % is 10% higher.

I never knew it was a bad ideal to have +10% (notice not +10 crit rating, but pure 10 Percent). But oh, I'm not a Fire mage, so I'm wrong and dumb no matter what.

In no way did I flame anyone, until now, and thats you for your cruel remarks. I even said I am thankful for the advise I have learned from these threads and have actually changed around some things.

But no way Am I wrong about this. In no way is it a waste.

And in no way was any advise given other then, "your soo wrong"

it has taken me a week to post, because I have been reading it allllll, and no where did I see max crit.

But hey these forums arnt for flaming, lets keep it proffesional. I'm done for the night, and again Thank you Xiaxin and galzohar for the advise.
#1994SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 Alcyon
If crit is worse than damage for a fire mage then it's definitely worse for a frost mage as they do 10% less damage on crits (for mobs that don't die before your ignite runs out, at least) and don't get mana back from MoE. But the golden rule is basically that crit is never as good as an equal amount of damage - crit rating is just too expensive. This does not mean you should trade 20 crit rating for 8 damage or anything like that, but you wouldn't want to take 20 crit rating over 25 damage.

Theorycraft sub 70 is quite different to what it is at 70 and this thread (and this whole set of forums, generally) is based around level 70 theorycrafting. Obviously shatter and frostbite are great for killing things before they get to you when levelling but somewhat less effective on bosses who are immune to being frozen. If you're offering advice on levelling, please note that so that level 70 mages don't take what you say as advice applicable to them.
#1995SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Athenalyn View Post
Ok this is my last post for the day then,
Here's my points. You know that if you Frostbolt the mob as the tank starts hitting it, you are gonna pull the mob to you. So why not use that time, stacking up Winters Chill, and once the tank has threat, agro, what ever. Your crit % is 10% higher.

I never knew it was a bad ideal to have +10% (notice not +10 crit rating, but pure 10 Percent). But oh, I'm not a Fire mage, so I'm wrong and dumb no matter what.
Guess they don't have misdirect in your raids - - -
#1996SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Rounced
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Guess they don't have misdirect in your raids - - -
What would she be raiding at 65 anyway? ZG?

The math is very simple Hit > Haste > Damage > Crit

Hit has no value once capped.

Haste has no value if you drop the cast time of the spell you are using under the GCD.

That's the whole thing.

Why does damage > crit?

It's based on itembudget values. You get roughly 12 damage for 10 crit rating or 10 hit rating in terms of item budget values. Thats why hit rating is so valuable (when below the cap) since it only needs 12.6 for each percentage point. It's also why crit rating is so low in value since it requires 22.1 per percentage point. Oh and in case you are thinking about the whole less then 70 aspect, sure it is less crit rating per point at level 65, it is also less hit rating per point at level 65. However it is also less damage to get 1% more overall dps so the equation stated above is constant during the leveling process. If you could have level 70 damage on a level 60 mage then maybe you would be able to argue that crit rating is better then damage but that is the reason why they scaled the ratings the way that they did when TBC came out in the first place.

Items with more varied stats get higher overall value, thats why some crit it a good thing. But to stack for crit is simply retarded since you are stacking something of lesser overall value then anything else you could have chosen to stack. While leveling the easiest way to compare gear is to think about crit rating as if it was worth 1/2 a damage per rating point. Then say that 1 hit rating is worth 1 damage and then should keep you safe until you hit level 70 and then you can break out one of the nice scripts that people have created to determine the real values of items in regards to your specific dps.

As for the stack 5 rank 1 Frostbolts aspect. Current raiding starts with the warrior getting misdirected by a hunter on the pull. That means he is starting with a lot of initial aggro. Used to be that we would have to do a 5 count before starting which was a good time to stack rank 1 frostbolts for WC as frost. Now the only issue is getting 2-3 crits in a row before the tanks aggro is firmly established. Even so with blessing of salvation that isn't an issue anymore, but if it was lacking then seeing a crit and dropping to a rank 1 frostbolt and then back to max rank isn't a horrible concept its just that it isn't maximizing mage dps in a raid setting and that's what this thread is about.

I really think you should be posting in that Help mage thread and honestly think you should focus more on completing your leveling and getting some real raiding experience before coming here and posting questions with theorycraft based on....well.... I'm really not sure what its based on.

BTW Lhivera has a great thread on the WoW mage forums about mage mechanics and has posted actual numbers for the idea of stacking WC with either rank 1 or with Ice Lance in the past and proved mathematically that it is a definitive loss in overall dps for that mage and simply not worth doing.
#1997SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
What would she be raiding at 65 anyway? ZG?
Good point :P
#1998SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Acetyle
Originally Posted by Athenalyn View Post
... Crit gear right now brings me from 8% default crit to 14% default crit and only lowers my + dmg by 20. not only 20 but... "Up to" 20
If switching from dmg gear to crit gear nets you 6% crit for the loss of merely 20 +dmg, then yes, that is a good tradeoff.

Regardless, gear itemization will change once you hit 70, and esp. once you start raiding. So keep that in mind, and read the threads that have been suggested for you. You have stated yourself that you're very new to the game, so take the time and learn. I have a couple of alts, and I can safely say that the mage class is one of the more complex ones. That what makes it so much fun to play.
All those hit > dmg > crit rules, are basic rules of thumb, and one needs to know the values of those stats and when it's worth trading an item with more crit for one with less of it.

I'll also take this chance to ask a question about spell haste and arcane blast. I have a spreadsheet that I maintain for some time now that tries to model the different stats and talents and predict the DPS value of changing stats according to one's talents. It's not like Vontre's sheet (not calculating cycles for example), but something much more basic.

Anyway, when modelling Arcane Blast with spell haste, is the new cast time based on the original cast time or the debuff modified cast time? (I've seen this asked, but didn't find the answer)

I tend to say it's the latter, but would like to know whether anyone knows for sure.

EDIT: I could not test it for myself since I lack enough spell haste to be able to take a decent measurement.
#1999SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Queuetip
2.3 Bug

Ok, I'm going to throw this in the 2.3 thread, since the issue came about after the release of 2.3.

I think the new casting mechanic has created a bug. Countless times, my cast has been stopped when the previous mob I was targetting dies. Here is how it plays out most of the time:

Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 1
Target Mob 2
Cast Frostbolt at Mob 1
Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 2
Previous Frostbolt hits and kills Mob 1
Current cast stops

At first I just thought I wasn't switching targets correctly and my second frostbolt was really aimed at Mob 1. However, this has happened way too much recently, and I have even been able to reproduce the issue at will. The only explaination I can up with is that the some sort of targetting variable isn't correctly switching when the cast requests are sent to the server before the end cast is sent back to the client. Everything is fine if I wait a split second on the cast, which is why I think it is only applied if you begin casting before the current one is finished.

I posted a thread in the WoW bug reports forum, and bumped it, but was unsuccessful at getting much feedback. I haven't found any other information about it anywhere else, so I'm asking here: Has anyone experienced this issue? While not particularly important for raid bosses, it frequently occurs on trash and soloing providing a non-trivial loss of DPS as well as ruining the casting strategy I plan on using during the fights.
#2000SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Sounds like you're using some weird frostbolt macro.
#2001SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Praest
Originally Posted by Queuetip View Post
Ok, I'm going to throw this in the 2.3 thread, since the issue came about after the release of 2.3.

I think the new casting mechanic has created a bug. Countless times, my cast has been stopped when the previous mob I was targetting dies. Here is how it plays out most of the time:

Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 1
Target Mob 2
Cast Frostbolt at Mob 1
Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 2
Previous Frostbolt hits and kills Mob 1
Current cast stops
I can confirm this happens to me too and is really annoying, firespec here with no macro at all for my fireball so that's not the issue (and I've tested it with other spells as frostbolt and pyroblast too)
#2002SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Morkai
Originally Posted by Praest View Post
I can confirm this happens to me too and is really annoying, firespec here with no macro at all for my fireball so that's not the issue (and I've tested it with other spells as frostbolt and pyroblast too)
I have the same problem. When I posted about it on the official WoW Forums, everyone thought I was mad..

I found no solution other than simply waiting a bit more before casting the next spell when switching targets.
#2003SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0BOHIC
Originally Posted by Queuetip View Post
Ok, I'm going to throw this in the 2.3 thread, since the issue came about after the release of 2.3.

I think the new casting mechanic has created a bug. Countless times, my cast has been stopped when the previous mob I was targetting dies. Here is how it plays out most of the time:

Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 1
Target Mob 2
Cast Frostbolt at Mob 1
Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 2
Previous Frostbolt hits and kills Mob 1
Current cast stops

At first I just thought I wasn't switching targets correctly and my second frostbolt was really aimed at Mob 1. However, this has happened way too much recently, and I have even been able to reproduce the issue at will. The only explaination I can up with is that the some sort of targetting variable isn't correctly switching when the cast requests are sent to the server before the end cast is sent back to the client. Everything is fine if I wait a split second on the cast, which is why I think it is only applied if you begin casting before the current one is finished.

I posted a thread in the WoW bug reports forum, and bumped it, but was unsuccessful at getting much feedback. I haven't found any other information about it anywhere else, so I'm asking here: Has anyone experienced this issue? While not particularly important for raid bosses, it frequently occurs on trash and soloing providing a non-trivial loss of DPS as well as ruining the casting strategy I plan on using during the fights.
I've seen the exact same issue with Scorch and Fireball. No macros involved. Definitely doesn't occur 100% of the time and haven't seen it often enough to worry about reproducing it.
#2004SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
Another annoying thing is your casts no longer cancel when the target runs out of your (real, not ui-displayed) range. Normally spells have a bit of leeway when you're nuking a target, so just because they go out of, say, 41 yards with Fireball, doesn't mean it won't hit.

Previously, your spell would simply cancel if they ran out of this "extended range"... now it just finishes to completion, and then gives you out of range. This is extremely annoying since there's no way to tell when you should cancel your spell because the target is really out of range.

Originally Posted by Vontre
Fellas I'm pretty sure the 7.5k hp buffed comment was just sarcasm or exaggeration. That's a ridiculously low hp total for BT/Hyjal.
Lol.
#2005SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0BrTarolg
Originally Posted by BOHIC View Post
I've seen the exact same issue with Scorch and Fireball. No macros involved. Definitely doesn't occur 100% of the time and haven't seen it often enough to worry about reproducing it.
Not tried and tested - but if you think it is going to happen, instead of chain casting your next one instead sidestep and then cast. This might fix the problem
#2006SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0BOHIC
Originally Posted by BrTarolg View Post
Not tried and tested - but if you think it is going to happen, instead of chain casting your next one instead sidestep and then cast. This might fix the problem
Yes, I believe this is a solution. It's just annoying that doing your best to minimize time between casts can sometime back fire with the new cast system.

Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Another annoying thing is your casts no longer cancel when the target runs out of your (real, not ui-displayed) range. Normally spells have a bit of leeway when you're nuking a target, so just because they go out of, say, 41 yards with Fireball, doesn't mean it won't hit.

Previously, your spell would simply cancel if they ran out of this "extended range"... now it just finishes to completion, and then gives you out of range. This is extremely annoying since there's no way to tell when you should cancel your spell because the target is really out of range.
I've noticed this as well. I've always seen some margin of error after Quartz turns silver but before your cast will fail. If this is a set range, maybe Quartz can be edited to compensate for this so you'll at least know when to cancel your cast.
#2007SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vulkaire
Originally Posted by Morkai View Post

I found no solution other than simply waiting a bit more before casting the next spell when switching targets.

That is all I have been able to do as well. Worst time it has happened has been after sheeping a mob, only to end up hitting it with a fireball. Took me a while to figure out what had happened and i blamed another mage for the fireball dot until i checked my combat log.
#2008SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 pewsey
Thanks for raising this - I've noticed some inexplicable fireballs/frostbolts being cancelled, but never understood why, and it never seemed to be consistent - other than it being mostly on trash.

This behaviour could explain it.
#2009SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
To go off of that, when casting at a single mob, there are inconsistencies with the mobs death and the spell canceling properly too.
#2010SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Gumibear
When I'm doing my dailies, my Shadow Bolts frequently get cancelled when switching from one flayer to another. I've never seen it happen when switching from a ravager to a flayer or vice versa. I think the issue has to do with mobs that have the same name.
#2011SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
I suppose it's not impossible but it definitely takes some kind of effort to keep your sta so low consdiering void reaver head, T5/badge pants and others all take you quite higher than the spellfire/spellstrike/fiery wrath stam level, you'd have to pretty much pick all those low/no-stam pieces and not upgrade spellfire/spellstrike to really be that low.
It doesn't require "choice" if the items don't drop for you. The Void Reaver head is a 0.6% drop. It is very high on my wish list, but I may never see it as VR only dies once a week. Through the middle of Tier 5, it seems that stamina is still much more expensive than other stats. I have a boss suit, and a stam-boss suit. The boss suit drops 60 damage in favor of +spell hit. The stam-boss suit drops another 25 damage in favor of stamina, keeping spell hit very close to cap; it also has some blues in it.
#2012SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by BOHIC View Post
It's just annoying that doing your best to minimize time between casts can sometime back fire with the new cast system.
I'm fairly certain all of these casting issues are side effects of the server-side cast queue.
In order for the server to handle the queue, if you switch to a mob that has the same name, the server doesn't understand that you switched to a new unit, it thinks you're still trying to cast at Flayer (A) when you're trying to hit Flayer (B). I'd be willing to guess that same level affects this, as well, although I'm not sure if it matters. When you start a new cast within the latency of your client (like the bar in Quartz), the server still has Flayer (A) targetted and only switches targets AFTER the cast finishes, even if this is not the way your client happens to be displaying it.

For all you computer programmers, I don't know how the servers are scripted to handle unique instances of the same object. If the Flayer objects all have the exact same signature in the server (e.g. NAME:LEVEL) then the server can't distinguish between FLAYER:70 and FLAYER:70. That's really shoddy programming. For heaven's sake, I'm only in college and I know how I'd fix that. (Assign them unique signatures based on their location in the game world since it's nearly impossible to target creatures on the other side of the map, eg. if the code for Netherwing ledge is 12, then have 12:FLAYER:70:1, 12:FLAYER:70:2, where 1 and 2 are their IDs.) There should be a large enough server-side cache for the server to say "Ok, once cast in :1 finishes, move to :2 and start this spell."

Just my rambles, if they happen to make sense to anyone.
#2013SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by Imbar View Post
I'm fairly certain all of these casting issues are side effects of the server-side cast queue.
In order for the server to handle the queue, if you switch to a mob that has the same name, the server doesn't understand that you switched to a new unit, it thinks you're still trying to cast at Flayer (A) when you're trying to hit Flayer (B). I'd be willing to guess that same level affects this, as well, although I'm not sure if it matters. When you start a new cast within the latency of your client (like the bar in Quartz), the server still has Flayer (A) targetted and only switches targets AFTER the cast finishes, even if this is not the way your client happens to be displaying it.

For all you computer programmers, I don't know how the servers are scripted to handle unique instances of the same object. If the Flayer objects all have the exact same signature in the server (e.g. NAME:LEVEL) then the server can't distinguish between FLAYER:70 and FLAYER:70. That's really shoddy programming. For heaven's sake, I'm only in college and I know how I'd fix that. (Assign them unique signatures based on their location in the game world since it's nearly impossible to target creatures on the other side of the map, eg. if the code for Netherwing ledge is 12, then have 12:FLAYER:70:1, 12:FLAYER:70:2, where 1 and 2 are their IDs.) There should be a large enough server-side cache for the server to say "Ok, once cast in :1 finishes, move to :2 and start this spell."

Just my rambles, if they happen to make sense to anyone.
The problem is that there is no queue. All this system has done is allow you to send new cast attempts while casting without having the client automatically reject them. If this request arrives at the server after the server believes you are finished casting, then it starts the next cast and tells the client to put up a casting bar.

When you switch targets between casts (and while preempting your own lag), the server still believes you're casting on the first target. If the target dies before your first cast fires server-side (and thus, before your next cast request reaches the server), the server sends a message to the client to interrupt your cast (because it still believes your target is the original target).
#2014SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Server-client agreement seems to be the main issue.
I can't really see a way around that, because latency will always exist.

The second part of your statement is a nice "too long, didn't read" of what I said, but in layman's terms.
Bravo.
What I'm curious about is how the server handles same-name targets, specifically casting against them. I suppose that doesn't have a place in this thread, though.
#2015SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Imbar View Post
I'm fairly certain all of these casting issues are side effects of the server-side cast queue.
In order for the server to handle the queue, if you switch to a mob that has the same name, the server doesn't understand that you switched to a new unit, it thinks you're still trying to cast at Flayer (A) when you're trying to hit Flayer (B). I'd be willing to guess that same level affects this, as well, although I'm not sure if it matters. When you start a new cast within the latency of your client (like the bar in Quartz), the server still has Flayer (A) targetted and only switches targets AFTER the cast finishes, even if this is not the way your client happens to be displaying it.

For all you computer programmers, I don't know how the servers are scripted to handle unique instances of the same object. If the Flayer objects all have the exact same signature in the server (e.g. NAME:LEVEL) then the server can't distinguish between FLAYER:70 and FLAYER:70. That's really shoddy programming. For heaven's sake, I'm only in college and I know how I'd fix that. (Assign them unique signatures based on their location in the game world since it's nearly impossible to target creatures on the other side of the map, eg. if the code for Netherwing ledge is 12, then have 12:FLAYER:70:1, 12:FLAYER:70:2, where 1 and 2 are their IDs.) There should be a large enough server-side cache for the server to say "Ok, once cast in :1 finishes, move to :2 and start this spell.".
Hate to quote this block of text with a little reply, but in 2.4 they are totally redoing the combat logging system, which is giving us unique identifiers for mobs/players and such. I hate to speculate on this, but a side note to them doing this is that it adds the ability to do an actual queue for spell casting, which makes this situation go away...just to throw that out there guys.
#2016SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Hate to quote this block of text with a little reply, but in 2.4 they are totally redoing the combat logging system, which is giving us unique identifiers for mobs/players and such. I hate to speculate on this, but a side note to them doing this is that it adds the ability to do an actual queue for spell casting, which makes this situation go away...just to throw that out there guys.
Good, then we don't need to stress. Just deal with the crap until they release the new system that may (or may not) fix the problem.

Hell, isn't that what we've been doing for years now?
O.o
#2017SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Hate Monkey
Well this could be the "Can't fix it till other changes are made" type of deal. And if 2.4 fixes it for good, and as far as we know, that's their intent, what good is complaining about it?
#2018SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Imbar
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
And if 2.4 fixes it for good, and as far as we know, that's their intent, what good is complaining about it?
I was complaining because I had no idea that a fix was already in the works.
Now that I know, the point is moot.
#2019SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Pintofbrew
What I've noticed is the following sequence:

Assume you and your group is hitting on mob A

When mob A < (time for 1 more nuke) worth of life, you swap to target B

IF first spell directed to target B is NOT shot before A is dead

WHEN A dies, your cast spell cancels because it is aimed at "wrong target".

The coding suggestions do indicate that perhaps the game is having difficulty distinguishing between mobs of same name/level but it does not explain this problem in PvP.

Even if it is fixed in 2.4 however, perhaps we should investigate a work-around in the mean time if possible. As far as I can see 2.4 isn't inbound for a while.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 01/04/08 at 7:23 AM.
#2020SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0xyu
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Sounds like you're using some weird frostbolt macro.
No, I have had this same problem happen to me as well. At first like the OP said, i thought i was just missing my target. When it started happening a little too frequently I started to pay attention to it. I've seen it a few times now. When target 1 dies my cast on target 2 stops.

I don't remember if it said "interrupted" or "target is dead" but i'm 100% sure I'm not using a macro, and that I had a living mob targeted.

Edit: seems my page didn't refresh and this was already discussed. /ignore
#2021SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Andersnordic
Drums of Battle + Chain of the Twilight Owl

Some ppl might want to get every possible advantage for the Sunwell bosses. In this regard it would be really nice to add close to +6% dps for all group members using [Drums of Battle] + [Chain of the Twilight Owl]. And considering less than 5% of end lvl casters have LW atm (And more than 90% have enchanting) Im gonna add more info on this subject.

First of all yes, some of you should probably check out if there are additional raid enhancing profession items that will be added for Sunwell. As for me, I ditched tailoring 3-4 months ago and picked up LW as soon as spellfire/spellstrike bonus wasn't needed. Some ppl also have the luxury/possibility to allocate gathering proffs to alts and simply focus on raid enhancing proffs on the main.


Drums of Battle

80 spell haste for 5 ppl lasting 30 sec (2 min cd).

Aprox value of 1 haste rating vs 1 spell dmg per class at BT/MH lvl;

Mage 1 haste = 1,07 spell dmg
Lock 1 haste = 0,8 spell dmg - destro (1 = 0,4 for affli)
SP 1 haste = 0,6 spell dmg
Ele shaman 1 haste = 0,9 spell dmg


Example illustration;

Grp with 2 mages, 1 destro, 1 SP, 1 Ele shammy.

Average haste value for given group would be 1 haste = 0,88 spell dmg (+71 spell dmg for average grp member).

-15 spell dmg for individual loss of gdc + ocassional range issues (40 yards).

Constant 56 spell dmg equivalent buff for all grp members.


Average fight length 4 min. 2 drums popped during fight per LW`er.

4 ppl popping 2 drums each during the encounter would be able to make the drum buff a constant +56 spell dmg equivalent buff and would add aprox +4% extra dmg for 5 ppl (BT/MH gear lvl).


In comparison the enchanting buff you get (+24 spell dmg on rings) is less than half of that.

So in fact, LW/drum is 100%+ more valuable than enchanting as a raid enhancing prof. in regards to adding value to raid dps.

And still we see 90%+ of all end lvl dmg casters speccing "enchanting" primarily for the ring buffs, yet completely ignoring LW (Less than 5% of all end lvl casters have this atm).



Chain of the Twilight Owl

If you make sure grp members always have Chain of the Twilight Owl (+2% crit necklace) at all times (1 hour cd so max usage would be every 12 min with rotation) we would be able to add close to +6% dmg to that grps dps (Drums + neck).

Obviously the crit neck can be used more situational since its a lot more expensive but with the low cost of drums I don't see a reason not to use it frequently (20-30g for 50 charges). I use about 30 charges per raid atm. Ive been slacking on the neck though, but will most likely use it for certain sunwell bosses (Depending on boss mechanic and difficulty lvl).



Sunwell is getting closer and we may soon find ourselves in a situation where every little bit of extra DPS will be VERY valuable
#2022SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
The main problem of drums is that it eats a GCD to activate. If only they removed that.
#2023SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
I think a large part of the reason for the lack of BT - caster Leather workers is - you need to have those 4 people be LW's and workout the rotation in order for it to be worth the effort of losing a GCD. Although most BT guilds have at least a few dps casters who really think about these kind of things - or care for that matter. It's few and far between finding entire guilds synergized down to the detail of profession min/max'ing.

That said - If they removed the GCD - I would drop my tailoring in a heartbeat.
#2024SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by manly View Post
The main problem of drums is that it eats a GCD to activate. If only they removed that.
Having gone drums a month ago, it's fine the way it is. As is if you just randomly pop drums alone, it's a roughly neutral DPS change (5.1% haste for 28.5 seconds, but odds are when you cast that last cast it'll just barely clip the haste and still be hasted even after drums end).

However, it can always be paired with your 2 minute cooldowns, which adds quite a bit of dps. And you get put in the caster dps groups much more often
#2025SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Well, unless you pop the drums before entering combat...
#2026SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Andersnordic
I accounted for the true value of drums in my last post (Deducting the loss from gcd + the occasional range issue).

Drums are equivalent to a personal buff of 280 spell dmg for 30 sec, every 2 mins (Which is a +4% total dmg increase to one person during an entire fight). In comparison Icy Veins will “only” give you a 2,8% dmg increase.

I have to admit though, I'm the only LW caster in the guild and I assume ppl wont shout "halleluja" after I post this in guild forum unfortunately...

The main reason sadly is that 95% of raiders are too self centered and rarely think of the "good of the raid" if it can negatively impact their individual meter result in any way. Human nature...

I can promise you this; If this drum would increase a players personal haste rating by 400 for 30 sec (Instead of group), every single DPS`er and his granma would spec LW instantly. Just imagine. 400 spell haste rating is too good to ignore (+4% added personal dmg including the gdc loss)). But 4% dmg divided over 5 ppl is not as good?

Same goes for the neck. If the neck would give you personally +10% crit then EVERY single caster dps would use it (All the time!). Its just that good! But is it really less imba because those 10% are spread over 5 ppl?

In my old guild, I remember I had to threaten our locks indirectly if one of them didn't spec malediction + shadow embrace. They really resented the idea and no one wanted to volunteer. It all ended with me having to bribe the chosen person with weekly flask tokens=o And at the time “malediction” would be equivalent to a +27% individual dmg boost...

Same goes for improved amp magic (Magic Attunement). You alone can increase ALL healing done on MT by 4%+ (Which is as valuable as +10% added to your own dmg), yet less than 2% of mages have any points in this (Even though you will hardly miss those two points - 12/46/3).

Even today, Im seriously considering going for 2 points in "magic attunement" for Sunwell even though it would gimp my personal dps by as much as 5%. +4% extra healing on MT is more important than me meterwhoring.

You will do your guild a great favor by getting these buffs. Any GM/guild with a brain bigger than a peanut will see that and appreciate you for doing it. Who knows, you may even get prio for raids...

Last edited by Andersnordic : 01/04/08 at 9:35 PM.
#2027SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
amp magic and magig attunement

+240 healing without talent, so +50% adds another 120. 120 healing is not even close to +10% heals. Worth it? dunno, but its value is much lower than you claim.
#2028SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Andersnordic
True, I saw it myself and corrected/edited the values a few minutes after I posted.
#2029SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0graver
Anyone knows what happened to Lhivera's script? Doesnt seem to work for me.
Man Out of Time - obstinately living the future that was
#2030SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Bendelat
Originally Posted by graver View Post
Anyone knows what happened to Lhivera's script? Doesnt seem to work for me.
Man Out of Time - obstinately living the future that was
Your link is to the old results output, not to the proper name of the base URL.

She apparently moved servers. The old link that will forward properly is Theorycraft-o-Matic . The new link that it leads to is Man Out of Time - Theorycraft-o-Matic

I can't say which is meant to be the permanent link as I haven't seen a post from the designer at this time.
#2031SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Leialyn
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
Same goes for improved amp magic (Magic Attunement). You alone can increase ALL healing done on MT by 4%+ (Which is as valuable as +10% added to your own dmg), yet less than 2% of mages have any points in this (Even though you will hardly miss those two points - 12/46/3).
The thing is with bumping +heal (as it is with healers only socketing +heal gems) there is no real use for it except for healing meters.
More RaidDPS means shorter fight times, because there is no real damage limit, only the boss hitpoints. But there is a heal limit, if the healed target is full then every single bit of +heal is overheal. Imho the only purpose of healing is to keep the target(s) alive... if the target(s) live(s) the heal is good, if not it issn't.

So when is more +heal good? Its good for heals that heal only a small amount like hots or groupheals... there more +heal can result in a CoH priest only needing 4 instead of 5 heals to get the group full (but that needs large amounts of +heal :p).
For a maintank scenario (and you wrote "healing done on MT by 4%" ) where lots of big heals hit the maintank in a short time +heal issn't really worth it. The only difference will be healingmeters, it won't have any influence in whether the tank survives or not.
#2032SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
When the tank gets hit so fast that between 2 hits he's only going to get so many heals, extra +healing acts as effective +HP. I've seen a couple "tank gib" WWSs and while a little extra +healing wouldn't help (just like a little more +dmg wouldn't save you if you hit the enrage timer), you see it was the only thing that could've helped, as if 1 more person would've landed a heal, the size of that heal could be making the difference. Having more +healing at the end reduces the chance of your tank dying to a burst, not a lot worse than stamina/armor do, although not as good obviously as stamina/armor work even if no heals landed.
#2033SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Andersnordic
If your guild was learning hard hitting bosses like azgalor, archimonde, mother sharaz and Illidan, I would say the +4% extra healing on MT was very important with todays setup (12/46/03 is so easy to set up without hardly losing anything). Even on your weekly clear a single wipe due to lack of healing on MT could be avoided with impr. amp.

However, the main issue is that a great majority of ppl (Mages included) don't acknowledge the Amp Magic buff and therefore ignore it fully. They haven't cared to do the math on it and therefore are insecure of when to use it (And unaware of its effect). Thats the main issue. Therefore a large majority of guilds miss out on +10-12% extra healing on MT in the learning curve of these bosses.

As long as you understand how powerful Amp magic is (Even in its un-talented form) and use it in any learning curve at least, then thats the most important thing.

Now with the new talents (Icy Veins) it will be very difficult to get magic attunement (Without gimping yourself too much) so the situation has changed.

However, we should wait and see how the sunwell boss mechanics are before we can say for certain if +4% healing on MT will be worth more than the added dmg. Who knows, there may be a new patchwerk on steroids where keeping MT up will be almost impossible;p

Unfortunately, even if a boss like this was to be introduced I doubt many mages would use amp magic for other reasons (Very often, either the mage is unaware or the MT/GM is incompetent and will freak out if he sees the buff, which is the case in some guilds...)


Blizz knows very well that the mage community ignore amp and would rather happily trade it for any other buff. Probably the main reason why they haven't looked at it and they are most likely not going to. It would be interesting though if they did, and f example to made it stackable (To increase the value of our group buffs). But I guess that would make it too imba.

Last edited by Andersnordic : 01/05/08 at 8:29 PM.
#2034SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
 greyberger
Regarding the jewelcrafting necklaces, they don't require any profession skill to equip or use. Anybody can make these in bulk provided they know someone with the design. There are two reasons why almost nobody does.

-the item is obscure and very slightly inconvenient. Not too many people know about this or Eye of the Night, or how they work. Inconvenient in that you have to bring them out in batches of five, one to each party member, or else hope that wipes are few and far between enough to get around the 1h cooldown. Bringing a 10-charge necklace for every member in your party for a night of attempts would be expensive if you compare it to individual buffs and pretty reasonable if you consider its cost split between the five of you. Either way its enough to make people balk at the idea of adding it to their consumable shopping list.

-When its your necklace or your turn to pop the necklace, everyone gets buffed besides you. Or, rather, you get the buff, but are stuck with a blue necklace with poor itemization, and unless got spell hit from your other neck you might need to swap other gear around to get nearer to the cap. You start to resent and hate the necklace, since when you use it you slip further down the meters.

Considering how far people will go in terms of cost and inconvenience to maximize their own damage, you have to figure its selfishness and ignorance that's really responsible for their obscurity.

Edit: you have to keep the necklace on if you want anybody to keep the buff.

Last edited by greyberger : 01/06/08 at 9:30 PM.
#2035SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Sancus
When its your necklace or your turn to pop the necklace, everyone gets buffed besides you. Or, rather, you get the choice of either a crap blue neck w/ poor itemization and a temporary buff, or donning your regular gear and being 2% crit down compared to your buddies/competitors.
Wait... so the 2% crit buff stays up on the other people if you take the neck off? Soo.... you can swap healers into the group to pop the buff and then just take the neck off and go back to their normal group?
#2036SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Jarlyn
No, the buff does not remain if you unequip the neck.
#2037SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vonwen
I can confirm this, just tried yesterday before disenchanting it, if you have access to KT/T6 necklaces, the chain is now utter crap.
#2038SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 greyberger
I don't think that makes the necklaces crap. Sure your personal dps takes a hit from downgrading for one fight, but that +2% crit for your party members more than makes up for it. Your party damage will go up quite a lot when you there's one activated, much more of an increase than you'd get from using flame caps or destruction potions, both of which are more common.

If you're looking for untapped ways to maximize a caster group's damage, these deserve mention right along the drums, and don't require anyone to level leatherworking.
#2039SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0xiaoxin21
The thing to confirm now is whether the buff will be dispelled on all your party members or only yourself, as I read thottbot on this item, one comment read that only your buff will be gone and not your party buff. Overall this neck is not sub par at all. +29 damage and +10%crit(2% per person) makes it the best neck available for caster groups.
#2040SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Vonwen
Only if every caster benefits from the 2% crit. Imagine a classical SP-shaman-mage(3) group. If the shaman is resto spec (most likely the case), he will not care much about the 2% crit, probably not at all. The SP will benefit very little from it, so that's leaving the 3 mages. The fact is that 2% crit isn't worth 2% dps, it's much less, especially with good gear. If you take all this into account, is the dps and stamina loss worth it ? I really don't think so.
#2041SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Pintofbrew
I'll second that. The necks are rather sub-par; Given a group is only 4 other people, out of which at least one doesn't gain anything more than a totaly negligible benefit then the effect seems to drop off. This is particularly true given the (nowadays) astronomical crit rates mages are enjoying; I seem to recall a gleeful realisation at BWL-60 level that I could respec 28-23-0 and have the monumental crit of 33%, while nowadays raiding at 40% is the norm.

Adding 2% will be a boost, however small, but will it be significant enough to convince people to remove their lovely epics in lieu of an abysmal JC consumable? It's almost like asking people to farm Firebloom and LBS for Brilliant Mage Oil instead of the more conventional +42dmg variety. Doable at the expense of effort, but arguably next-to-irrelevant in the scheme of things.
#2042SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Ok I'm not sure if I interpret things correctly here. Let say your shadow priest wear the necklace, activates it, then equips his normal necklace. Does that removes the 2% crit buff only to himself and not the 4 other members of the party? If that is the case we got a winner.
#2043SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Otterpop
The buff disappears from all party members if you unequip the neck.
#2044SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
Only if every caster benefits from the 2% crit. Imagine a classical SP-shaman-mage(3) group. If the shaman is resto spec (most likely the case), he will not care much about the 2% crit, probably not at all. The SP will benefit very little from it, so that's leaving the 3 mages. The fact is that 2% crit isn't worth 2% dps, it's much less, especially with good gear. If you take all this into account, is the dps and stamina loss worth it ? I really don't think so.
What if you convince the restoration shaman to use it? 2% to each mage and the shadow priest gets about half the effectiveness out of it. One healer takes a small hit for the gain of approximately 7% crit. It's almost like having an elemental shaman who drops mana tide!
#2045SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Grai
This whole Drums of Battle discussion got me interested in group swapping and drums, and so I did a couple tests with a hunter in my guild that's a LW this afternoon and made a couple discoveries.

1) You do not lose drums buff if you swap people in and out of groups for thebu ff. This is the same way group swaps for lust works.

2) Drums appear to be bugged (hopefully not intentional) that if you're a melee/ranged (hunter) class, you only give melee/ranged haste to other melee classes. In my tests, the hunter that I was grouped in a raid with was not able to give me drums buff under any circumstances. Got a warrior in the group, and he was getting them with the hunter just like he should, even while I was in the group, not receiving the buff.

Tried this test with Drums of War as well as Drums of Battle. No luck either way.

*edit* Maybe this is just a hunter thing, a rogue on the bug test seemed to think so.

Last edited by Grai : 01/07/08 at 6:32 PM.
#2046SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Searix
Originally Posted by Grai View Post
This whole Drums of Battle discussion got me interested in group swapping and drums, and so I did a couple tests with a hunter in my guild that's a LW this afternoon and made a couple discoveries.

1) You do not lose drums buff if you swap people in and out of groups for thebu ff. This is the same way group swaps for lust works.

2) Drums appear to be bugged (hopefully not intentional) that if you're a melee/ranged (hunter) class, you only give melee/ranged haste to other melee classes. In my tests, the hunter that I was grouped in a raid with was not able to give me drums buff under any circumstances. Got a warrior in the group, and he was getting them with the hunter just like he should, even while I was in the group, not receiving the buff.

Tried this test with Drums of War as well as Drums of Battle. No luck either way.

*edit* Maybe this is just a hunter thing, a rogue on the bug test seemed to think so.
Well im not sure if group 5's really the group that's pushing dps.

That said i've never had a problem to this day with anyone not getting it, but im never grouped with hunters
#2047SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Athenalyn
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
Athenalyn, just about everything you wrote here are wrong. Don't doubt the people here who tried to help you with helpful replies. I think you really need to read the thread that Galzohar linked for you, to get a basic understanding of how things works for a mage. In fact, try to get into a raid soon to see how things works out. You will find a lot of truth when you get into raiding.
This one's for you JasonX!

And I'm probebly going to get another Infraction for "Going against the Flow" like my previous infraction. This Reply is about how for Frost mages, + Crit rating is better then + Spell Damage.

Ok, to prove my point, I started number crunching.

I am unable to post a Graph on here, but if you visualize, As time goes on +spell Damage is > + crit Rating, but for quick potent Damage + Crit Rating is > + spell Damage.

This is a small example of Crit Rating Versus +spell Damage Rating Rating in A 1 to 1 Ratio as far as which is better


Frost bolt is a 2.5 Sec cast which falls under + damage penalty using (casttime/3.5)x which equals 81.43% of your + damage gear affects Frostbolt and Improved Frostbolt the same. (Patch 2.2)
-------------------------------------------
For the following Examples we will use the following
(Please note, Crit Damage is +100% bonus from traits)
(Please note, I was very nice to the + Spell Damage, we all know its "Up to # of Damage", not exact like Crit)


24 Crit Rating = 2% crit
24 Spell DMG = 19.44 (20 rounded up just to make you guys happy)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At a base rate of 900 damage and 12% crit, Frostbolt is casted 100 times
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Crit rating total over 100 casts = 102600

86 normal @ 900 = 77400
14 crit @ 1800 = 25200


+ Spell damage Total over 100 casts = 103040

88 Normal @ 920 = 80960
12 Crit @ 1840 = 22080

440 Damage diffrence Over time for the entire instance (+ spell Damage wins)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At a base rate of 900 damage and 12% crit Frostbolt is casted 25 times
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Spell damage Total over 25 casts =25760
3 crits 920 Average damage

3 Crit @ 1840 =5520
22 Nor@ 920 =20240



+ Crit rating total over 25 casts = 26100
4 crits 900 Average damage

4 Crit @ 1800 = 7200
21 Nor@ 900 = 18900


340 Damage Diffrence for the boss ( crit wins)


So by these examples we see that as time continues, + spell damage can be more effective for total Raid
damage, however for the quick Burn of a Boss, + crit rating is better.

I would also like to state that +spell damage usually comes as an "Up to # of spell damage" and not an exact
+ Spell damage, Although I just gave a pure + spell damage in this example,

So, as you can see, if you want to be Potent, + Crit Rating is better, honestly, how many times have you
casted 100 Frostbolts at a Boss.

And with this, I would like to State that since Fireball is 100% + spell Damage while Frostbolt is only 81.43% Along with the + Crit Damage Frost gives unlike Fire: Fire Mages should go + spell Damage over + Crit rating, while Frost Mages should go + Crit Rating over + Spell Damage if you have the choice to choose one over.

But in no way Do I mean Use A + 12 Crit Rating Gear over A + 60 Spell Damage gear. That would just be dumb.

I tried to make it as neat as possible with as little time that I'm willing to spend on here, since, all the replies I got before where just lame responses like the qouted one above.

As of Patch 2.3 Empowered Frostbolt and Fireball both increase coefficients in 2.3, pre 2.3 Improved Fireball and Frostbolt reduced coefficients, this no longer occurs.
#2048SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0 manly
Originally Posted by Athenalyn View Post
24 Crit Rating = 2% crit
Unfortunately, this statement is far from being true. You need 22.1 crit rating to get 1% crit at lvl 70. Your entire math falls hard if you adjust it with the proper value.
#2049SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Athenalyn, the "up to" expression that Blizzard uses for +spell damage is only to reinforce that +spell damage is subject to varying coefficients. It does not mean that, on top of the coefficient, you may receive less benefit.

Furthermore...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At a base rate of 900 damage and 12% crit Frostbolt is casted 25 times
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Spell damage Total over 25 casts =25760
3 crits 920 Average damage

3 Crit @ 1840 =5520
22 Nor@ 920 =20240



+ Crit rating total over 25 casts = 26100
4 crits 900 Average damage

4 Crit @ 1800 = 7200
21 Nor@ 900 = 18900
4/25 = .16 = 16% crit rate, not 12% base or 14% that you even assumed. That's the problem here: you did not compute the average.

I see what you were trying to get at--that short-run variation can make crit better. But there's a reason it's variation: the average, the expected value, is still the same, regardless of how many casts you're looking at.

Manly's reminder only reinforces the established convention that crit is an inferior dps stat.
#2050SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0
Edited onPatch 2.3.0
Akuman
Please note, I was very nice to the + Spell Damage, we all know its "Up to # of Damage", not exact like Crit)
Do you mean that a person with +1000 spell dmg will have his fireball range from 700 to 1700 (not accounting for talents).

That's not how it happens :P

Although...that would be funny


The range of the dmg you get from 1 spell is pretty much the base range (ex: 700 to 900 or whatever it is for fireball, without accouting for talents and debuffs).


Oh and spell hit is still the most valuable stat till you reach the hit cap rating, so veiled noble topaz would be the way to go, and then go for +9spell dmg once you hit the cap.

Check this page out, it'll answer most your questions.
Sweet Informational Thread for Mages

Last edited by Akuman : 01/07/08 at 8:25 PM.
#2051SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0[DRF]Solmyr
In the spirit of breaking the flow of conversation, I would like to ask the scholars here about Spell Haste Rating. I have used the search tool, but have not seen a conversation where an optimal Spell Haste Rating is suggested (is there one?).

In Lhivera's TCoM, I still see SHR valued equally with damage. I also believe that SHR takes up less itemization value. Is SHR an easy/cheap way to improve my damage output? Personally, I have been trying to target the 125ish range for Spell Haste rating to try and squeeze in an extra fireball into my rotation. Should I be aiming higher/lower?

New Casting Time = Base Casting Time / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))

Assuming there is no push-back, no latency, and one can stand still the entire time: a 10FB:1ScR rotation would be possible at 78 Spell Haste rating.

Assuming the same scenario, but averaging 100ms latency: a 10FB:1ScR rotation would be possible at 141 Spell Haste rating.





If this topic should have been in the Help Me Please topic, I'll gladly delete this and move it over there.
#2052SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0ildon
Additionally, when comparing crit and damage you have to account for the fact that within the itemization scheme, 1 spell CR is about equal to 0.85 spell damage (meaning spell damage is cheaper), so for each crit rating gem you use you're losing more than just 1 spell damage potentially.
#2053SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0Muphrid
Well, like all ratings, 1 point of spell haste will cost 1 item point, while 1 +damage costs only .85 item points.

Beyond that, just bear in mind that each additional spell haste rating will (very slightly) decrease the value of haste compared to other stat.
#2054SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.0galzohar
Originally Posted by ildon View Post
Additionally, when comparing crit and damage you have to account for the fact that within the itemization scheme, 1 spell CR is about equal to 0.85 spell damage (meaning spell damage is cheaper), so for each crit rating gem you use you're losing more than just 1 spell damage potentially.
With the exception of rounding errors, of course. (aka 5 dmg 4 crit gems vs 9 dmg gems)
#2055SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Amrahil
Originally Posted by [DRF]Solmyr View Post
Assuming the same scenario, but averaging 100ms latency: a 10FB:1ScR rotation would be possible at 141 Spell Haste rating.[/i]
I'm also trying to get an extra Fireball into my rotation, currently sitting on exactly 100 SHR. I can currently run a 9FB:1Scr comfortably but it could be interresting to see if those 40-50 Haste Rating points would help me squeeze in a tenth Fireball.

I do have [Loop of Cursed Bones] which I'd rather not swap with my Hellfire Encased Pendant. And the only other apparent upgrade would be the BT trash drop ring to swap with Naj'entus ring to get me there.

The most optimal way would be to simply have another Fire Mage run the Fire Vurn debuff, and let you do Fireballs only. But this isn't always the case in raids, some rare times you might be alone.
#2056SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Acetyle
Originally Posted by Athenalyn View Post
So, as you can see, if you want to be Potent, + Crit Rating is better, honestly, how many times have you
casted 100 Frostbolts at a Boss.
Last night actually, on each Al'ar attempt. More than 100 frostbolts per attempt. Best we did was 30%, so I would have probably cast about 170 frostbolts per attempt. Looking at WWS parses, most frost mages that suvive the fight cast more than 200...

As some have already said earlier, things change when you get to 70 and start raiding.
#2057SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
To be totally honest, if you wanted to maximize dps, you base your scorch rotations off how many fire mages are in the raid. If you have 2, you do a 18 Fireball/1 Scorch rotation optimally. I generally stick to something like that because if the Scorch Debuff falls off, I know someone wasn't doing their job, and such, their dps suffers more than mine.
#2058SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Pintofbrew
Amarahil: What's the point of fixating on getting one in your rotation? I can see that due to haste stacking your fireball-time-to-scorch-time ratio reduces and that you'd like your total fireball-to-scorch ratio to reduce so as to improve overall total dps more, but you're risking the rather doom-bringing possibility of running out of scorch;

Most of us (as I understand) are on the 8-1 Fball-Sc precisely because if it was 9-1 and that 1 missed, due to Quartz casting we'd already be a GCD into the next fireball before we registered we failed to refresh scorch.

What I'm getting to is, is the benefit of cutting it so slim with error margin worth the possibility of losing scorch?

Strictly TC-wise, however, it seems likely to be more efficient if a 0-haste mage takes over scorching and all other hasted mages drop it entirely. This is so simply because the non-hasted caster loses 0.5 of a fireball per scorch while the hasted one would lose more than 0.5.

Originally Posted by Acetyle View Post
Last night actually, on each Al'ar attempt. More than 100 frostbolts per attempt. Best we did was 30%, so I would have probably cast about 170 frostbolts per attempt. Looking at WWS parses, most frost mages that suvive the fight cast more than 200...

As some have already said earlier, things change when you get to 70 and start raiding.
That is entirely true. Bullshit statistical theories like "if I cast 1 spell at 51% crit it will crit" are what you should have debunked if you payed due attention to Vontre's Sweet Info Thread or indeed any of the successful TC demonstrated on these forums Athenalyn. And FYI you do indeed cast a hell of a lot of frostbolts. Run a data recording damage meter when you get to Kael'thas, Vashj (or Al'ar as pointed out). Hell, even Magtheridon at low gear levels lasts till you're blue in the face.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 01/08/08 at 6:22 AM.
#2059SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Copernicus
Two quick 2.3.2 questions-

Does Fire Vulnerability and Ignite still count as spell hits for Darkmon Card: Crusade?

Is Frostbolt getting mana from Judgement of Wisdom?
#2060SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
It really is best to have just 1 mage in the raid do all the scorching. Pick the least geared mage and assign him the task. I only scorch on bosses if the other mages are dead and at the start to help stack it up.
#2061SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Maligne
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
It really is best to have just 1 mage in the raid do all the scorching. Pick the least geared mage and assign him the task. I only scorch on bosses if the other mages are dead and at the start to help stack it up.
I (and general best practices) disagree.

Originally Posted by Vontre
Scorch debuff lasts 30 seconds once applied, so with an average 3.2 second cast time on fireball a maximum of 8 fireballs can be cast before any scorching. Scorching once out of every 8 casts is a trivial loss of dps (around 1%), however losing the stack is a non-trivial loss as it most likely cause fireballs from each mage to lose the damage bonus as well as require more scorching to stack up to 5 again. Considering this, it's generally a good idea to have every mage cast a scorch at least once out of every 8 fireballs. If you depend on a single mage to refresh the stack, you run a much greater risk of losing the stack if that mage becomes occupied at the wrong time; through mind control, fear, kiting, etc.
#2062SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
Originally Posted by Maligne View Post
I (and general best practices) disagree.
On the rare instance that it does fall, i do help stack it back up. I will agree that it is just a minor dps loss...but having 3 mages scorch vs 1 is still a dps loss. I expect a mage in an Illidan guild to be able to keep scorch up w/o letting it drop.

Now where it is more than a minor dps loss is during bloodlust...and now IV.
#2063SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Tharia
If you need to scorch during the 20 secs of Icy Veins you should reconsider your playstyle :x
#2064SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Sancus
So uh, did anyone confirm that Frostbite is fixed in 2.3.2 or if it's not? If it's not I'm going to be a sad pvp panda :/
#2065SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
It was just a comment about when it would lower your dps.

I'm playing with the idea of putting IV on a macro with my fireball...which is how I use my trinkets. It maximizes uptime, but it has the potential of lowering the value of them considering you could time them for < 20%. It would really depend on the lenght of the fight for which is a better method.

Adding IV to fireball would give you the very likely potential of having to scorch while IV is up.
#2066SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Jaedis
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
So uh, did anyone confirm that Frostbite is fixed in 2.3.2 or if it's not? If it's not I'm going to be a sad pvp panda :/
What's there to fix? You mean getting rid of it all together?

I didn't see anything in the patch notes at all about, so I doubt it. Frostbite isn't a huge deal anyhow, and it's really only fair now that all magi have Iceblock :P
#2067SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Chilblain
I'm replying from work, so I hope the answer to these questions isn't painfully apparent once I log on.

I'm 11/0/50 deep frost. For raiding, my modus operandi is to summon my WE, pop my Icon trinket, and then hit Cold Snap so I have another WE on deck, and the cooldown can begin on Cold Snap.

Patch 2.3.2 brings a global reduction to Cold Snap, from 10 minutes down to 8. That's great, but I've not encountered many boss fights that last 10 minutes, or even 8, to make popping Cold Snap twice during an encounter a viable option.

But, putting two points in Ice Flows could reduce Cold Snap's cooldown to 6 minutes. Now there I could see it become possible to pop twice during a boss fight. I've listed what I would do, and then put an approximate time into the boss encounter next to each action as is would occur:

1. Cast Frostbolt (to apply Winter's Chill effect) -0:00
2. Summon WE (45 seconds 3 min CD) -0:05
3. Pop Icon of the Silver Crescent (20 seconds 2 min CD) -0:06
4. Cast Cold Snap (6 min CD) -0:07
5. Summon 2nd WE (45 seconds 3 min CD) -0:50 (approx.)
6. Spam Frostbolts until Icon is back up, then pop Icon -2:06
7. Spam Frostbolts until WE is back up, then summon 3rd WE -3:50 (approx.)
8. Spam Frostbolts until Icon is back up, then pop Icon -4:06 (approx.)
9. Spam Frostbolts until Cold Snap is back up, then pop Cold Snap -6:07 (approx.)
10. By this time Icon should be back up, so summon 4th WE and pop Icon again -6:08 (approx.)

I know I'm making a lot of assumptions here... like the survival of your WE, and you're not running around dodging cave-ins or whatever. But in my head, that seems viable. The big question for me is:

Are there enough boss fights that last 6+ minutes to make this rotation workable? Going by my hypothetical fight timer, the WE would back back from cool down at approx. 6:50, so if everything goes according to plan, those two points in Ice Flows will get you a 4th WE approx. 45 seconds before someone without that talent, unless my arithmetic is incorrect.

I thought the reduction in Cold Snap's cooldown would make Ice Flows a talent worth sacrificing some points for. But in laying it out like this, I'm not sure I'm convinced. You'd have to be in a 6+ minute boss fight, to get a 4th WE, and and any long encounter like that probably isn't going to be much fun for your WE to begin with. He'll get AoE'd, or smashed, or banished or something. I mean, it would be nice on Noralakk, but if you take 6 minutes to beat him anyway, you're probably not getting the extra loot he drops to begin with.
#2068SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kasi
There is quite a few fights that you could get that much on. Also this is depending on the gear of your raid and how fast you kill stuff. But in general.

SSC - Morogrim and Vashj, maybe Karathress
TK - VR, Alar and Kael (cold snap should come up twice there)
MH - Archimonde, maybe Azgalor.
BT - Supremus, possibly Gurtogg, possibly RoS (doesn't matter though since first phase is not a dps phase, balancing between 2 and 3 is the only issue), early Naj kills, early Mother kills, Illidari Council (another 2 times fight), Illidan (another 2 times fight)
#2069SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Jarlyn
I don't raid full time as a frost mage, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I when I am frost (Illidan, mainly), the cooldown reductions encompassed by Ice Floes for other spells (Ice Barrier, CoC, etc) make it worth having in a deep frost build.

In regards to fight length, in T6 content a number of fights may be 6min+ during progression but should drop back under it once farmed. For Kael, Illidan, and *maybe* Council (with a lot of dead DPS or like, 15 healers) it might be possible at times to get off a third Cold Snap, around the 13min mark. That's assuming you use it immediately when it's up though, which is probably not realistic given the varying DPS requirements of Kael/Illidan.
#2070SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Searix
I'll be interested to hear what you guys experience in your raids tonight with icy veins. I'm specifically looking for how you pair cooldowns
#2071SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Actually I plan on intentionally not stacking bloodlust with icy veins. Read my other thread and you might be enlightened.
#2072SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Xei
I am interested in hearing some theories surrounding Flame Cap, the new mana gem and evocation.

Now, I was frost spec until today, so am not really familiar with Fire's efficiency with a SPriest/Elemental Shaman in their group. As a Frost Mage (2/0/59) I never had to use evocate and survived just fine on the old mana gems and mana pots - with molten armor on most of the time.

What I want to determine is if its better to:

A) Chain chew flame caps and never use mana gems - possibly having to stop DPS to evocate.

or

B) Only chew flame cap in execute range, using the new and improved mana gem up until them, and losing zero time from having to evocate.



For comparison's sake, I am in early Hyjal and have 1112 fire, 33% crit with molten/AI. I raid with a SPriest and Elemental Shaman in my group, as well as have a Protection Paladin who usually keeps up Improved Seal of the Crusader or sometimes JoW depending on the length (and type) of the fight.
#2073SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2xiaoxin21
Xei, if you have an elemental Shaman in your group and your SP is competent , you should'nt have to use either gems or evocation.

Assuming you arent using destruction pots since it is expensive, just super mana pots or combat mana pots will do the trick. Fire is very mana efficient.

It pays to make a macro to whisper your feral druids to innervate too, often they will go around unused.
#2074SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by Xei View Post
I am interested in hearing some theories surrounding Flame Cap, the new mana gem and evocation.

Now, I was frost spec until today, so am not really familiar with Fire's efficiency with a SPriest/Elemental Shaman in their group. As a Frost Mage (2/0/59) I never had to use evocate and survived just fine on the old mana gems and mana pots - with molten armor on most of the time.

What I want to determine is if its better to:

A) Chain chew flame caps and never use mana gems - possibly having to stop DPS to evocate.

or

B) Only chew flame cap in execute range, using the new and improved mana gem up until them, and losing zero time from having to evocate.



For comparison's sake, I am in early Hyjal and have 1112 fire, 33% crit with molten/AI. I raid with a SPriest and Elemental Shaman in my group, as well as have a Protection Paladin who usually keeps up Improved Seal of the Crusader or sometimes JoW depending on the length (and type) of the fight.
Evocation is a larger dps loss than using mana gems over flame caps - assuming that doing that will prevent you from having to evocate of course.

In terms of Mp5 / dps loss the order is something like this best to worst (at least for my spec / gear)

Super Mana pots vs Destruction pots
Mana Gems vs Flame caps
Evocation vs Fireballs
Clearcasting vs Icy veins
Mage Armor vs Molten armor

This is for a 5 minute boss encounter.
Edit: this also assumes a full evocate
#2075SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Xei
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
Xei, if you have an elemental Shaman in your group and your SP is competent , you should'nt have to use either gems or evocation.

Assuming you arent using destruction pots since it is expensive, just super mana pots or combat mana pots will do the trick. Fire is very mana efficient.

It pays to make a macro to whisper your feral druids to innervate too, often they will go around unused.
I do stock destro pots, though I only plan on using them in execute range (macro for combustion+trinket+berserking+IV+Flamecap+Destro). I figured evo would be really bad because fights generally do not last all that long these days - ill burn it on the Hyjal trash waves moreso then the bosses.

I have loads of super mana's, as well as loads of flamecap's ... I guess I underestimated MoE at high crit levels (I would be close to 40% crit raid buffed on debuffed mob).
#2076SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Meranoth
Is Elemental Precision confirmed to give an additional 3% hit rating toward frostbolt (6% total) or is it "fixed?" From raiding, it seems to be the same as before, but I might just be getting lucky on binary.
#2077SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Xei
Originally Posted by Meranoth View Post
Is Elemental Precision confirmed to give an additional 3% hit rating toward frostbolt (6% total) or is it "fixed?" From raiding, it seems to be the same as before, but I might just be getting lucky on binary.
It was still giving 6% total the night before 2.3.2 - cannot confirm post patch.
#2078SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Tamraine
Originally Posted by Meranoth View Post
Is Elemental Precision confirmed to give an additional 3% hit rating toward frostbolt (6% total) or is it "fixed?" From raiding, it seems to be the same as before, but I might just be getting lucky on binary.
I'm sorry that I don't have WWS parses or firm proof, but I tested this in ZA Tuesday evening after 2.3.2 against Nalorakk by running with 114 (9.04%) +hit, draenei shaman, and elemental precision for a theoretical total of 16% hit, assuming +6%. I was close to the 1% native miss margin.
#2079SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Tamraine View Post
I'm sorry that I don't have WWS parses or firm proof, but I tested this in ZA Tuesday evening after 2.3.2 against Nalorakk by running with 114 (9.04%) +hit, draenei shaman, and elemental precision for a theoretical total of 16% hit, assuming +6%. I was close to the 1% native miss margin.
What sample size are we talking about, and is that only bosses or total raid shots? If we're talking 300+ bolts with 3-4 misses on bosses alone, it seems fairly unlikely that predicted 12 misses would fluke towards 3-4. If it's a sample including trash however, it's rather poluted to draw conclusions.
#2080SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
I'll be interested to hear what you guys experience in your raids tonight with icy veins. I'm specifically looking for how you pair cooldowns
Personally i stuck everything in 1 macro, being hex head, icon, IV, Combustion, Fireball (in that order so that Hex would pop w/ IV the first time). It just so happened that IV went off under 20% multiple times last night...which means IV was maximized for the fight. since it was used at 99% after scorching and at under 20% 3 minutes later. This of course has to do completely with the duration of the fight.
#2081SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Grai
Answer to a question from the last page

Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
Does Fire Vulnerability and Ignite still count as spell hits for Darkmoon Card: Crusade?
Fire Vulnerability def yes, I was looking to make sure during last nights raid. Ignite I THINK yes, I was checking but not paying close enough attention.

There was another time I could have sworn I got a single tick of Crusade buff from popping Combustion or something like a trinket last night. Might have just been hallucinating however, so don't take it as gospel.
#2082SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Akron
It seems like the change to [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] has gone live and the trinket no longer has an internal cooldown. It can chain proc and it refreshes the timer. Checked myself on Dr Boom. So maybe it is time to reevaluate it's value?

The effectiveness of the trinket depends on your crit rate and your haste rating. "Scorch builds" are out of the question since they don't benefit from haste. It has a 50% chance on critical strike to give 9.2% haste for 5 seconds. According to Vontre's spreadsheet that's equivalent to a little over 200 spell damage. A full T6 fire mage should have a 33%-34% critical chance with fireball, that is, one out of every three Fireballs will be a critical strike. Unhasted, that's a proc every 18 seconds on average -- more if you have passive haste or [The Skull of Gul'dan]. So if this trinket is seemingly a 200 spell damage proc (145 HR) for 5 seconds every 18 seconds (more if hasted) how does it square in with other trinkets? My rough guess is that it's still not great and turns out to be around ~55 passive damage. Can someone do better calculations?

Secondly, we know that since the MSD nerf full Arcane AM spam has died. However, will the change to this trinket affect this position? It can proc on every wave that crits.
#2083SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
I never used it much but the Ashtongue Talisman never had a cooldown on it in the first place to my knowledge. Maybe i'm worng though.
#2084SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
I was one of the first ones to post about how the ashtongue trinket works. It never had an internal cooldown. And despise this AM spam still sucks. You need the MSD of old to have AM spam be the top spec again -- without it it's not going to happen. Arguably MSD was the overpowered part, not AM.
#2085SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Akron
Hmm, okay - I really used to think it had a cooldown. Thanks anyway
#2086SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2drowsy
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
Does Fire Vulnerability and Ignite still count as spell hits for Darkmon Card: Crusade?
Yes, definitely on Fire Vulnerability. Scorches still double dip crusade. Didn't notice if ignite did or not.
#2087SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vanor
Ignite gives an extra Darkmoon:Crusade charge. At least pre 2.3.2, haven't had the possibility to test today. (On EU realm so we're one day after.)
#2088SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vektor
Food for thought (or maybe not?)

Assuming you go into a fight with all mana gems conjured...

The new emerald restores 2400 (avg) per use, 3 charges = 7200 mana restored.
The downranked ruby is 1100 avg
The downranked citrine is 850 avg
The downranked jade is 600 avg
The downranked agate is 400 avg

For the first 6 minutes of the fight (well, after your manabar depletes by ~2400), you can use your gem cooldown on the emerald, restoring 7200 mana over 360 seconds, or ~100 MP5

Using the next 3 downranked gems would restore 1100 + 850 + 600 mana (2550 total)

Now consider, in-combat reconjuring an emerald for 1670 mana would yield a net gain of 5530 mana (7200 - 1670) if you were able to use all three charges, at a dps time cost of 3 seconds.

For comparison, with 11k buffed mana, evocate is going to restore 6600 mana every 8 minutes (68.75 MP5) at a dps time cost of 8 seconds. (ignoring T6 bonuses of course)

If all 3 charges can be consumed then the net gain from reconjuring an emerald over using downranked gems is 2980 mana. But obviously not every fight is going to give you time to eat 6 mana gem charges.

If only 2 charges can be consumed, then you're only going to see a net gain of 3130 from a reconjured emerald, versus 1950 from two downranked gems (reconjure still wins).

If only 1 charge can be consumed, a reconjured gem will give you a net gain of 720 versus 1100 from a downranked gem (downranked gem wins).

Obviously, there are some caveats. You have to have the mana available to reconjure, and enough mana to last until charge #2 can be consumed to see any real gains.

You do take a 3 second DPS downtime to conjure the gem.

If you get to the end of the fight, and you're sitting at more than 3k mana left or so (thanks shadowpriests), then the lower rank gems would have served you just as well.

Honestly, I haven't done much hard thinking about this yet. It's just something that struck me as possible when I saw the cost-to-conjure was lower than the amount of mana returned. Just through I'd throw it out there.
#2089SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Dothorio
Don't know if this has been mentioned or not but here you go:

WoW Forums -> Icy veins Bug

"The tooltip for Icy Veins is a bit misleading, it provides 20% haste not 20% cast reduction. 20% haste as Duman explains provides less than 20% cast reduction.

The ability is working correctly and the tooltip is going to be updated in a future patch."
#2090SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2baudin
Originally Posted by Vanor View Post
Ignite gives an extra Darkmoon:Crusade charge. At least pre 2.3.2, haven't had the possibility to test today. (On EU realm so we're one day after.)
This is still the case.
#2091SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Vektor View Post
Food for thought (or maybe not?)

Assuming you go into a fight with all mana gems conjured...
On this page, I have reposted the analysis of the benefits of the new gems, with the point of reconjuring the gems.

Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk View Post
Resummon if a 6 gem fight, or a 5 gem fight and using the SCB and an early mana gem.
#2092SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2WiPe|Domin
Today i tried a 0/40/21 spec using some haste gear (2.76s fireballs) and it looks good exept threat issues. On Rage using full invisibility i managed 2076 dps with 33% crit rate.

Anyone else seeing over 2k dps after patch?
#2093SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2galzohar
I think it'd be much better comparision to compare equal amounts of mana. Say if 1 evocation = mana from 3 pots minus mana spent in 8 seconds with your current mana for example, then you consider the dps loss of 8 seconds VS the DPS loss of not using 3 destruction potions. If you need more mana pots for those to be equal, take into consideration a higher amount of destruction pots. You can safely assume that the DPS increase from destruction pots has a negligible effect on the DPS you do during those 8 seconds (it's a 2nd order correction, would only take that into account if evocation and mana pots were already extremely close together).

Same kind of comparison goes for gems vs flamecaps and evocation and gems and destro pots vs flame caps and mana pots.
#2094SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Yeah.

najentus - 1926 dps, no coe, no destro pots, no flame cap
Wow Web Stats
gurgtogg - 1848 dps, no coe, no destro pot, no flame cap
Wow Web Stats

No luck on teron. I got first sacrifice, soulstoned, then died on the way back :/ Can't wait to try a real tank and spank and see the dps.
#2095SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hateires
I found some numbers that made no sense when I reviewed my logs.
Is it possible that the percent of your spell damage that went into the actual fireball DoT is less and therefore is given to the damage done from the impact?
#2096SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2geraroz
I managed 2475 dps (and 1 more mage did aswell) on teron. Without flame caps or destro pots. With COE (the improved one) / spriest and a elemental shammy.
#2097SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Muzzaa
Originally Posted by geraroz View Post
I managed 2475 dps (and 1 more mage did aswell) on teron. Without flame caps or destro pots. With COE (the improved one) / spriest and a elemental shammy.
Umm was the 2k + dps on Teron from you being turned into the ghost?

Average about 1550-1750 dps as 2/47/11
#2098SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vhad
I managed 2089 or so on Teron with moonkin and resto druid, used a destro pot <20% as the only consumable and I'm sure it can get improved. 2400+ dps I'd like to see a WWS of! Both our WWS'ers got DC'd and forgot to turn it on for Teron
#2099SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Akron
Originally Posted by geraroz View Post
I managed 2475 dps (and 1 more mage did aswell) on teron. Without flame caps or destro pots. With COE (the improved one) / spriest and a elemental shammy.
We need a WWS post though. That's pretty high number there. =) Improved CoE (very rare commodity - you only need one Affliction lock and he's gonna put CoS) and an elemental Shaman can give you a significant boost. 3% more crit and 3% hit you can drop from normal gear)

Pre-patch breaking 2k dps even with destro/flame caps was a challenge.

Still, you claim you did almost 2.5k dps with no flamecaps/destro pots ...are you sure it wasn't just a spike dps and not sustained average over whole fight?
#2100SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2geraroz
Originally Posted by Akron View Post
We need a WWS post though. That's pretty high number there. =) Improved CoE (very rare commodity - you only need one Affliction lock and he's gonna put CoS) and an elemental Shaman can give you a significant boost. 3% more crit and 3% hit you can drop from normal gear)

Pre-patch breaking 2k dps even with destro/flame caps was a challenge.

Still, you claim you did almost 2.5k dps with no flamecaps/destro pots ...are you sure it wasn't just a spike dps and not sustained average over whole fight?
Yea, Iam sure. I dont have a WWS unfortunatly, we'll do MH today and see if I can get that dps again and save the combatlogs. I use combatstats/recount to check dps, that should be correct. I'll try to prove it with real facts
#2101SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2deftnblind
arcane icy veins

Have anybody tested a focused arcane build with icy veins?

I guess also troll-race will get some advantages on this.. Berserk+icy+haste gear
#2102SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 Xei
Originally Posted by deftnblind View Post
Have anybody tested a focused arcane build with icy veins?

I guess also troll-race will get some advantages on this.. Berserk+icy+haste gear
I have an Undead Mage guild member who is trying out a deep Arcane build(without meta gem), he really enjoys AB/AM rotations and wanted to see if its still competitive.

Lynxal - The World of Warcraft Armory

Al'ar - WWS
VR - WWS
Rage - WWS
Anetheron - WWS


He did really well on our Kael kill tonight, though I don't have the WWS for it available yet (though arcane will always do well on AoE-centric encounters). He did newb up pretty bad on VR/Rage with deaths, but after a few raids he is satisfied enough with the spec to keep it.

Last edited by Xei : 01/10/08 at 8:56 AM.
#2103SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2TheFairey
Hi

When people talk about DPS is there an agreed standard, I've had Recap and Recount running in the past and both give different numbers for DPS when I reset them both obviously. Will WWS give me another DPS number?

Ta
#2104SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
vorda
Originally Posted by TheFairey View Post
Hi

When people talk about DPS is there an agreed standard, I've had Recap and Recount running in the past and both give different numbers for DPS when I reset them both obviously. Will WWS give me another DPS number?

Ta
Generally, WWS is most trusted since it shows just about anything you would want to know.

Take for example the person posting his SWS/Recount dps on Teron, being '2.4k' dps. This is most probably with Ghost included. Giving us a WWS log would give the ability to double check things like this.

Not to mention the value of the WWS buff/debuff (and in case of beta v2, group layout) display.

edit: I'm not saying the person is wrong by the way, I'm just saying that noone will believe him untill he posts a WWS log. Thats how valuable WWS is.

Last edited by vorda : 01/10/08 at 9:14 AM.
#2105SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Narub
Originally Posted by geraroz View Post
I managed 2475 dps (and 1 more mage did aswell) on teron. Without flame caps or destro pots. With COE (the improved one) / spriest and a elemental shammy.
How many Heroisms/Bloodlusts did you get in that fight? In my guild they usually all go to the melee in a fight like teron.
#2106SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Seferis
Are there any special thoughts about using e.g. points from incinerate or playing with fire in order (and maybe one from pyriomaniac -- altough this hurts) to reach cold snap for a deep fire build? According to the very rough calculations me and a friend did you might lose below 1% of damage. However this does not take into account any advantages particularly clever timed double icy veins might yield, like combining it with molten fury and a flame cap.
#2107SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Shawn
That was discussed already on page ~70. Not worth it.
#2108SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2drowsy
I'm playing around with 7/43/11. The idea was to trade the teensy dps boost of incineration and utility of blastwave/dragon's breath to salvage 4% mana efficiency from clearcasting. The spec remains an overall dps upgrade from 10/48/3, and the extra efficiency might allow for more mana/dps tradeoffs in other ways.
#2109SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Narub
About the dreamgear posts earlier
I dunno what you guys have with Cowl of the Illidari Highlord but imo this is the best possible gear in-game atm

Head: Cowl of The Tempest
Neck: Hellfire-Encased Pendant
Shoulders: Mantle of The Tempest
Cloak: Cloak of the Illidari Council
Chest: Robes of The Tempest
Bracers: Cuffs of Devastation
Weapon: Tempest of Chaos & Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Wand: Wand of the Forgotten Stars
Gloves: Gloves of The Tempest
Belt: Anetheron's Noose
Leggings: Leggings of Channeled Elements
Boots: Slippers of the Seacaller
Rings: Band of The Eternal Sage & Ring of Captured Storms
Trinkets: The Skull of Gul'dan & Hex Shrunken head

This will put you on 167 spellhit and if you use crimson spinels & 2 blues for the meta to work with highest dmg you can get.

The trinkets combined are insane aswell as you can always use them at the same time.
#2110SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
I disagree with almost every single one of your choices.
[Ring of Captured Storms] -> [Mana Attuned Band]
[Tempest of Chaos]/[Chronicle of Dark Secrets] -> [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
[Leggings of Channeled Elements] + 4pct6 -> [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] + 4pct6
[Anetheron's Noose] -> [Belt of Blasting]
[Cuffs of Devastation] -> [Bracers of Nimble Thought]

It seems that all you're trying to do is make a set that is loosely the highest +dmg set while maitaining hit cap and 4pct6. This is not the way to max your dps.

Tempest of chaos/rage offhand/anetherons noose or zhardoom/belt of blasting are pretty much equivalent. I recommend zhardoom combo mostly because it is more flexible 'hit-cap-wise' and allows you to drop belt of blasting and go for anetherons noose, in case you know you get an elemental shaman and that his totems wont die or that you won't move out of range of them.

Last edited by manly : 01/10/08 at 10:38 AM.
#2111SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Seferis
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
That was discussed already on page ~70. Not worth it.
Well it was shortly brought up and the concense seemed to be that gaining coldsnap and in turn losing
* -1% mana cost (strictly speaking somewhat more),
* 1%crit from pyromaniac, 1% for scorch and fireblast due do incinerate and
*2% damage from playing with fire
did not provide a dps benefit. However it was nowhere considered if it might pay of in combination with consumables and molten fury -- at least it has not been brought up. Because even it it just about evened out it might be worth considering due to the greater burst/flexibility it provides. Especially considering that in realistic fights you often don't just have a tank and spank encounter but might have very limited timeframes in which you just have to do as much damage as possible.
#2112SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Myrdinn
Using Vontre's sheet or Lhivera's script, I cannot reproduce it is better to put 5crit/6dmg in T6 gloves instead of +12dmg... However, I remember I read it during wish-lists posts.

Depending on total +dmg (buff/consumables), I got 1 +dmg equal from 0.6 to 0.66 crit rating.

Manly, I also see you put blue gem in mantle instead of T6 leggings which have a blue socket. Is that on purpose ?
Is it not better to put 2x +12dmg in mantle, and blue gem in leggings ?
#2113SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Narub
so your basicly saying Manly that you just prefer spellhaste over spelldamage, i guess that's just your choice of dps'ing then. Imo with fire +spelldamage gives the most dmg (if you are hitcapped).

I've got Zhardoom aswell and I think it's a piece of shitstaff like you have from every endboss basicly, almost at any time a combo with 1h/offhand > staves (unless your a statwhore, but i somehow doubt you use the staff for it's high stamina.)
#2114SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Narub
Originally Posted by Myrdinn View Post
Using Vontre's sheet or Lhivera's script, I cannot reproduce it is better to put 5crit/6dmg in T6 gloves instead of +12dmg... However, I remember I read it during wish-lists posts.

Depending on total +dmg (buff/consumables), I got 1 +dmg equal from 0.6 to 0.66 crit rating.

Manly, I also see you put blue gem in mantle instead of T6 leggings which have a blue socket. Is that on purpose ?
Is it not better to put 2x +12dmg in mantle, and blue gem in leggings ?
I totally agree on that one aswell, i also see alot of mages going for socket bonuses which is rly stupid imo, in almost any case filling your gear with spinels > all. (+ ofc the 2 blue gems you need for the meta to work.)
#2115SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Nastrodamus
Question - I am Arcane (QQ for me, I know) but what I want to know is with at the very least 43 in Arcane - would I get more gain from putting the other 18 points in fire or frost (now with Icy Veins). I wanted to know which would give more gain in DPS. This may have been discussed but from the front page (1st page) didn't look like we had any conclusions yet and from the last few I didn't notice anything that jumped out at me so maybe someone can assist and either A) point me to the page and thread this has been discussed or just offer an opinion. Thanks in advance
#2116SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
Originally Posted by Myrdinn View Post
Using Vontre's sheet or Lhivera's script, I cannot reproduce it is better to put 5crit/6dmg in T6 gloves instead of +12dmg... However, I remember I read it during wish-lists posts.

Depending on total +dmg (buff/consumables), I got 1 +dmg equal from 0.6 to 0.66 crit rating.

Manly, I also see you put blue gem in mantle instead of T6 leggings which have a blue socket. Is that on purpose ?
Is it not better to put 2x +12dmg in mantle, and blue gem in leggings ?
Well ok first thing first. Look at the T6 gloves. In almost any given case, you want [Potent Pyrestone] (+2 dmg from socket bonus) over [Runed Crimson Spinel]. The difference is negligible, but in any given case the first choice scales better in addition to give better dps. Again, I want to stress that the difference is small enough that current TC isn't accurate enough to tell the difference. Depending on who you ask you get different results. As far as I am concerned, the TC I believe is most trustworthy indicates a DPS increase using the gemming guideline I gave. If you think about it for a second, if you agree that youre better off going for an orange gem in a yellow socket (that gives +2 dmg), by definition is means you're better off putting your blue gem in the t6 shoulders rather than the pants.

There is another small factor in my case. I also have hyjal pants. Since I want to keep the flexibility of being able to swap in my hyjal pants, it is easier to accomodate the requirement if my shoulders allow both set configurations to give me one of the blue gems.

As for my gloves, I haven't regemmed my +12 for 5crit/6dmg simply because I don't want to ask gurgthock for a new gem in order to override another one - particularly when the dps gain is that negligible.

Last edited by manly : 01/10/08 at 11:30 AM.
#2117SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Myrdinn
Indeed, I saw gemming blue in mantle give exactly the same equation as putting orange in gloves.
I also know the gain is negligible, and it looks like wise decision to not override red by an orange gem in such a case.

Thks for the clarification btw
#2118SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Roywyn
As has been said time and again, it all depends on your setup, and drops obviously.

I ran the numbers again with the latest version of Vontre's spreadsheet.
Zhar'doom, Illidari Cowl, Blasting => 0.9% miss, 1970 DPS
Tempest, EleLeggings, Noose => 0.8% miss, 1960 DPS

Rest of the gear:
Hellfire Neck, Highbourne Shroud (if your healers hate haste), Nimble Bracers, Seacaller Boots, Mana/Knowledge Ring, Hex/Skull, Forgotten Star Wand.
If someone finds better setups (that beat those in Vontre's, or somewhere else, I'm all ears.


Now - the Solarian Wand never dropped for us. Nor did her Battle Shout trinket, but we got half a dozen DemoLock trinkets. *mutters about the RNG*
So, I don't have that one, nor am I likely to ever see one drop since we stopped running TK regularly half a year ago or something.

So, having to use the badge wand, the balance changes.
Tempest, EleLegs, Blasting, 2*Knowledge => 1958 DPS
Zhar'doom, Cowl, Blasting, Mana/Storm rings => 1956 DPS
Edit: Zhar'doom, Cowl, Blasting, Mana/Knowledge, +10hit gem in gloves => 1960 DPS


We're battling for 0.5% to 0.1% DPS increases ...

Edit: Just found another way to improve.

Edit: Setup for that - standard raid buffs (inc. Imp. Divine Spirit), blessings, no shaman. No 1% hit draenei aura either.
Clicked full consumable use - should be food, oil, flask, SMP. I think :o
Everything but totems/heroism. Oh, and 5% intellect race buff.

Last edited by Roywyn : 01/10/08 at 5:36 PM.
#2119SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
At that level of difference, I think it is safe to say that current TC is not accurate enough to be able to tell the difference. There exists an error margin that has never been acknowledged coming from all current TC. I don't think we can ignore this detail.

But yeah in essence I am not denying the difference is ridiculously small, although my major point was that zhardoom is more flexible with group composition whereas with tempest of chaos you will always end up over the hitcap.
#2120SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
text
What buffs are you assuming roywyn?
#2121SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Benegesserit
When you frost nova, it shouldn't be meleeing anyone in range since no one should be in range at the start except the tank. Then as a frost mage you can blizzard while non-frost mages can flamestrike from range (or blizzard if they are arc/frost), and then after novas are broken, run in and AE. Or if you need immediate burst you can CoC which will likely break the nova anyway.
#2122SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Rounced
Originally Posted by Benegesserit View Post
When you frost nova, it shouldn't be meleeing anyone in range since no one should be in range at the start except the tank. Then as a frost mage you can blizzard while non-frost mages can flamestrike from range (or blizzard if they are arc/frost), and then after novas are broken, run in and AE. Or if you need immediate burst you can CoC which will likely break the nova anyway.
First off what the hell was that post in reference to??? I was reading a nice bit on T6 items and idealized setup and you show up with this completely nonsensical post that seems to be a response to a question that was asked godknowswhen by godknowswho.

If you are answering a post that is not directly above your post quoting that post goes a long way towards allowing others to understand what exactly you are trying to say and prevents you from looking like a crazy person carrying on a conversation with themselves on a crowded bus.

Originally Posted by Benegesserit
Haste is only better than dmg and crit if the fight is long enough that you can squeeze in one more cast. Meaning, after hit cap, you need to land a lot of haste before haste>dmg>crit.
That is a quote of yours from the WoW mage forums WoW Forums -> Hit>dmg>HASTE>crit>int>spir>stam

First off that statement is very wrong. Maybe in a complete vacuum with a fight of a very specific duration would that statement have an element of veracity but since raid fights are not applicable to those conditions you have to look at averages and realize that haste does not require a specific quantity to begin having value, it's value is intrinsic and only loses it when the GCD becomes involved, such as devaluing haste since it will have no effect on the dps of scorch or a fully debuffed AB.

Notice how including your quote gave my response value and will now allow others to see my response and understand it and the context that it was made and so add their own thoughts thus allowing everyone to contribute to the "conversation".



As a side note I always love when a mage in Kara/Crafted gear looks at the profile of a T6 geared mage (Manly's profile actually) and says that all the haste in his setup is a waste (excepting the Skull of course).

Originally Posted by Benegesserit
He doesn't have enough haste (sans the skull on use) to squeeze out extra fireballs on many fights
#2123SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Zephriel
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
If someone finds better setups (that beat those in Vontre's, or somewhere else, I'm all ears.
I'd be interested to know if you can reproduce this result in Vontre's sheet, but with its default raid buff settings (no totems or BL), I'm getting a reported 1996 DPS with this setup (red gems and standard enchants unless otherwise noted):

[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord], CSD, purple gem
[Hellfire-Encased Pendant]
[Mantle of the Tempest]
[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
[Robes of the Tempest]
[Bracers of Nimble Thought]
[Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
[Gloves of the Tempest]
[Belt of Blasting]
[Leggings of the Tempest], purple gem
[Slippers of the Seacaller]
[Ring of Ancient Knowledge]
[Mana Attuned Band]
[Hex Shrunken Head]
[The Skull of Gul'dan]
[Wand of the Forgotten Star]

A few things surprised me about this. For one, I assumed [Band of the Eternal Sage] would outperform [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] because of the proc. Perhaps the spreadsheet isn't accounting for it, but it reports a 20 DPS loss. For another, using a purple gem in the legs, and keeping red gems in the three pieces with blue/yellow sockets and +4 damage bonuses, produced identical DPS to using a red gem in the legs and using purple/orange damage/crit gems in one of those three. (I didn't try the orange damage/hit gem because this set already has 165 spell hit rating.) Finally, no matter what gear combination and gem setup I tested, I could not push a Tempest/Chronicle/Noose gear set past 1980 DPS.

Last edited by Zephriel : 01/10/08 at 4:13 PM.
#2124SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Alacrity
For the people questioning the validity of a 2400 mage dps parse,

Wow Web Stats

The funny thing about this all is that mages were the ones in particular whom pushed for rogue nerfs, because of absurd dps numbers that could produce. Even with all the possible synergies I can have, I cannot break 2200 dps on teron, he did 2400 without malediction COE... so add another 3% to that...

So much for rogues being the highest single target dps.

Last edited by Alacrity : 01/10/08 at 4:12 PM.
#2125SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vhad
Am I missing something or is the Mana Attuned Band really better than Band of the Eternal Sage? I guess I'll go check the spreadsheet one more time.
#2126SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
Yes Mana attuned band is the best ring under most circumstances. The exalted ring really sucks once you get much past 2-3min mark (because the more it goes on the less your proc_uptime% is). It gets beaten after that point by ring of ancient knowledge. And mana attuned band is even better than both, again, under most cases.

The exalted ring, in a vacuum, ignoring the proc, really really is subpar. Bad enough, in fact, that I do have serious plans to start replacing it on 4+ min fights with ancient knowledge.

Originally Posted by Alacrity View Post
For the people questioning the validity of a 2400 mage dps parse,

Wow Web Stats

The funny thing about this all is that mages were the ones in particular whom pushed for rogue nerfs, because of absurd dps numbers that could produce. Even with all the possible synergies I can have, I cannot break 2200 dps on teron, he did 2400 without malediction COE... so add another 3% to that...

So much for rogues being the highest single target dps.
Yes, and he's got 57% fireball crit rate. He just got absurdly lucky. The higher your fireball crit rate, the more you run the odds of getting rolling ignites too, only contributing further to this.

Still less dps than our 2450 dps hunter (and in case nobody spotted it, >2.2k dps from dps warrior too...): Loading...

Last edited by manly : 01/10/08 at 5:20 PM.
#2127SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vhad
I guess that assumes you can fully use the hit rating. I'm at a perfect 165 at the moment. I suppose I could drop exalted for mana attuned and use haste offhand.

Regarding the 2400+ dps Teron WWS, he had 57% crit and 3 drums. 57% sounds a bit excessive on the luck part, moonkin, elemental shaman and ret paladin adds 11%. With my ~36% normal critrating that still leaves to get 10% from consumables. Luck of the draw I guess.

I think an important note about Teron dps is the extremely short fight length, the shorter it gets the more RnG plays a role in the final result of individuals.
#2128SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Alacrity
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I guess that assumes you can fully use the hit rating. I'm at a perfect 165 at the moment. I suppose I could drop exalted for mana attuned and use haste offhand.

Regarding the 2400+ dps Teron WWS, he had 57% crit and 3 drums. 57% sounds a bit excessive on the luck part, moonkin, elemental shaman and ret paladin adds 11%. With my ~36% normal critrating that still leaves to get 10% from consumables. Luck of the draw I guess.

I think an important note about Teron dps is the extremely short fight length, the shorter it gets the more RnG plays a role in the final result of individuals.
Yes, he had some 3 drums, a high critrate.. but he didn't have other synergies that are available. Rogues were being scrutinized because 2500+ dps numbers were POSSIBLE under the right circumstances. From what I am seeing with a lucky crit rate and every synergy mages could hit 2600~ (he had no ret paladin, no moonkin, no ele shaman, no malediction coe, no fourth drum)

That is rediculous and you cannot deny that it is out of hand.
#2129SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
Well then, since our hunter beat that without any particularly excessive group stacking or consumables, I wonder how you react to that?

(edit: and FYI, we cannot know if he had 4 drums. If a drum was activated before engaging, then it would not show in WWS for that boss).

Last edited by manly : 01/10/08 at 5:37 PM.
#2130SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 Alacrity
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well then, since our hunter beat that without any particularly excessive group stacking or consumables, I wonder how you react to that?

(edit: and FYI, we cannot know if he had 4 drums. If a drum was activated before engaging, then it would not be logged).
Your hunter had 2 drums a survial hunter in the raid, leader of the pack, another BM hunter in the group (double FI), blood frenzy on the mob from warrior... whats he missing.. grace of air?

2400 is a hunters peak.. mages can push farther from what I am seeing.

Last edited by Alacrity : 01/10/08 at 5:45 PM.
#2131SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
I don't think you understand. You're singling out a case that must have had less than 2 or 3 total repertoried cases in WWS of a mage having over 55% fireball crit rate on a > 2 min fight. It is something you see soo rarely that you simply cannot hope for it to happen. This is like pointing out that 'oh wait, but what if we had 100% nightfall uptime, and 100% drums of battle uptime, and 100% bloodlust uptime, and keep a PI rotation in, and perma innervate, and only dps during execute range, all the while having a 100% crit rate, mages can scale to infinity!'.

Well yeah. OK. Post Koosha' parse next week and see what I mean. A normal T6 mage raid-buffed and potted crit rate is 40-41% (with 10/48/3 or 2/48/3 spec). You're like crying about something that isn't realistically reproducible because it relies on extreme RNG luck.
#2132SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Alacrity
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I don't think you understand. You're singling out a case that must have had less than 2 or 3 total repertoried cases in WWS of a mage having over 55% fireball crit rate on a > 2 min fight. It is something you see soo rarely that you simply cannot hope for it to happen. This is like pointing out that 'oh wait, but what if we had 100% nightfall uptime, and 100% drums of battle uptime, and 100% bloodlust uptime, and only dps during execute range, all the while having a 100% crit rate, mages can scale to infinity!'.

Well yeah. OK. Post Koosha' parse next week and see what I mean. A normal T6 mage raid-buffed and potted crit rate is 40-41%. You're like crying about something that isn't realistically reproducible because it relies on extreme RNG luck. As I said, there is probably less than 2 or 3 parses with that much of a crit rate (given the proper 10/48/3 or 2/48/11 spec). You can get 50%+ crit rate with the horrifically bad 33/28/0, but your dps will also suck, so don't bother posting those.
A rogue hit 3000 dps (on a normal fight, no RoS or shade nonsense) once, one time ever. Furi on kaz`rogal, pre warglaive nerf, and pre haste nerf. It caused an UPROAR, of nerf cries.. even when there was only 2-5 people worldwide with double glaives... as I said before, if with lucky RNG and proper consumables it is even POSSIBLE for a mage to hit 2600~ dps, something is wrong. I am just bitter towards this thread because I have read the mage discussion here for a while now, and remember the posts from mages whining about rogues even being able to with every synergy and lucky rng to hit 2600+ numbers. Those dps numbers were nerfed into oblivion, I am still not doing as much dps as I was pre nerfs, and now mages are in a similar situation, yet you deny that something is wrong... interesting.
#2133SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
There is a tremendous difference between a rogue 3k parse at a time where very few people had full t6, and a 2.4k mage parse today that got absurdly lucky, and yet, still does less damage than other classes around.

In case you forgot, at the time furi/lars got their 3k parse, it was extremely extremely rare that you would see anyone much above 2k DPS (besides rogues). Full T6 was a rare commodity. Then you see someone do 3k DPS, it is a hell of a lot different then seeing a 2.4k mage parse doing less damage than the other classes.

Should you want to know, yes in an imaginary world where everything lined up perfectly, mage damage scales rather well. But just so you know, if you ever had that happen to a destruction warlock, that destruction warlock with 57% crit rate would make a mage really pale in comparison with a mere 2.4k dps. Gotta love how scaling works.

EDIT: and actually, if I recall correctly furi/lars got consistently really solid teron parses. It is not just ONE 3k parse that got rogues nerfed. Again, what got nerfed is haste (non-rogue-specific) in order to balance things out. I think the warglaives got their internal cooldown much later on. In this case were talking of one mage parse, which I am fairly confident you won't see happening again anytime soon. 57% crit rate is nowhere near the norm. 50% is stupidly lucky.

Oh hey look, if you like 3k dps parses, here is the top teron parse, funnily with a 3k dps rogue. Yes, I will intentionally not make any mention about this log being forged.
Wow Web Stats
edit: Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage - Spells - World of Warcraft grats drow on cheesing stuff.

Last edited by manly : 01/11/08 at 12:57 PM.
#2134SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by Alacrity View Post
A rogue hit 3000 dps (on a normal fight, no RoS or shade nonsense) once, one time ever. Furi on kaz`rogal, pre warglaive nerf, and pre haste nerf. It caused an UPROAR, of nerf cries.. even when there was only 2-5 people worldwide with double glaives... as I said before, if with lucky RNG and proper consumables it is even POSSIBLE for a mage to hit 2600~ dps, something is wrong. I am just bitter towards this thread because I have read the mage discussion here for a while now, and remember the posts from mages whining about rogues even being able to with every synergy and lucky rng to hit 2600+ numbers. Those dps numbers were nerfed into oblivion, I am still not doing as much dps as I was pre nerfs, and now mages are in a similar situation, yet you deny that something is wrong... interesting.
Interestingly enough those same rogues - on an average well synergized fight average 2300+ dps post nerf. A mage with a well synergized group is top end 2100 average.
#2135SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
andastra
Originally Posted by Alacrity View Post
A rogue hit 3000 dps (on a normal fight, no RoS or shade nonsense) once, one time ever. Furi on kaz`rogal, pre warglaive nerf, and pre haste nerf. It caused an UPROAR, of nerf cries.. even when there was only 2-5 people worldwide with double glaives... as I said before, if with lucky RNG and proper consumables it is even POSSIBLE for a mage to hit 2600~ dps, something is wrong. I am just bitter towards this thread because I have read the mage discussion here for a while now, and remember the posts from mages whining about rogues even being able to with every synergy and lucky rng to hit 2600+ numbers. Those dps numbers were nerfed into oblivion, I am still not doing as much dps as I was pre nerfs, and now mages are in a similar situation, yet you deny that something is wrong... interesting.
Oh, please, mage dps is nowhere near rogues right now. It's not even anywhere near warlocks and hunters. Your mage got roughly a solid 20% more crit than what is normal for a mage around those gear levels. Do 1.5x your crit% on a fight and see how much dps you do.

edit: I looked at his armory. He has 32.68% crit unbuffed in PvE gear. Fully buffed, that would be roughly 34%. You said he had no moonkin, ret pally, totem of wrath, etc. 57% vs. 34% is absurd luck, no matter how you put it.

Last edited by andastra : 01/10/08 at 7:04 PM.
#2136SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kavan
Originally Posted by deftnblind View Post
Have anybody tested a focused arcane build with icy veins?

I guess also troll-race will get some advantages on this.. Berserk+icy+haste gear
I'm testing out 50/0/11 right now (previously full arcane) and I like it. Here's the parses from this week:

Al'ar: http://wowwebstats.com/n3vvy1c53owyw?s=5023-5734
VR: http://wowwebstats.com/n3vvy1c53owyw?s=3649-3979
Solarian: Loading...
Kael'Thas: http://wowwebstats.com/iycgoyzznazua?s=4690-5643 (messed up 2nd evo)
Rage: http://wowwebstats.com/iycgoyzznazua?s=8064-8343
Anetheron: http://wowwebstats.com/iycgoyzznazua?s=13666-14045
#2137SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Ah yeah don't you hate it when you get your evocation interrupted, or better yet, you get mind controlled, then it casts evocation, and someone fears you. Great times.
#2138SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Akuman
I know you will expect a 'omg what your talking about mages don't deal that much dps blah blah blah'.

But I mean...let's be realistic.

Rogues with the best gear possible will outdps mages with the best gear possible.

How many times have rogues been the dmg meter leaders? They are defintely up there the majority of cases.


And btw..have mages EVER EVER reached 3k dps? No.

We've reached 2.4k ONCE. Rogues have reached above 2.6k dps SEVERAL TIMES!

Hunters, DPS warriors, have reached around 2.5k average with top end gear.

Not to dramatise the situation, but if you count the exception as the standard...thats prejudice.
If 1 mage reaches 2.4k dps once, it should not be a factor in judging the level of dps a class can offer.


I'm not whining about rogue dps though. Rogues are a purely dps class, that's all they bring to raids, so it's very right for them to be top in dps.

We mages bring water, buffs, and occasional laughing at gnome mages ( /point). So I'm happy with the dps output we produce and I enjoy playing my class


And people will whine no matter what, so you kinda just have to accept it. Don't respond whining with whining.

Whine + whine = more whining (I know my corniness alert system just blew up)


And I apologise to everyone that I brought up a social topic into a theorycrafting forum :P
#2139SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kaimani
I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I've noticed MoE returning mana multiple times off of a single aoe spell as of 2.3.2. I was trying flamestrike spam on Hyjal trash last night (with 3/3 imp flamestrike) and in addition to being quite effective, it was really cheap thanks to frequent double and triple returns from one spell. It doesn't seem to be giving the 30% refund for each target that gets crit - sometimes I'd crit 3 guys and still get only one MoE proc. But critting more things at the same time seemed to have an effect, since the 2 or 3 procs I would occasionally get were only when I was hitting 10-12 guys at once. Almost every flamestrike gave me 2 MoE refunds if I hit most of the wave, and occasionally I would get 3, making the spell practically free.

Anyone else experience this before?
#2140SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Phrygian
First post here from a long time Lurker. I've been pretty happy with the DPS Arc/Frost (40/0/21) is providing at the T5 gear level. With the AOE present in some of these fights, it's working really well. Lastnight on Solarian I was able to put out 1928 DPS (with 2 waves of AOE in the fight, about 6-7 arcane explosions total). On more single target fights like VR I'm usually sitting 1400-1500.

Wow Web Stats
#2141SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
This weeks Mother Shahraz kill for me: Loading... had CoE, no shaman, no destro pots, flame caps, 259 SR and molten armor, was near 34% crit raid buffed. 7% over character screen, so not to overboard.
Didn't get Hyjal logged this week, so can't show those bosses.

Kaimani: Flamestrike was reportedly giving back 2 MoE procs before the patch too, only AoE spell to do so.

I would like to see other parses this week from Mother Shahraz since WWS is to lame to allow sorting by date and not dps. This fight to me shows a better basis of good dps for casters do to each guilds different positioning.
#2142SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
I don't see the point to it, you have no control over how many fire and frost resist aura she puts up. I know on this week' shahraz we had 5 fire resistance aura and not a single frost.
#2143SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kikler
You got to love when she does frost perfectly timed with your CD's and you get FA don't ya?
#2144SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2geraroz
Originally Posted by Narub View Post
How many Heroisms/Bloodlusts did you get in that fight? In my guild they usually all go to the melee in a fight like teron.
I got 1 (since I had a elemental shaman in my group). Now that u mention it, we also used a BM hunter to buff ranged groups.

I really should start making WWS parses of our raids because some things said here do not reflect our dps meters. Currently the dmg meters are dominated by rogues/mages and a destro lock. This includes a double warglaives rogue that gets totems from a resto shaman and shouts from a fury warrior.

I also never denied I was lucky :p
#2145SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Casimir
Just a Question in between:
Anyone here has a link to the Thread, where is calculated up to which +Spelldamage the use of Fireblast-Spam in between of Fireball-Casting makes sense ?
I don't want to reinvent the wheel by recalculating the whole thing.

Edited the posting to fit the rules and clear up the situation. Sorry for not being a native english Speaker.
The Question still exists, because i was not able to find the thread.

Last edited by Casimir : 01/11/08 at 8:36 AM.
#2146SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Athemeus
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
I'm testing out 50/0/11 right now (previously full arcane) and I like it. Here's the parses from this week:

Al'ar: Wow Web Stats
VR: Wow Web Stats
Solarian: Loading...
Kael'Thas: Wow Web Stats (messed up 2nd evo)
Rage: Wow Web Stats
Anetheron: Wow Web Stats
What do you pair IV with? Do you still spam AB during AP or do you pair AP and IV while spamming AM?
#2147SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Casimir View Post
Just a Question in between:
Anyone here has a link to the Thread, where is calculated up to which +Spelldamage the use of Fireball makes sense ?
I'm a little bit lazy atm and don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Casi
Firstly, don't sign your posts. There are rules and not signing is one of them.

Secondly, don't be lazy. EJ is not a Customer Support Hotline where you turn up, go "I got a question, solve it for me because I can't be arsed to do a 5-min search, maggots".

Thirdly, what does "up to which +Spelldamage the use of Fireball makes sense ?" mean? Are you insinuating that past some spelldamage level Fireball -doesn't- make sense? Compared to what? Another mage nuke that scales better? I suspect you could make Pyroblast scale better with +spell if you had 3200 haste.
#2148SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Casimir
Thanks for the 'idiocy'. I edited my Posting to clear up my wish. I am not to lazy to search for the thread. Just can't find it so i did ask for it. I do a lot of TC and if you really read the posts written here you might be able to find my calculations about the efficency of crit/hit and haste in terms of Itemlevel. Sorry for the inconvenience.
#2149SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Skinkelinken
Anyone else then me having problems with fireballs since 2.3.2?
Since patch I have had some 1000-1200 crits with rank 13 fireball, also got a couple of 800 normal hits witch made think it bugged and didnt account for any +damage.

A guild mate also said that he had read that the delay from button spamming had been removed with the patch, I have searched blizzards forum and this forums for a confirmation on this but havent found anything. Can aynone confirm this?
#2150SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2thedaylight
Now that you mention it, I did notice something strange with my spells last night. I will have to go back and see what exactly happened, but sometimes the damage I was seeing was extremely low- low enough where I stopped casting at one point to figure out what was going on. The problem corrected itself, and I thought no more about it... until I read your post. Any other experiences?
#2151SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2MaxxPower
Maybe you were in BT shooting at the shieldwall using mobs?
#2152SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Skinkelinken
Nope, only raided TK and HS since patch
#2153SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2aznxk3vi17
Pardon my asking, but did you mean SSC when you said HS? I don't quite recall the moniker HS used for any raid in BC.

That being said, Hydross has a debuff he casts during his nature phase which basically cuts your dps in half.

Now if you meant Hyjal Summit, I honestly can't think of anything. None of the mobs there have any such debuff.
#2154SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Welcome to the world of 75% partial resists.
#2155SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Skinkelinken
Originally Posted by aznxk3vi17 View Post
Pardon my asking, but did you mean SSC when you said HS? I don't quite recall the moniker HS used for any raid in BC.

That being said, Hydross has a debuff he casts during his nature phase which basically cuts your dps in half.

Now if you meant Hyjal Summit, I honestly can't think of anything. None of the mobs there have any such debuff.
I mean Hyjal Summit, sorry for being unclear about that
#2156SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2kycan
Originally Posted by manly View Post
in case you know you get an elemental shaman and that his totems wont die or that you won't move out of range of them.
In theory, you could just use a weapon-switch macro to go from Zhardoom to Vengeful/Chronicle or something to make up for the lost hit.
#2157SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Rounced
I've seen a few of those too, I thought it was just partial resists but there definitely were a few that seemed extremely low.
#2158SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Zephriel
Originally Posted by Skinkelinken View Post
A guild mate also said that he had read that the delay from button spamming had been removed with the patch, I have searched blizzards forum and this forums for a confirmation on this but havent found anything. Can aynone confirm this?
Some testing with various button-spamming methods back on page 72 (when 2.3.2 was on the PTR) suggest this is true.

http://elitistjerks.com/570888-post1795.html -- post 1795
http://elitistjerks.com/570888-post1797.html -- post 1797

It seems as if the partial GCDs triggered by attempting to chain-cast too quickly have been removed. As a bit of anecdotal evidence, I was observing after 2.3.2 went live that I could watch my Quartz casting bar, deliberately button-spam "too early", and still chain fireballs flawlessly.
#2159SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kavan
Originally Posted by Athemeus View Post
What do you pair IV with? Do you still spam AB during AP or do you pair AP and IV while spamming AM?
First I didn't even plan to go IV after I calculated that it's not worth stacking AP and IV. I then added proper handling of haste cooldowns to my LP solver and I found some interesting results that made me try it. Basically the conclusion I got is to AB spam on AP, AM spam with IV during heroism, rest of heroism and the rest of IV with ABAM spam. End result was about 1-2% damage increase compared to full arcane.
#2160SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vhad
Originally Posted by Rounced View Post
I've seen a few of those too, I thought it was just partial resists but there definitely were a few that seemed extremely low.
The biggest problem with partial resists is it dictates the base dmg that get's multiplied when you crit too.

Say you hit for 3000 normally, a 75% partial takes that to 750, then multiplied by 1,5 (I realize it's more if you have CSD) and you get those insanely low crits, 1150 fireball crit etc. It's really frustrating, it's especially noticable on Supremus or any other of those silly bosses with 200+ fire resistance.
#2161SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Rounced
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
The biggest problem with partial resists is it dictates the base dmg that get's multiplied when you crit too.

Say you hit for 3000 normally, a 75% partial takes that to 750, then multiplied by 1,5 (I realize it's more if you have CSD) and you get those insanely low crits, 1150 fireball crit etc. It's really frustrating, it's especially noticable on Supremus or any other of those silly bosses with 200+ fire resistance.
Ah I didn't realize that the resist calculation occurred before the crit damage was worked in, thanks.
#2162SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
The biggest problem with partial resists is it dictates the base dmg that get's multiplied when you crit too.

Say you hit for 3000 normally, a 75% partial takes that to 750, then multiplied by 1,5 (I realize it's more if you have CSD) and you get those insanely low crits, 1150 fireball crit etc. It's really frustrating, it's especially noticable on Supremus or any other of those silly bosses with 200+ fire resistance.
I'm a little confused as to what you're saying. It wouldn't matter in what order the resists were multiplied - it's multiplication.

Fireball hit * 0.25 * 1.5 = Fireball hit * 1.5 * 0.25

Unless I'm totally misreading what you've said - I would have thought it obvious.
#2163SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
Well when you get a partial resist, it's never off of the crit damage, always the base damage.

So it would read 1125 crit (2250 resisted) in game.

The hit*crit*resist would read 1125 crit (3275 resisted) not observed in game.
#2164SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Rounced
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Well when you get a partial resist, it's never off of the crit damage, always the base damage.

So it would read 1125 crit (2250 resisted) in game.

The hit*crit*resist would read 1125 crit (3275 resisted) not observed in game.
One thing that was strange with the low crits that I noticed was that there was no (xxx resisted) in the combat log.
#2165SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
Well if its the Shield guys before RoS/Gurtogg, that explains that, there are always other mobs which have a damage reduction ability, but cant remember offhand where.
#2166SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Muphrid
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Well when you get a partial resist, it's never off of the crit damage, always the base damage.

So it would read 1125 crit (2250 resisted) in game.

The hit*crit*resist would read 1125 crit (3275 resisted) not observed in game.
To my knowledge, even though the portion reported as resisted is lower than expected, the damage lost is exactly what you would expect.

In other words, a partial is 75%, 50%, or 25% of the damage you ordinarily would have done. It's not simple subtraction of 25%, 50%, or 75% of the base damage.
#2167SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
To my knowledge, even though the portion reported as resisted is lower than expected, the damage lost is exactly what you would expect.

In other words, a partial is 75%, 50%, or 25% of the damage you ordinarily would have done. It's not simple subtraction of 25%, 50%, or 75% of the base damage.
......?

The damage done is the same no matter what formula is use, Damage*crit*resist or Damage*resist*crit, the only number that varies is the logged resist number. The damage lost is *not* what matters, as you can see the game will do Your Fireball crits XXX for 1125 (2250 resisted) and not Your Fireball crits XX for 1125(3275 resisted).

And yes, it's calculated on base damage.
#2168SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Muphrid
I'm saying that, though the combat log says 2250 was resisted, you actually did lose 3275 damage. That's all.
#2169SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Roywyn
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
......?

The damage done is the same no matter what formula is use, Damage*crit*resist or Damage*resist*crit, the only number that varies is the logged resist number. The damage lost is *not* what matters, as you can see the game will do Your Fireball crits XXX for 1125 (2250 resisted) and not Your Fireball crits XX for 1125(3275 resisted).

And yes, it's calculated on base damage.
It used to be that damage debuff multipliers were not included in the resisted damage either.

So, if you hit for 1k, but have CoE to make it 1.1k, a 50% partial resist would read "hits for 550 (500 resisted)".
#2170SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
Would there be any drawbacks to the combat system if they changed they way it displayed a crit with a partial resist to the actual amount resisted? Right now it does resist before crit, any drawback to do crit before resist? Partials only, not full resist.
#2171SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Muphrid
I would only say that having the partial resist message report the actual damage lost makes it easier for damage meter mods and combat log parsers to do their job. The order in which hits, crits, etc. are processed is really immaterial in terms of actual gameplay.
#2172SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Vhad
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I'm a little confused as to what you're saying. It wouldn't matter in what order the resists were multiplied - it's multiplication.

Fireball hit * 0.25 * 1.5 = Fireball hit * 1.5 * 0.25

Unless I'm totally misreading what you've said - I would have thought it obvious.
You're right, I didn't think it through, while it's the same the code seems to do it (hit*,75)1,5 as per what it displays.

Last edited by Vhad : 01/12/08 at 9:13 AM.
#2173SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Andersnordic
Considering the fact that blizz devs use these forums like scavengers (For reference) we should try to reach some sort of consensus regarding what buffs we want (How to balance the mage).

I can safely say that I think most of us agree that we need better group buffs and/or some sort of synergy.

The following changes should be made in order to make the mage + destro lock equal;

1. Merge CoS + CoE
2. Add a haste aura (And/or create impr. INT - for a total of 79)
3. Create some sort of synergy between mages and the ele shaman.


Are you happy with our current situation or do you feel they need to up our group buffs? In which case what are your suggestions?
#2174SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Roywyn
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
2. Add a haste aura (And/or create impr. INT - for a total of 79)
An Imp. AI talent will most likely end up being pretty bad.
Imp. Fort - any priest specs Inner Focus/Meditation, and gets Imp. PW:Fort on the way.
Imp. GotW - ferals usually don't take it because they need furor/naturalist/ooc/intensity, and have no more points for resto.

Imp. AI - it makes no sense in fire/frost. So, only arcane.
Raid builds are down to 2 points in arcane. So, either it has to be another tier 1 arcane talent, or someone has to gimp themself to take it.
Yay for mages rotating the imp.AI/amplify duty?

Haste aura sounds nice though - to replace the 50% int => armour talent. Has some potential, stacking or non-stacking, and gives group utility.
#2175SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Acetyle
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
2. Add a haste aura (And/or create impr. INT - for a total of 79)
How about turning IV into a group buf instead of a self only buff?
Unlike some imp. AI buff in the arcane tree, IV is more accessible since more raid builds use it.

If ever it'll be implemented (which I highly doubt) groups with 2-3 mages would be great if those mages could stagger IV and keep the buff up for as long as possible, hey - even healers might start liking it...
But then we'll need that shadow priest and mana totems even more
#2176SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
As odd as this might sound, I disagree that mages need a DPS boost. As I said many times in the past, I do gueninely believe that mage buffs (namely fire vulnerability and winter's chill) don't really serve as group buffs much as they are really more like a 'ramp-up time' or rather an 'upkeep cost' to mage dps.

With this said, the real problem is that COE is too narrow. It does something that is absurdly narrow -- it boost mage dps in raids where you have 3+ warlocks and 1+ mage (notice how I changed my stance on this and said 1 mage). 1 mage if your mage can push 2k dps, 2 if he can't. Typically this means 2+ mages. Merging COS and COE is just one of the possible solutions, but be aware that there are many others. As crazy as this might sound, you could also give COE to mages, foregoing forever the possibility of maledictioned COE, and mages and lock would be on equal footing (and obviously warlocks would lose COE). Although, to be honest, I don't know anymore if mages are on equal footing. I got a tremendous dps boost from icy veins, enough in fact to truly compete with destro locks (and beat them?). Just to prove my point, I got 2189 dps on teron this week without COE. I would never have had that without icy veins. The DPS boost is stupidly noticeable. The major difference between mages and destro locks is that we DO have cooldowns, whereas their dps is mostly constant. Our cooldowns can be a curse and a boon. If you play your cards right, they should put you ahead of destro locks. In cases where you do something else than spam-casting, cooldowns are a good thing because they allow you to maximize your damage for the window of time you can DPS.

If anything, I don't believe a post here and there about it will really do anything. I think the best way to start is to:

1- come to a consensus as to what is being agreed upon (mage vs destro lock dps, group buffs/synergies etc.)
2- create a new thread elaborating the 'problem' and propose possible solutions (I had in mind to do that for a while, but icy veins kinda changed my stance on that)
3- if you want to spread the word, write it in your sig. both your EJ sig and wow forums sig.
#2177SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2andastra
The CoE I agree with. It seems the most glaring and the easiest to fix.

I would say still take a look at mana regeneration. The difference between having a shadow priest and not is night and day. Compare that with destro locks. They take a dps hit without a shadow priest, but not to the point of having to do all sorts of stuff or pause dps to save mana. The reason this isn't as much of a problem right now is that most BT/Hjyal bosses are less than 5 minutes long.

Another is stamina. There are some fights with random burst damage and it is a lot safter to be a 13k hp lock than a 9k hp mage. I just think there should be a trade off between raid survivability and dps.
#2178SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
drowsy
Things like raidwide buffs and group auras are nice, but something that every class seems to have.

I'd like to see somethig like icy veins made targetable, maybe even stack across mages (and retuned if that makes the numbers unreasonable). The concept of the old rolling ignite where multiple players synergize into giving a great burst to one player is not really something that exists in game today (except power infusion?), though I admit it is still very interesting to me because I was not a mage at the time. Mages have no synergy at all across specs right now, but coordinating stacking veins with other class cooldowns would add an interesting wrinkle to fireball spam.

edit: I meant icy veins, not cold snap. Durrrr.

Last edited by drowsy : 01/16/08 at 1:58 PM.
#2179SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Err I'm sorry but there's a few things that cannot be done. Namely, the return of 1 ignite shared for all mages. It used to make sense back when 20% crit rate was considered 'some seriously solid gear'. Nowadays you can gear with a base 50%+ crit rate using the underwhelming 33/28/0 spec. Second, critting delays the ignite unlike the way it used to be (not to mention, if my rolling ignite theory is correct mages would constantly lose ignite damage by overriding each other ignite). The end result of doing that post TBC would be one of 2 things:

1- either it would largely suck and mages would not get their ignite to tick ever the more you stack mages (because ignite would be constantly pushed back). Note how this goes directly against stacking mages.
2- or mages would specifically adapt a playstyle made to abuse 'rolling ignites', which will be a total clusterfuck to coordinate.

Either way, its not a good idea. Resetting cold snap across all mages suffers the major problem that it is only good for mages speccing frost in the first place, which is the same problem we currently have. We don't even have intra-class synergy. At least all warlock specs can realistically deal shadow damage and benefit from COS or ISB. This change would give rise to 2.6k+ dps mages (hello permanent WE), which is not a good thing.

If you want to give a good reason to invite more than 1 mage in a raid you're realistically looking for some group/raid buff somewhere along the lines of:

- every mage crit (from whatever spell, including arcane missiles) increases raid-wide haste/spell haste rating by 5. Stacks 10 times. Lasts 2 seconds.
#2180SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2drowsy
Sorry, I meant to say icy veins and not cold snap. It wouldn't have to be that or ignite necessarily, just the idea being that synergizing into buffing a single target would be an interesting change in mechanics from group buffing that many other classes have. I just meant to use icy veins as an example because it is shallow enough in the tree that fire and arcane specs can fit it in. I should probably stop now before we get too far off topic though.
#2181SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2LiquidHAL
If we're considering spells that would require bringing more than one mage, I was thinking about the naga castes in zangar who create a glyph circle on the ground that slowly ticks, and if you stay in it when it's done you get nuked for a considerable amount of damage. It would be interesting if they gave mages something like that, only it took 2-3 mages to activate, left a semi-long debuff on the effected target, and caused no threat. i'd certainly be more interested in that than another "increase damage by 5%" kind of talent.
#2182SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Magnum
For the people questioning the validity of a 2400 mage dps parse,

Wow Web Stats

The funny thing about this all is that mages were the ones in particular whom pushed for rogue nerfs, because of absurd dps numbers that could produce. Even with all the possible synergies I can have, I cannot break 2200 dps on teron, he did 2400 without malediction COE... so add another 3% to that...

So much for rogues being the highest single target dps.
Not to knock Koosha, as I was actually reading this to up the DPS on my own Mage, but when I look at the details of the WWS of the fight, the details tab seems screwy.

Koosha - WWS

It shows you as having done all your damage in the fight in a total of 30 hits (25 fireballs and 5 scorches). If that's the case, you'd be averaging 13,699.96 damage per fireball, and 2,728.4 per scorch. Am I reading this wrong, or is the WWS somehow buggy? I don't want to punch holes in the 2400 DPS Mage theory, but this particular WWS report seems funky to me.
#2183SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Here is the explanation for you:

1- he has 57% crit rate. this is very very very far from the norm
2- although I did not check, with that kind of crit rate he probably had a fair share of rolling ignite.
3- his fireballs hit for 4225. the only way to get that is to use the darkmoon faire 1-10% dmg boost buff and either 10% or 13% COE. (and/or nightfall)
4- he has 3+ drums.

For reference, here is what I pulled this week, with no cheap trick to speak of:

2189 dps, no coe and 2 drums
3500 fireballs, 45% crit rate
Wow Web Stats
#2184SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Nurru
I'm curious how Koosha managed 5 combustions within one Teron fight. Does WWS count each stack of combustion as a new gain of it?
#2185SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
I'm curious how Koosha managed 5 combustions within one Teron fight. Does WWS count each stack of combustion as a new gain of it?
Yes. That is normal.
#2186SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Nurru
Just wanted to make sure. Apparently I never noticed.
#2187SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vhad
Also you misread the WWS report, it was 25 hits and 36 crits 2 full resists and 4,3% partials.
#2188SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mysticfox
2400+ dps is very possible and I would expect troll mages could hit this mark much easier. Optimal use of cooldowns and good timing is important.

Just for comparison I was was just 8 dps short of breaking 2.4k this week with a 48% crit rate. Manly probably would have had similar numbers if he would have had CoE: Mysticfox - WWS

Some facts about the fight:
  • 10% CoE was present for the duration of the fight
  • 2% crit bonus from ret paladin
  • Wrath of Air totem was present however Totem of Wrath was not
  • Double trinket usage w/ destro pots
  • Double Drums of Battle.
  • IV & double trinket again sub 20%
  • Heroism, flame cap, combustion was used towards the end of the fight
  • Empyrea volunteered to keep up scorch and asked only that each of the other mages scorched once at the start

I could have probably irked out a small amount more if I kept track of my combustion crits better and tried to double dip on the last charge by using fire blast. I always suck at remembering to do that though.

And a tip: The TimeToDie mod can give you a rough idea of how long it will take for a mob (boss) to die. For some reason I found it was a little bit easier to time my cooldowns & trinkets for various fights using this.
#2189SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Here is the explanation for you:


2189 dps, no coe and 2 drums
3500 fireballs, 45% crit rate
Wow Web Stats
Not to be picky or anything - but if your elemental shaman is only pulling 1650 dps and the casters in his group are all around 2k dps. Does the totem really make up nearly 100 dps on each caster?

Even if you could itemize perfectly to drop the hit, as in you'd gain the equal dps value of 3% hit - which you wouldn't realistically be able to. Let's say you gain the value of 2% hit and 3% crit - It just doesn't seem to be enough - although it's only one WWS so maybe he does more.

Basically I'm saying in a perfect world why not have 1 more resto shaman, one holy priest, and another lock to put up CoE.
#2190SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Praetorian
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Not to be picky or anything - but if your elemental shaman is only pulling 1500 dps and the casters in his group are all around 2k dps. Does the totem really make up 125 dps on each caster?

Even if you could itemize perfectly to drop the hit, as in you'd gain the equal dps value of 3% hit - which you wouldn't realistically be able to. Let's say you gain the value of 2% hit and 3% crit - It just doesn't seem to be enough - although it's only one WWS so maybe he does more.

Basically I'm saying in a perfect world why not have 1 more resto shaman, one holy priest, and another lock to put up CoE.
Because we raid with who's available. We have three locks. One couldn't make it.
#2191SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
[edited out due to gurgthock' response]

I am a bit confused by your question. Do you mean the 3% crit totem (and lets ignore the 3% hit for all realistic intent) or the 101 dmg totem ? If I had the choice, I wouldn't really care much between a resto shaman (with drums) and an elemental shaman, but that is just me. If anything, 3% crit is not 100 dps.
#2192SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Originally Posted by Praetorian View Post
Because we raid with who's available. We have three locks. One couldn't make it.
But we never have 3 warlocks online. *hint* *hint*
#2193SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
[edited out due to gurgthock' response]

I am a bit confused by your question. Do you mean the 3% crit totem (and lets ignore the 3% hit for all realistic intent) or the 101 dmg totem ? If I had the choice, I wouldn't really care much between a resto shaman (with drums) and an elemental shaman, but that is just me. If anything, 3% crit is not 100 dps.
I was referring specifically to the crit / hit totem since the restoration shaman can put up the latter.

Edit: Obviously as already mentioned it's unrealistic to have a perfect setup all the time. I was possibly trying to get some insight as to whether that is "Cap" elemental shaman dps, and if so would it be worth it assuming you had other options.

Last edited by Etherealz : 01/16/08 at 5:17 PM.
#2194SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Searix
Interesting, manly look at your WWS WWS Loading...

Checking ignite, it looks like it's WAY under what it should be, something like 33% ignite instead of the 40% it should be. I just can not explain it.

Edit: It's 12,000 ignite damage that's missing, i guess it's plausible you simply crit so much it didn't get a chance to tick down but that's unlikely

Edit2: WWS Loading... got 43% ignite

Last edited by Searix : 01/16/08 at 8:09 PM.
#2195SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Koosha
Originally Posted by Mysticfox View Post
2400+ dps is very possible and I would expect troll mages could hit this mark much easier. Optimal use of cooldowns and good timing is important.

Just for comparison I was was just 8 dps short of breaking 2.4k this week with a 48% crit rate. Manly probably would have had similar numbers if he would have had CoE: Mysticfox - WWS

Some facts about the fight:
  • 10% CoE was present for the duration of the fight
  • 2% crit bonus from ret paladin
  • Wrath of Air totem was present however Totem of Wrath was not
  • Double trinket usage w/ destro pots
  • Double Drums of Battle.
  • IV & double trinket again sub 20%
  • Heroism, flame cap, combustion was used towards the end of the fight
  • Empyrea volunteered to keep up scorch and asked only that each of the other mages scorched once at the start

I could have probably irked out a small amount more if I kept track of my combustion crits better and tried to double dip on the last charge by using fire blast. I always suck at remembering to do that though.

And a tip: The TimeToDie mod can give you a rough idea of how long it will take for a mob (boss) to die. For some reason I found it was a little bit easier to time my cooldowns & trinkets for various fights using this.
Was looking at the WWS and it seems to be a ~5.5m hp Teron. Not saying you didn't do very good DPS because you did, but could this contribute to it making it seem higher than it really is?
#2196SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Interesting, manly look at your WWS WWS Loading...

Checking ignite, it looks like it's WAY under what it should be, something like 33% ignite instead of the 40% it should be. I just can not explain it.

Edit: It's 12,000 ignite damage that's missing, i guess it's plausible you simply crit so much it didn't get a chance to tick down but that's unlikely

Edit2: WWS Loading... got 43% ignite
Yeah, the curse of drums + bloodlust + icy veins + haste gear. I'm constantly pushing back my ignite. I admit I did not think I had that much lost ignite damage. It does suck a lot.
#2197SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mysticfox
Originally Posted by Koosha View Post
Was looking at the WWS and it seems to be a ~5.5m hp Teron. Not saying you didn't do very good DPS because you did, but could this contribute to it making it seem higher than it really is?
I don't think it really matters because the extra DPS from the ghosts doesn't get attributed to anyone it is just added to the overall RDPS.

Here's the same report with Vengeful Spirit counted as a mob instead of a pet: Wow Web Stats
#2198SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Koosha
Originally Posted by Mysticfox View Post
I don't think it really matters because the extra DPS from the ghosts doesn't get attributed to anyone it is just added to the overall RDPS.

Here's the same report with Vengeful Spirit counted as a mob instead of a pet: Wow Web Stats
Alright thanks for clearing that up, I was just always curious because I could never really tell the true dps from looking at all the bugged Terons D:
#2199SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kikler
I wonder how your MT's keep that ammount of aggro really , are you using tanquil air(?) totem ? As i see none of you is using invisibility , i m even dumping 30k aggro usually if i manage.. (fkin bolts on teron really !).I Just got my ToC this week FINALLY after so long farming on illidan and archi , was happy that i'd test it but i got ghost pulled off 2.4k DPS but well dunno how that exactly compares with "real" dps since it wasn't constant.
#2200SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Koosha
Originally Posted by Kikler View Post
I wonder how your MT's keep that ammount of aggro really , are you using tanquil air(?) totem ? As i see none of you is using invisibility , i m even dumping 30k aggro usually if i manage.. (fkin bolts on teron really !).I Just got my ToC this week FINALLY after so long farming on illidan and archi , was happy that i'd test it but i got ghost pulled off 2.4k DPS but well dunno how that exactly compares with "real" dps since it wasn't constant.
Expertise.
#2201SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kikler
Well , our guild is really good DPS wise , we have some people that are just doing the numbers your are posting in your reports and some others doing half of it so i doubt if our MT will sacrifise his survivability for some more TPS.Is arcane a solution here?We have a retri paladin so that kind of helps with mana problems (pre tlc/msd nerf our paladins were refussing 2 put JOW up and spending hours whining how they can't afford spending mana/time on it).
#2202SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Koosha
Originally Posted by Kikler View Post
Well , our guild is really good DPS wise , we have some people that are just doing the numbers your are posting in your reports and some others doing half of it so i doubt if our MT will sacrifise his survivability for some more TPS.Is arcane a solution here?We have a retri paladin so that kind of helps with mana problems (pre tlc/msd nerf our paladins were refussing 2 put JOW up and spending hours whining how they can't afford spending mana/time on it).
You're MT really doesn't give up much, if any survivability getting expertise from, for example: Badge neck, Teron gloves, Supremus Axe.
#2203SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kikler
I really need to get him to use those i guess..Having a SP that dies half of the fights basically forcing you to evocate and having to invis makes me wonna kill my self..
#2204SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Searix
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Yeah, the curse of drums + bloodlust + icy veins + haste gear. I'm constantly pushing back my ignite. I admit I did not think I had that much lost ignite damage. It does suck a lot.
As far as i know just pushing back ignite spamming fireballs shouldn't cause any less ignite damage, yet that's what the WWS says
#2205SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
No it doesn't, what I meant to say is that, since I keep critting sub-2s fireballs, I just keep stacking ignite. With every crit I push-back further the ignite. What ends up happening is that my huge built-up ignite ends up 'falling' at the end of the fight because the boss dies.

If only ignites were not resettings the ignite timer (the same way it was pre-tbc), then this issue would be lessened. It is the same thing as exploding yourself with the ROS p2 shield spamming fireballs at GCD speed, accumulating a huge ignite, then your shield falls off, your fireball lands, then you get that huge ignite tick following right after, then you die. I have since stopped spamming fireballs like a madman when that happens.
#2206SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Kasi
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I was referring specifically to the crit / hit totem since the restoration shaman can put up the latter.

Edit: Obviously as already mentioned it's unrealistic to have a perfect setup all the time. I was possibly trying to get some insight as to whether that is "Cap" elemental shaman dps, and if so would it be worth it assuming you had other options.
Teron is not a favorable fight for elemental shaman dps. There is constant aoe damage which causes pushback on the shaman, thus dropping their dps. Their only way to lessen that is to wear pvp gear which is just as bad for your damage as the pushback. Fire mages have 70% pushback resistance talented so its a better fight overall for them. If you look at other fights here on the same parse, you'll find Eswedge ranks higher on other fights that are more suited to the strength of the class.

I do agree with the sentiment though that elemental shamans need something better than a 3% hit/crit totem.
#2207SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by Kasi View Post
Teron is not a favorable fight for elemental shaman dps. There is constant aoe damage which causes pushback on the shaman, thus dropping their dps. Their only way to lessen that is to wear pvp gear which is just as bad for your damage as the pushback. Fire mages have 70% pushback resistance talented so its a better fight overall for them. If you look at other fights here on the same parse, you'll find Eswedge ranks higher on other fights that are more suited to the strength of the class.

I do agree with the sentiment though that elemental shamans need something better than a 3% hit/crit totem.
I would think something like 100 spell damage group buff that procs off of lightning bolt crits would go well with the spec - similar to enhancement.
#2208SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Vontre
Originally Posted by Koosha View Post
You're MT really doesn't give up much, if any survivability getting expertise from, for example: Badge neck, Teron gloves, Supremus Axe.
Yeah, also don't forget that expertise is a survival stat as well, reducing mob chance to parry reduces one of the last remaining sources of critical burst damage (parry gives them a large haste bonus on next swing).
#2209SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Friccs
Originally Posted by manly View Post
As odd as this might sound, I disagree that mages need a DPS boost. As I said many times in the past, I do gueninely believe that mage buffs (namely fire vulnerability and winter's chill) don't really serve as group buffs much as they are really more like a 'ramp-up time' or rather an 'upkeep cost' to mage dps.

With this said, the real problem is that COE is too narrow. It does something that is absurdly narrow -- it boost mage dps in raids where you have 3+ warlocks and 1+ mage (notice how I changed my stance on this and said 1 mage). 1 mage if your mage can push 2k dps, 2 if he can't. Typically this means 2+ mages. Merging COS and COE is just one of the possible solutions, but be aware that there are many others. As crazy as this might sound, you could also give COE to mages, foregoing forever the possibility of maledictioned COE, and mages and lock would be on equal footing (and obviously warlocks would lose COE). Although, to be honest, I don't know anymore if mages are on equal footing. I got a tremendous dps boost from icy veins, enough in fact to truly compete with destro locks (and beat them?). Just to prove my point, I got 2189 dps on teron this week without COE. I would never have had that without icy veins. The DPS boost is stupidly noticeable. The major difference between mages and destro locks is that we DO have cooldowns, whereas their dps is mostly constant. Our cooldowns can be a curse and a boon. If you play your cards right, they should put you ahead of destro locks. In cases where you do something else than spam-casting, cooldowns are a good thing because they allow you to maximize your damage for the window of time you can DPS.

If anything, I don't believe a post here and there about it will really do anything. I think the best way to start is to:

1- come to a consensus as to what is being agreed upon (mage vs destro lock dps, group buffs/synergies etc.)
2- create a new thread elaborating the 'problem' and propose possible solutions (I had in mind to do that for a while, but icy veins kinda changed my stance on that)
3- if you want to spread the word, write it in your sig. both your EJ sig and wow forums sig.
That's a thing I thought about a lot - and especially in the context of making arcane an viable raid specc. In this brief moment when Arcane was more or less equal/maybe better in certain situations/encounters than fire I really became a different view onto my class.

I think your main statement, if i understand u right - is to give us a more raid- utillity concerning a debuff that will raise one's and e.g. also the groups dmg.
I'd love to see this role played by arcane specc.

Don't take it too seriously what I'm saying, I haven't goten so far in raiding as you guys - but I think that a certain aspect of our class is getting more and more out of view of developers (or maybe has never been-__-) and this is raidutillity.

On the other Hand you could say IV are a great deal of +dps for us and that we should be happy with what we are having but I think that there is more in our class than that.

Just my two Cents^^

ps.:who finds grammar and ol' spellingmistakes can keep 'em
#2210SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vonwen
On yesterday's Teron, stacking IV + heroism + combustion gave me a neat 5k7 ignite. I'm not sure if there's damage lost or not, it's supposed to only delay the damage output, not forget damage, unless two spells land at the same time. But if it does well, stacking heroism + IV would indeed not be a so great idea, although it allows a much higher uptime on various timers.
#2211SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Zindel
Originally Posted by Koosha View Post
Expertise.
This. Outside of Gurtogg, no one should be threat capped anywhere. Perhaps a fury warrior with glaives, but I doubt we'll have enough glaives to eventually give our fury warrior a pair.
#2212SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2SMeltn
so I am hearing alot of people talk about doing 50/0/11 now to get IV. Is this the best dps spec?

First off, I am currently 61 Arc. Wearing T5 and my guild is working on Archmonde and 3 bosses deep in BT.

So do I stay 61 arc? Go fire? Or is this 50/0/11 the best due to the new IV talent?
#2213SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Why do people believe 40/0/21 has ever been a DPS contender. The spec has never competed well against the top specs, being even surpassed by deep frost. Icy veins just that made that even more the case.
#2214SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Nurru
Originally Posted by SMeltn View Post
so I am hearing alot of people talk about doing 50/0/11 now to get IV. Is this the best dps spec?

First off, I am currently 61 Arc. Wearing T5 and my guild is working on Archmonde and 3 bosses deep in BT.

So do I stay 61 arc? Go fire? Or is this 50/0/11 the best due to the new IV talent?
Your character name sums up the quality of the information presented in this post.
#2215SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Acetyle
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Why do people believe 40/0/21 has ever been a DPS contender. The spec has never competed well against the top specs, being even surpassed by deep frost. Icy veins just that made that even more the case.
For the same reason ppl still stack crit over damage.

I think it has to do with the "fun factor" of stupidly big crits, as opposed to the more complex deep frost which relies heavily on proper management of your elemental.

Wishful thinking probably descibes it best.
#2216SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2SMeltn
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
Your character name sums up the quality of the information presented in this post.
Want to elaborate? Considering in my post I asked about dps specs, I told the current gear I am wearing and also explained at what point in progression my guild is at? What other info do you need? A/S/L ?
#2217SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Docjowles
Take a look at [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread. 61 points in arcane is not a particularly good build, and 50/0/11 is not likely to be much better since Icy Veins would just screw up your arcane blast cycles.
#2218SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2SMeltn
Originally Posted by Docjowles View Post
Take a look at [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread. 61 points in arcane is not a particularly good build, and 50/0/11 is not likely to be much better since Icy Veins would just screw up your arcane blast cycles.
So by looking at the mage sweet informational thread I see :

Specific Builds:
2/48/11: Fire with Icy Veins. Best possible dps.
10/48/3: Standard fire but no Icy Veins, Clearcasting instead. Used for better mana efficiency.
10/0/51 (or other frost variant): Deep Frost with winter's chill and Water Elemental. Very strong for guilds working on Kharazan.
40/18/3: Arcane Blast cycles with Fireball/Scorch.
40/0/21: Arcane Blast cycles with Frostbolt, strongest 'arcane build' due to Icy Veins and Cold Snap.
48/13: Heavy arcane. This build is very bad because it relies on Arcane Missiles.
33/28: Arcane/Fire 'huge crit' build. This is also a poor build that should never be used in raids.
hmm guess my friend was wrong on the Arc+IV being the best and I see Fire+IV is.

Thanks for the info.
#2219SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Nasty Naga
First off not a big Theorycraft guy, for the simple fact u may all have the same spec but play entirely different. That being said all i hear is FIRE is the way to go!!!!!!!

I am a Arcane freak and really dont wanna switch but i am open minded and said to myself if Fire Mages out dps me constantly then ill make the switch but i havent seen it happen maybe 1 outta 10 will out dps me. so why is everyone all big on fire???? my gear is not all that great 2pc T4 1pc T5 kara and badge epics 1200 spell dmg 14% hit with talents.


i guess basically what im saying is you can theorycraft til ur blue in the face but i think of alot of it is the player.

so my question is If fire is so GREAT why do i keep up or out dps Fire mages EQUALLY geared or better????
#2220SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Amarilia
Because theorycraft cannot account for differences in player skill. Maybe you are better geared, maybe you are using pots more, maybe the other mages are sleeping the whole time.
You said it yourself, you can theorycraft all you want, the player still has to do it. If your anecdotical experience is different with theorycrafting, then blame the players not the theory.
#2221SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Akuman
Nasty, no one here has said 'A bad player with a good spec will out dps a good player with a bad spec'.

Arcane scales better with short fights, such as the ones and pre TK and pre SSC.

In longer fights, you will see your dps reduce and perhaps fire mages in your guild will overdps you.


Why don't you try going fire, and see if your dmg increases?
#2222SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Koosha
Originally Posted by SMeltn View Post
Want to elaborate? Considering in my post I asked about dps specs, I told the current gear I am wearing and also explained at what point in progression my guild is at? What other info do you need? A/S/L ?
A lot of the hostile responses towards you have a lot to deal with the fact that this has been discussed almost (not exactly though) 18971648267184712648 times throughout the coarse if this thread. If you would have just taken a few mins to read I'm sure you could have found it D:
#2223SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Maddmage
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Why do people believe 40/0/21 has ever been a DPS contender. The spec has never competed well against the top specs, being even surpassed by deep frost. Icy veins just that made that even more the case.
I don't understand why people are hating the 40/0/21 spec. I agree that before 2.3.2 it didn't shine as brightly as deep fire or even arcane/fire, but it was still by no means bad. Now I'm in a guild with 3 other mages that raid regularly. Two are arcane/fire and one is deep fire. Prior to 2.3.2, in terms of overall DPS and dmg output, I was the lowest of the four, but definitely not far off from the mage right above me in any means.

Now after 2.3.2, where I now have both IV and Coldsnap in my 40/0/21 spec, I can put out some serious dmg in raids. Of course for this to work, the team aspect comes into play. We normally take 3 mages per 25-man raid, and in the mage group, we have a SP and elemental shammy. In my raid gear, fully raid buffed (including shammy totems), I'm at around 1350 frost spell dmg and around 35% spell crit. The key to making the most out of my dmg output is the coordination with the shammy in the group, and know exactly when he is going to Bloodlust. When that happens, I pop my macro which uses AP, top trinket slot (Silver Crescent Icon), IV, and starts casting a frostbolt. Which brings my Frostbolt down to about a 1.8 second cast time. The other trinket I'm using is Quagmirran's Eye, and when that procs during IV (which it often does), my frostbolt cast time is just barely over the GCD. But anyways, I let my AP/trinket/IV buffs run its course, and then immediately hit Coldsnap and IV again, as Bloodlust lasts for 40 seconds and IV only 20. So I'm getting in the full 40 seconds with both Bloodlust and IV (and AP+trinket in the first 20), and just before it all fades, I'll hit a PoM Frostbolt. So assuming a 0.5 second of lag time per cast, in 40 seconds of casting GCD-timed frostbolts, I can get off about 20 of them, with a lot of them critting (for about 7.5k). Now I agree that after that 40 second burst is over, my DPS probably isn't as great as the other non-frost mages, but those 40 seconds gives me a HUGE lead in terms of dmg over the other mages (and the rest of the raid). The last Supremus fight we did, I was #1 on the meters, with the next closest being a warlock, and about 80k dmg short of what I put out during the fight.

In terms of AoE, using AE as 40/0/21 is not any worse than a deep arcane or arcane/fire mage, as I still have all the talents in the arcane tree that goes towards boosting AE dmg. For Hyjal trash, me and the arcane mages are always at the top of the meters, whereas the deep fire mage, due to the mana inefficiency, it quite a ways off in terms of AoE dmg output. In addition, when I'm AoEing Hyjal trash, I use CoC whenever it's up, with talents in frost like Ice Shards and Piercing Ice; which are very nice synergies for arcane talents like Arcane Instability, Arcane Potency, Spell Power, and Mind Mastery for frost spells, I'm seeing close to 2k crits when I use CoC, whereas the crits with AE are only a bit over 1k each (of course this depends on how many mobs I'm hitting).

So all I'm saying is while theorycrafting and spreadsheeting is great (and yes, I do both, a lot), sometimes it's just a matter of actually seeing something in action before writing it off as bad or useless just based from prior experience (or worse, from prior theorycrafting).
#2224SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
I'm not sure if you're the classic troll or if you're serious. You mention you do a fair amount of theorycraft, but yet, you have absolutely no understanding of why arcane mages top aoe meters.

Here is the problem that all mages face when doing aoe:
-> You will hit the AOE cap.

There are ways around it. Namely, there exists only 2 of them:
-> stacking crit (crit bypasses AOE caps)
-> spell haste (which warlocks have the huge advantage over mages)

The only reason arcane dominates on AOE has got nothing to do with the fact that they got a bunch of arcane-damage-increasing talents -- it's only because they have a high arcane crit rate. Everything else has got nothing to do with it. And SOC wins big time because it, somehow, has a far larger range than the other AOE, and its 2s cast time allows spellhaste to 'bypass' the AOE cap.

Yes, I am fully aware that icy veins is really solid. From my personal experience, I gained roughly 10% DPS boost from it. Now here is what you did not consider. Yes, bloodlusted icy veins with AP is all sort of awesome, but if only the arcane mages would one day realize that, somewhat ironically, deep frost WE + normal spam is far far better 'burst' DPS than arcane spec gives. And the highest 'sustained' burst dps mages have happen to be deep frost WE + lust (+icy veins / snap / WE / icy veins). Nothing will beat this.

Now here is the reason mages tend to do very good on supremus: We have blink. That is the sole reason that mages have an edge over every other class. Supremus mechanics also make it not too favorable for WE, unless lust is popped during a tanknspank phase where your WE will not lose DPS time trying to reach supremus.

And yes, I am not saying the spec does bad, but theorycraft has never shown 40/0/21 in a good light really, pre and post icy veins. Deep frost will beat you if the cooldowns are played properly. Now here is some sad truth: if I look at the many WWS parses, I don't often see mages properly using their cooldowns either, and I'm talking fire mages. There is a good reaosn that the DPS varies a lot from mages from guild to guild: cooldown timing plays a tremendous role in our DPS, yet soo many mages ignore that part totally and assume gear/spec is the determinant factor in mage dps. I have always maintained that I believe skills is what will most affect a mage dps over gear/spec. I know that you come here read EJ for good information, and feel like you need to say something if manly is bashing your spec. I understand that. But I also want to make you realize that theorycraft, is what dictates my personal opinion, and what I usually recommend to other mages. Yes, 40/0/21 can give good DPS for you, but as you know I will tell you next, other specs can give you better.

And yes, as you already know, there are fights that will better cater to a certain build. Supremus is one of those where deep frost should be the top mage dps build, followed by 40/0/21. But the only way for deep frost to compete on supremus is proper timing of bloodlust and WE.

Last edited by manly : 01/17/08 at 6:45 PM.
#2225SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Arjun
Originally Posted by Maddmage View Post
I don't understand why people are hating the 40/0/21 spec. I agree that before 2.3.2 it didn't shine as brightly as deep fire or even arcane/fire, but it was still by no means bad. Now I'm in a guild with 3 other mages that raid regularly. Two are arcane/fire and one is deep fire. Prior to 2.3.2, in terms of overall DPS and dmg output, I was the lowest of the four, but definitely not far off from the mage right above me in any means.

Now after 2.3.2, where I now have both IV and Coldsnap in my 40/0/21 spec, I can put out some serious dmg in raids. Of course for this to work, the team aspect comes into play. We normally take 3 mages per 25-man raid, and in the mage group, we have a SP and elemental shammy. In my raid gear, fully raid buffed (including shammy totems), I'm at around 1350 frost spell dmg and around 35% spell crit. The key to making the most out of my dmg output is the coordination with the shammy in the group, and know exactly when he is going to Bloodlust. When that happens, I pop my macro which uses AP, top trinket slot (Silver Crescent Icon), IV, and starts casting a frostbolt. Which brings my Frostbolt down to about a 1.8 second cast time. The other trinket I'm using is Quagmirran's Eye, and when that procs during IV (which it often does), my frostbolt cast time is just barely over the GCD. But anyways, I let my AP/trinket/IV buffs run its course, and then immediately hit Coldsnap and IV again, as Bloodlust lasts for 40 seconds and IV only 20. So I'm getting in the full 40 seconds with both Bloodlust and IV (and AP+trinket in the first 20), and just before it all fades, I'll hit a PoM Frostbolt. So assuming a 0.5 second of lag time per cast, in 40 seconds of casting GCD-timed frostbolts, I can get off about 20 of them, with a lot of them critting (for about 7.5k). Now I agree that after that 40 second burst is over, my DPS probably isn't as great as the other non-frost mages, but those 40 seconds gives me a HUGE lead in terms of dmg over the other mages (and the rest of the raid). The last Supremus fight we did, I was #1 on the meters, with the next closest being a warlock, and about 80k dmg short of what I put out during the fight.

In terms of AoE, using AE as 40/0/21 is not any worse than a deep arcane or arcane/fire mage, as I still have all the talents in the arcane tree that goes towards boosting AE dmg. For Hyjal trash, me and the arcane mages are always at the top of the meters, whereas the deep fire mage, due to the mana inefficiency, it quite a ways off in terms of AoE dmg output. In addition, when I'm AoEing Hyjal trash, I use CoC whenever it's up, with talents in frost like Ice Shards and Piercing Ice; which are very nice synergies for arcane talents like Arcane Instability, Arcane Potency, Spell Power, and Mind Mastery for frost spells, I'm seeing close to 2k crits when I use CoC, whereas the crits with AE are only a bit over 1k each (of course this depends on how many mobs I'm hitting).

So all I'm saying is while theorycrafting and spreadsheeting is great (and yes, I do both, a lot), sometimes it's just a matter of actually seeing something in action before writing it off as bad or useless just based from prior experience (or worse, from prior theorycrafting).
Supremus is a bad example for this kind of discussion because of his high fire resist. I'd bet that you'd do better dps with the same gear as a deep fire/IV spec - the numbers, my own experience, and the combined experience of most of the mages on this forum would seem to agree. Give it a shot, let us know what happens.
#2226SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kaimani
Originally Posted by Maddmage View Post
I don't understand why people are hating the 40/0/21 spec. I agree that before 2.3.2 it didn't shine as brightly as deep fire or even arcane/fire, but it was still by no means bad. Now I'm in a guild with 3 other mages that raid regularly. Two are arcane/fire and one is deep fire. Prior to 2.3.2, in terms of overall DPS and dmg output, I was the lowest of the four, but definitely not far off from the mage right above me in any means.

<stuff>

So all I'm saying is while theorycrafting and spreadsheeting is great (and yes, I do both, a lot), sometimes it's just a matter of actually seeing something in action before writing it off as bad or useless just based from prior experience (or worse, from prior theorycrafting).
Allow me to explain the 'hating'. This is a thread about theorycraft, and by and large the people here are very much interested in scientific and mathematical analysis of different specs. When people come in here all passionate about one spec or another and give little evidence to support their claims other than "well it works great for me" or "I beat the other mages in my guild", the community around here is going to be fairly dismissive. In fact, if you even dare bring up a subject other than single-target uninterrupted nuke fests, you will probably be ridiculed. AoE usefulness? BAH! Shoe me more Teron Gorefiend parses!

I think we all agree that player skill and luck are a large part of each player's effectiveness in a raid, so anecdotal evidence or a WWS parse here and there is just not going to convince anyone of anything. I'm firmly convinced that deep fire + icy veins has unbeatable potential in the largest number of situations. Would you beat me on a meter if the fight was 40 seconds long? I would assume so. Those aren't terribly common though.

Now as much as I think my spec is preferable to yours (otherwise I wouldn't be using it) I recognize the merits of it, and I don't think you're being a crappy mage for using it. Just because my average dps output might be 2% greater than yours doesn't mean your spec worthless and that you should be banned from playing a mage. Spec choice is really a drop in the bucket in the long run, and while I think it is our nature as competitive people to want to prove to the world that our way of doing things is right, don't be surprised when someone else with just as much gusto as yourself comes along and poo-poo's your ideas.
#2227SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vulkaire
Originally Posted by manly View Post

The only reason arcane dominates on AOE has got nothing to do with the fact that they got a bunch of arcane-damage-increasing talents -- it's only because they have a high arcane crit rate. Everything else has got nothing to do with it. And SOC wins big time because it, somehow, has a far larger range than the other AOE, and its 2s cast time allows spellhaste to 'bypass' the AOE cap.
Spell power also adds quite a lot by giving 175% vs. 150% crits with AE.

edit- Clear casting also helps tremendously with AE. It is the one place that I miss it most as 2/48/11.
#2228SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Searix
Manly, i disagree, no one's yet to accurately model 40/0/21's advantage of having consistently paired cooldowns, unlike fiery veins where you have combustion, icy veins, and trinkets all on different cooldowns
#2229SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Fireflash38
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Manly, i disagree, no one's yet to accurately model 40/0/21's advantage of having consistently paired cooldowns, unlike fiery veins where you have combustion, icy veins, and trinkets all on different cooldowns
Last I checked, Lhivera's calculator uses On-Use trinkets and cooldowns as soon as possible, which would pair the cooldowns. However, what the issue is (as far as I know) is calculating them combined (the extra spellpower the additional frostbolt would get during IV +trinket).
#2230SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Bendelat
Originally Posted by Fireflash38 View Post
Last I checked, Lhivera's calculator uses On-Use trinkets and cooldowns as soon as possible, which would pair the cooldowns. However, what the issue is (as far as I know) is calculating them combined (the extra spellpower the additional frostbolt would get during IV +trinket).
Lhivera's script actually tries to pair cooldowns if it makes a difference. It accurately models the interaction of spell power, trinket use and IV/AP.
#2231SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Originally Posted by Vulkaire View Post
Spell power also adds quite a lot by giving 175% vs. 150% crits with AE.

edit- Clear casting also helps tremendously with AE. It is the one place that I miss it most as 2/48/11.
Well, the point was just that it works around the AOE cap more than anything else.

And yes searix, cooldown stacking has been checked. The spec just does not fares well. Even if another mage stacks winter's chill.
#2232SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Searix
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, the point was just that it works around the AOE cap more than anything else.

And yes searix, cooldown stacking has been checked. The spec just does not fares well. Even if another mage stacks winter's chill.
I disagree, using purely vontre's spreadsheet, using my gear to compare (I assume you get the full benefit of frostbolt ghosting hit, while current gear set-ups may leave you with excessive hit, part of the purpose of theorycrafting right now is to prepare for sunwell, where we have no idea if we might be begging for every point of hit we get). I have 40/0/21 as 17 less dps than fiery veins (1795 vs. 1812), but the spreadsheet leaves so many questions i wonder about it's accuracy, like

1) Drums?
2) What does the bloodlust % model? getting hero at 20% for fire?
3) Cooldown stacking is so hidden it's hard to accept it's accurate, AP's a bit better than combustion (especially with better gear), so any additional cooldowns paired only help AP.

Meh
#2233SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Well, using my gear for reference, which I know is not fully min/maxed, but should give a good idea. I put the same spell damage for both frost and fire, ignoring the minor difference from hellfire encased pendant being replaced. And swapping belt of blasting to anetheron's noose won't really have any real impact on dps.

And yes I know this is beta stuff, but I am fairly sure it shows you a good idea of how your dps goes as the fight progresses.

In case you ask, the rules are fairly simple for now, all cooldowns are popped asap (threat be damned), with the only exception of lust being popped near 20% for deep-fire.

3 min fight, full consumables (drums applied on your own)
Fire: 2218 dps
Frost: 2204 dps
Arcane/Frost: 2009 dps (4pct6)
Arcane/Frost: 2075 dps (2pct5 (dps would be lower if I adjusted the stats loss from this change) (3x AB/3xFB rotations)

(edit: last one is destro lock)
Attached Images
File Type: png 52Fire.png (674 Bytes, 66 views)
File Type: png 52Frost.png (490 Bytes, 26 views)
File Type: png 52ArcaneIce.png (728 Bytes, 21 views)
File Type: png 52ArcaneIce2.png (775 Bytes, 18 views)
File Type: png 52ShadowDestro.png (413 Bytes, 3 views)

Last edited by manly : 01/27/08 at 6:17 PM.
#2234SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Searix
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, using my gear for reference, which I know is not fully min/maxed, but should give a good idea. I put the same spell damage for both frost and fire, ignoring the minor difference from hellfire encased pendant being replaced. And swapping belt of blasting to anetheron's noose won't really have any real impact on dps.

And yes I know this is beta stuff, but I am fairly sure it shows you a good idea of how your dps goes as the fight progresses.

3 min fight, full consumables (drums applied on your own)
Fire: 2218 dps
Frost: 2204 dps
Arcane/Frost: 2009 dps (4pct6)
Arcane/Frost: 2075 dps (2pct5 (dps would be lower if I adjusted the stats loss from this change) (3x AB/3xFB rotations)

I don't get the reference, where are those graphs from? Do they model the ghost 3% hit? The fact that AP can be popped ~10-20% more often than combustion? That you can mana dump AB spam at the end of the fight to raise your dps?
#2235SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Yes, ghost hit is accounted for, it knows the cooldowns of every activable cooldowns (I mean c'mon now...). It even models semi-correctly > 3min for combustion. Yes, it pops your AP/IV/snap/IV during lust. Also pops WE when appropriate for deep frost. In fact, the only thing it does improperly is not stacking very optimally firespec cooldowns because it actually uses it at the start rather than the end (and flamecap), but regardless it does give a rather solid idea.
#2236SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Fireflash38
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, using my gear for reference, which I know is not fully min/maxed, but should give a good idea. I put the same spell damage for both frost and fire, ignoring the minor difference from hellfire encased pendant being replaced. And swapping belt of blasting to anetheron's noose won't really have any real impact on dps.

And yes I know this is beta stuff, but I am fairly sure it shows you a good idea of how your dps goes as the fight progresses.

In case you ask, the rules are fairly simple for now, all cooldowns are popped asap (threat be damned), with the only exception of lust being popped near 20% for deep-fire.

3 min fight, full consumables (drums applied on your own)
Fire: 2218 dps
Frost: 2204 dps
Arcane/Frost: 2009 dps (4pct6)
Arcane/Frost: 2075 dps (2pct5 (dps would be lower if I adjusted the stats loss from this change) (3x AB/3xFB rotations)
Can you clarify your graphs with labels and such (Axes and full graph label)?


I find this sort of thing absolutely fascinating (like the triple point diagram for fire specs a while back).
#2237SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Moltavio-US-Lightbringer
40/0/21

The 40/0/21 build does not compete with either accepted fire builds for single target dps.

It does have many raid advantages and should not be overlooked.

A list of several of them are as follows:

ILVL:

According to my math, 2406 +spell dmg is needed for 10 crit rating to be the same dps upgrade as 12 spell damage for single target frostbolt dps with a benchmark 35% spell crit. For ilvl cost comparison I used 10 crit rating = 12 spell dmg (based off of gems).

Math:
10 spell crit rating = .45% crit
assume current crit% as 35%, (base crit% varies greatly on gear/buffs)
x = +spell damage worn
(661+x)(3/3.5)(.95)(1-.35)+(661+x)(3/3.5)(.95)(.35)(2.25)= average frostbolt dmg
(661+x+12)(3/3.5)(.95)(.65)+(661+x+12)(3/3.5)(.95)(.35)(2.25) = (661+x)(3/3.5)(.95)(.6455)+(661+x)(3/3.5)(.95)
(.3545)(2.25) - solve for x
x = 2406 spell dmg

How much +spell dmg is needed for 10 crit rating to be the same dps upgrade as 12 spell damage for single target fireball in a fire spec with a benchmark 45% spell crit?

Math:
10 spell crit rating = .45% crit
assume current crit % as 45%, (base crit% varies greatly on gear/buffs)
x = +spell damage worn
(809+x)(1.15)(1-.45)+(809+x)(1.15)(.45)(1.5)(1.4)= average fireball dmg
(809+x+12)(1.15)(.55)+(809+x+12)(1.15)(.45)(1.5)(1.4) = (809+x)(1.15)(.5455)+(809+x)(1.15)(.4545)(1.5)(1.4)
(821+x)(.6325)+(821+x)(1.08675) = (809+x)(.627325)+(809+x)(1.0976175)
x = 7213 spell dmg

What do these numbers mean?
The ratio of effectiveness for +crit for arc/frost is 7213/2406, or extremely close to 3:1. That means for every piece of gear you have which gives you +crit, the +crit helps an arc/frost build with that ilvl by 3x as much as a fire build. Likewise, if you want to gem your gear with +crit (due to being an AE spammer) you will not be gimping your frostbolt dps as much as if you were a fire spec.

Added to this are the talents Arcane Mind and Mind Mastery, which increase the bonus from int spent on ilvl by leaps and bounds. In a full t6 set with endgame BT/pvp in every other slot as well the bonus to dmg from mind mastery and bonus to crit from arcane mind provide a substantial increase in dps vs. fire spec.

The current +3% ghost hit from frostbolt also frees up substantial spell hit ilvl to substitute +crit/+sta/+dmg as well.

TALENTS:

Every talent spent for the 40/0/21 build is useful. This may not be important to many people due to a 'bottom line' approach to damage meters - but it does mean that all 61 points are spent effectively and like that concept appeals to some people.

Most importantly there is freedom to move points from arcane focus to magic absorbtion and from elemental precision to arctic reach if you have large +spell hit on your gear. Both of these talents are extremely good. The 2/48/11 build has no talent freedoms like this.

PLAY STYLE:

Due to the extremely large number of by-choice dps enhancement spells and abilities the arc/frost spec gives you the most ability to burst dps and to utillize freedom in boss encounters. Very few fights let you sit there and dps without interruption, a consistancy fire spec thrives on. Because you can time your dps bursts in arc/frost you can maximize utility of boss timers and your own resists as well as group timers like drums and heroism.

Besides single target dps, there are times when AoE dps is important. Although Blizzard has pretty much neutered our dps output in this category compared to warlocks, we can provide almost as good AoE dps with the arc/frost build. Fire spec has much worse AoE dps.

PoM sheep can save raid wipes.

If you don't like spending money respeccing to pvp, the arc/frost build is a much better pvp build for battlegrounds compared to the fire specs.

DISADVANTAGES:

No Blastwave.
No Dragonbreath.
Spell haste hits the GCD with frostbolt much easier - so haste gear has a much quicker cap to help dps.
No dot component to spells, so on mobile fights you do not get near as much dps during motion.

FURTHER THEORYCRAFTING:

My question is this:
In a 3 mage raid setup on a single target boss can/would a 2 arc/frost mage 1 deep frost mage setup outdps a 3 fire mage setup assuming full t6 gear/ilvl (bonuses from arcane mind and mind mastery has largest influence on dps)?

If so, a 2 huge AoE/burst mage and 1 utility/survivability mage seems much more usable than 3 fire mages on trash for a raid leader.
#2238SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Muphrid
I'm sorry, but having 3 times the +damage crossover point does not imply that there is 3 times the benefit due to crit.
#2239SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Friccs
Sorry guys, but i think we've had a huge amount of posts and TC done, why/where and when arcane is proper and that all in all fire (and even Ice) is the better joice.

Arcane is nice, i also love to play it - but in 98% of fights it's not equal.

I'd love to see the discussion going back to manly's post concerning the COE thematics and - maybe the future outlook of arcane as an util alternative raidspecc.

... and just again only my 2 Cents
#2240SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2macbeet
I recently wondered weather to focus on a Frost build or a Fire/IV build and clearly Fire/IV does more damage in theory.
However my guild progress currently is MH complete and Bt up to Gorefiend, and I came to find that I perform closer to my theoretical dps on most fights with frost than with fire. More importantly I perform better with Frost than with Fire dpswise on certain encounters I did not expect it.

Part of the explanation I came up with is that the some part of the bosses/our strategies requires me to stop dps:
Winterchill -> need to move out of AoE or am entombed
Anetheron -> I typically am on add duty here. Short times of no dps, while I wait for the new add to positioned.
Azgalor -> silence periods interupts casting. I tend to restack scorch 8 seconds before it runs out to be safe. I had bad results with less careful aproaches.
Supremus -> gets out of range a lot

What these fights have in common that on every occasion that I loose casting time, it gets subtracted from my fireball time, because maintaining a firm scorch debuff is mandatory. Fireball time is however better dps than scorch time! Hence: not dpsing x% of the boss encounter time results in worse fire performance than just saying I loose x% of overall damage. Frost does not have this problem, because debuff practically never drops and is reapplied by the main and only nuke spell.

An often used argument against frost is that you need to ensure the water elementals survival and spell pushback which lets it perform worse in theory than in practice.
However I wondered if this is an occasion where fire performs worse than expected, and more importantly: Did I overlook approaches to model this? (because I didnt recall the issue)

Your thoughts?
#2241SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
9% Dark moon Faire buff as 40/0/21
Wow Web Stats

I haven't had the chance to test fire due to my gear being a lot better suited for Arcane, however I don't really find the difference to be big enough to justify specing fire. Even if I could maintain the extra 100 DPS, there are a lot of extra small advantages to Arcane in the raiding environment. My gear is almost flawless for arcane sub a couple small minor upgrades for extra haste pieces from a belt and a necklace I think, where as I still don't have an Archimonde Sword for Fire Spec.


Also, one thing to note is I don't cast frostbolt, that really doesn't make a lot of sense to me since the point of 40/0/21 is really to double stack your haste on AM, where as you would just clip your frostbolts with this much haste.
#2242SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Oh, the downsides of fire are quite simple. For the most part, this is what matters most:

disadvantages -- fire
**************************
-ramp-up time (scorch stacking)
-ignites falling off particularly on low hp targets (ie: trash mobs)
-3% more incoming damage (this really really should not affect your playstyle or dps, so it is rather moot)
-relies on proper timing of cooldowns (yes, bloodlust on execute range with everything else stacked will make a tremendous difference)
-inconsistent ignite damage (sometimes you win due to rolling ignites, sometimes you lose due to them falling off)

disadvantages -- frost
**************************
-ramp-up time (wc build-up time)
-no pushback protection
-range
-slightly worse scaling than fire
-absolutely requires proper timing of WE before bloodlust
-your WE absolutely cannot die. if it does so will your dps.
-your WE needs a SP to be able to cast the full distance, particularly with bloodlust (again, very minor detail)

disadvantages -- arcane/frost
**************************
-ramp-up time (you absolutely require another mage to stack WC for you on any fight duration that is 'long' (or if you prefer, any fight where most of your damage will not be AB) if you want to have any kind of hope to show on DMs)
-reliance on both COS and COE
-no pushback protection (both AB and frostbolt)
-you cannot afford to screw up a rotation. the dps loss from having to begin a rotation with a 2.5s AB is huge. your rotations must begin with a 1.5s AB.
-range
-bad DPM (this is arguably not a big deal)
(and debatably reliance on 2pct5, but that's somewhat minor given that you can swap em in and out depending on fight duration)
#2243SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vonwen
Originally Posted by macbeet View Post
Part of the explanation I came up with is that the some part of the bosses/our strategies requires me to stop dps:
Winterchill -> need to move out of AoE or am entombed
Anetheron -> I typically am on add duty here. Short times of no dps, while I wait for the new add to positioned.
Azgalor -> silence periods interupts casting. I tend to restack scorch 8 seconds before it runs out to be safe. I had bad results with less careful aproaches.
Supremus -> gets out of range a lot
An important part of a mage's dps is to minimize the downtimes. Your examples are good :

- Blink is really your biggest friend on Winterchill, allowing you to quickly escape a d&d or break an ice tomb (yes it does work). Managing this simple spell will considerably increase your dps (and survival).
- Just wait for the inferno to be positionned correctly before dpsing him. You can in most cases afford to lose 7-8 seconds dps worth on the inferno. If placed well, you are in range of both Anetheron and the inferno, which means you barely loose any time switching target. The only loss as a fire mage is the time stacking scorches.
- Equip your entire RS set on Azgalor. Yes you will lose quite a lot of dps, but very much less than being silenced 5 seconds every 15 seconds. On yesterday's Azgalor, 341 RS (no mage armor), and only 1 silence on the whole encounter. I would have been top 3 dps if he didn't doom me at 10%. RS is the way.
- Again, blink is your best friend on Supremus, and using fireball means more range. I am the first surprised to almost top dps on this dude (first usually being a hunter) as a fire mage with only 48 SP, but anyway, mobility is the key here.

I've been frost spec a few days while trying and beginning to farm Illidan, and therefore have been able to test it against all T6 bosses. The surprise is the really high sustained dps you can get as a deep frost (basically p1 Illidan), but what really kills it is the lack of any pushback protection or worthwile instant you can cast while moving (you end up casting a fire blast, which as a frost spec is not nearly as good as it can be). Being lucky and having both a paladin and an earth shield on Teron allowed me to get like 1600 dps, once. Even though this sounds solid, it just doesn't compete with what I can get with less effort as a fire mage. Another difficult boss is RoS, where p2 basically kills the frost spec.

The fact is that a spreadsheet will give you a Patchwerk dps score, but the frost spec is much more vulnerable to any disrupting environnement, and therefore will finally do a lot less than the maths would suggest. The WE is a huge boost, but I guess anyone here experienced on Illidan p2 the "ok I'm popipng the ele now, use bloodlust... no wait he's been instagibbed".

If you want to know what is the best suited for you, just try both specs, the spreadhseet will allow you to better choose your gear and tell you what to expect in a perfect situation, it's up to you to see which spec gives you the best dps in raiding situation. If you don't take environnement into account, the fire vs frost debate will never end.
#2244SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Kiklerakos
Originally Posted by Mojache View Post
9% Dark moon Faire buff as 40/0/21
Wow Web Stats

I haven't had the chance to test fire due to my gear being a lot better suited for Arcane, however I don't really find the difference to be big enough to justify specing fire. Even if I could maintain the extra 100 DPS, there are a lot of extra small advantages to Arcane in the raiding environment. My gear is almost flawless for arcane sub a couple small minor upgrades for extra haste pieces from a belt and a necklace I think, where as I still don't have an Archimonde Sword for Fire Spec.


Also, one thing to note is I don't cast frostbolt, that really doesn't make a lot of sense to me since the point of 40/0/21 is really to double stack your haste on AM, where as you would just clip your frostbolts with this much haste.
Why your report has 5.5mil damage?

Last edited by Kiklerakos : 01/18/08 at 12:55 PM.
#2245SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
Originally Posted by Kiklerakos View Post
Why your report has 5.5mil damage?
I'm not sure why that may have happened. I was just using it to show my DPS using just arcane missiles however as I did not get ghosted.
#2246SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Koosha
Originally Posted by Kiklerakos View Post
Why your report has 5.5mil damage?
I wish you could quote sigs, or perhaps you should just make yours size 72 font Manly. PSA: Teron parses with more than 5 million damage are bugged and count Ghosts as part of RDPS. Please do not use those. Remove 4750-5000 RDPS to get a good idea of the real RDPS.
#2247SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
Originally Posted by Mojache View Post
9% Dark moon Faire buff as 40/0/21
Wow Web Stats

I haven't had the chance to test fire due to my gear being a lot better suited for Arcane, however I don't really find the difference to be big enough to justify specing fire. Even if I could maintain the extra 100 DPS, there are a lot of extra small advantages to Arcane in the raiding environment. My gear is almost flawless for arcane sub a couple small minor upgrades for extra haste pieces from a belt and a necklace I think, where as I still don't have an Archimonde Sword for Fire Spec.


Also, one thing to note is I don't cast frostbolt, that really doesn't make a lot of sense to me since the point of 40/0/21 is really to double stack your haste on AM, where as you would just clip your frostbolts with this much haste.
I admit, I never viewed 40/0/21 as an AM spam build, mostly because you end up lacking emp. arcane missiles. But yeah, in any case, you're using a best-case scenario for AM spam (lots of pushback with 100% pushback prevention, short fight duration allowing doubly icy veins to really jump the numbers by a big number).

I hope you won't take it the wrong way, but I think your parse just illustrates how poorly AM spam scales. I'll try and ignore the fact that the log is merged and assume this did not impact your results.

40/0/21 - AM spam Wow Web Stats
************
-> 2'15'' duration, 2264 dps
-> 13% COS
-> +9% dmg from darkmoon faire buff
-> 4 drums of battle
-> 100% pushback prevention

vs

2/48/11 Wow Web Stats
************
-> 2'46'' duration, 2189 dps
-> no COE
-> no darkmoon faire buff
-> 2 drums of battle (both of which I activated on my own, so 2 lost GCD there)
-> 70% pushback prevention

Last edited by manly : 01/18/08 at 1:16 PM.
#2248SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
AM spam was much more effective back when there was aggro caps, the swap in my gear right now is such a big leep that jumping to a heavy Fire build simply wouldn't increase my DPS. I'd also have to consider losing some fire talents and go 0/40/21 as not having imp blizzard in a raiding environment would simple create more effort on our raid team for hyjal/illidan.

Pushing 2k without COE is very impressive though.


Also this is the build I go to get emp AM. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
#2249SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Well Mojache, pushing 2k without COE was mostly unheard of pre 2.3.2. However, the point I wanted to make was just how much of a DPS boost icy veins turned out to be for fire spec as well. It really affected tremendously the results.

Also Mojache, now that you edited your post to show your build, I must say I am quite surprised to see your choices. I do liken the idea behind it; you did not really lose much for that AM spam. 2x arcane potency, which is not a big deal, and only 1 mind mastery. I think it is a very fair tradeoff for cold snap, to say the least.
#2250SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Mojache
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well Mojache, pushing 2k without COE was mostly unheard of pre 2.3.2. However, the point I wanted to make was just how much of a DPS boost icy veins turned out to be for fire spec as well. It really affected tremendously the results.
We will typically run 2 mages and 3 warlocks, getting a COE is possible for us it just needs to be justified. I have no real rough number of a DPS curse, but even if it's only 100DPS for a geared warlock, that still means we need to do at least 50DPS each more then an arcane build to be worth it. It doesn't seem like a lot but back before this patch it was compared to spaming AM and putting out 1800 on every single fight.

I planned on testing fire this week but we weren't fully setup for it. I'll try it next week, although I'm still missing quite a few pieces for an optimal build as well as needing a second T6 helm to regem for 3% crit meta.

Last edited by Mojache : 01/18/08 at 1:35 PM.
#2251SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I admit, I never viewed 40/0/21 as an AM spam build, mostly because you end up lacking emp. arcane missiles. But yeah, in any case, you're using a best-case scenario for AM spam (lots of pushback with 100% pushback prevention, short fight duration allowing doubly icy veins to really jump the numbers by a big number).

I hope you won't take it the wrong way, but I think your parse just illustrates how poorly AM spam scales. I'll try and ignore the fact that the log is merged and assume this did not impact your results.

40/0/21 - AM spam Wow Web Stats
************
-> 2'15'' duration, 2264 dps
-> 13% COS
-> +9% dmg from darkmoon faire buff
-> 4 drums of battle
-> 100% pushback prevention

vs

2/48/11 Wow Web Stats
************
-> 2'46'' duration, 2189 dps
-> no COE
-> no darkmoon faire buff
-> 2 drums of battle (both of which I activated on my own, so 2 lost GCD there)
-> 70% pushback prevention
ROUGHLY...that's 2670dps if Manly would have had the 22% more damage. You may have said it and i've missed it...but what do you pair IV up with? I'd assume you pop your trinkets after scorch is up and hold IV until sub 20%...then pop your trinkets again with IV. But still....this kind of parse makes me think that IV isn't modeled correctly and cannot be considered a simple 2% dps increase.
#2252SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vulkaire
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
The WE is a huge boost, but I guess anyone here experienced on Illidan p2 the "ok I'm popipng the ele now, use bloodlust... no wait he's been instagibbed".

Considering the WE is immune to the AoE fireballs, no.
#2253SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Benegesserit
Anyone have a good idea on a rotation of Icy Veins and Troll Berserking when you have a shaman in your group for a frost mage? Stacking all 3 puts frostbolt under the GCD.
#2254SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
I feel bad to admit it, but as someone pointed out I had 33% ignite damage if I remember the number correctly. I should have had more damage than that. I think I just kept stacking a huge ignite at the end and it never ticked.

If anything, information about how to properly play cooldowns would be more akin to a full thread. I think instinctively most mages have a good idea, but they probably don't have refined their play enough to truly make cooldowns shine.
#2255SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I feel bad to admit it, but as someone pointed out I had 33% ignite damage if I remember the number correctly. I should have had more damage than that. I think I just kept stacking a huge ignite at the end and it never ticked.

If anything, information about how to properly play cooldowns would be more akin to a full thread. I think instinctively most mages have a good idea, but they probably don't have refined their play enough to truly make cooldowns shine.
I just added it up and frankly I'm pissed about ignites even more now.

You lost 11737.4 damage of ignites rolling off at the end if i added it up correctly

04:27'00.388 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 7949 Fire damage
04:27'03.378 Manly's Ignite dots Teron Gorefiend for 3006 Fire damage
04:27'03.949 Manly's Fireball dots Teron Gorefiend for 34 Fire damage
04:27'04.594 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 7617 Fire damage
04:27'06.284 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 7384 Fire damage
04:27'08.172 Manly's Fireball dots Teron Gorefiend for 34 Fire damage
04:27'08.376 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 6703 Fire damage
04:27'08.879 Manly's Fire Blast crits Teron Gorefiend for 3667 Fire damage

The only ignite in there is 20% of the first fireball listed + previous crits..and you never see any other ignites.
#2256SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
ROUGHLY...that's 2670dps if Manly would have had the 22% more damage. You may have said it and i've missed it...but what do you pair IV up with? I'd assume you pop your trinkets after scorch is up and hold IV until sub 20%...then pop your trinkets again with IV. But still....this kind of parse makes me think that IV isn't modeled correctly and cannot be considered a simple 2% dps increase.
COE Malediction is an utter waste of a warlock. There is no way it is worth gimping a warlocks DPS by and easy 1000 for the extra 3% damage.
#2257SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Well, I think this screwup could have been fixed in 2 ways. I thought I had near flawless play, but this just proves how ignorant I am. I think it shows that you want to avoid when possible to have your speed increasing cooldowns (or combustion) popped too close to the end of the fight. I did try to pop them at 19%, but I seem to recall I delayed a bit on its activation because of my mistimed drums.

I will do better next time.

And Mojache, I totally agree. There is the small exception that if your raid is like 1 lock/1spriest and 4-5 mages, then in that case you would want maledictioned COE. But that kind of raid should not really happen for the most part. I never expect maledictioned COE, and probable will never expect it either.
#2258SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
I'm not sure where you got this 1000dps loss with 3 talent points.
#2259SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Affliction locks scales very poorly with T6 gear, they are severely below destro locks. This is where the 1k lost DPS comes from.
#2260SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
If you have 13% coe might as well go all out and throw 3 BM hunters, a boomkin and a couple PI priests in the raid. D: We use to run 1 malediction lock for COS because we would run 3 locks, 3 shadow priests and 2 arcane mages but even then it was deemed unworthy looking at the numbers.
#2261SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Cardynal
Ah, now I see his logic...saying running 2 affliction locks would give you the dps loss, and I'd agree.

But by your own logic, having CoS mal is a dps loss as well.

3% dps increase on 5 classes would be safe to assume. 2sp's @ 1500 & 2 destro locks @ 2100 dps & 1 affliction @ 1500.

45dps x 3 + 63dps x 2 = 261

261 < 600

Granted 1 affliction lock does give stam for the tank and 5% less damage...but a full t6 should be fine without these.

Edit: Even at your crazy 8 people, it would be a dps loss =)
#2262SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Moltavio-US-Lightbringer
I'm still wondering about a 1 deep frost, 2 arc/frost mage setup on a 3 mage raid. Would this total dps outdo 3 fire mage dps?

My guild sometimes goes with 3 mage 2 warlock so we DO get CoE.

Also Mojache, you are itemized specifically for AM spam w/ all that stacked haste. I haven't gotten to illidan just yet, so my itemization has alot of +crit on things instead of +haste, therefore 3 frostbolt 3 AB is my spell rotation. With deep frost mage on raid it's just frostbolt spam. I'd love to have your gear to be able to try out a spec like yours.

I am very hard pressed to give up arcane impact since my job for the guild is alot of arcane explosion spam.

Oh, 1 more thing, Mojache you may want to remove 1 point in arcane focus and put it in improved cs or arcane impact since you are 2.16% over the spell hit cap for arcane. Also why did you go permafrost/frostbite instead of ice shards? If blizzard is your spell of choice for AoE the permafrost seems not as good as ice shards.
#2263SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
Originally Posted by Moltavio-US-Lightbringer View Post

Oh, 1 more thing, Mojache you may want to remove 1 point in arcane focus and put it in improved cs or arcane impact since you are 2.16% over the spell hit cap for arcane. Also why did you go permafrost/frostbite instead of ice shards? If blizzard is your spell of choice for AoE the permafrost seems not as good as ice shards.
Blizzard is a control AE, the damage is the side effect. I don't use arcane explosion unless I'm either being lazy or don't mind dieing, sure you generate 40% less threat but you lose the 30% range advantage putting yourself next to the mobs. Blizzard is fantastic if you want to pile drive through hyjal easily and makes any fights with snarable/freezeable adds a complete joke.

As for Ice Shards, Blizzard can't crit. I think you meant piercing ice but yeah the extra damage isn't needed for the purposes of why I use blizzard.
#2264SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2macbeet
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
If you want to know what is the best suited for you, just try both specs, the spreadhseet will allow you to better choose your gear and tell you what to expect in a perfect situation, it's up to you to see which spec gives you the best dps in raiding situation. If you don't take environnement into account, the fire vs frost debate will never end.
My post was by far not meant to be a: "What shall I specc!" or "Frost pwns fire, pew pew!".

I was looking for a model in line with: "If the boss interupts me for x seconds, about every y seconds, how will this affect different raiding speccs?" From the answers here this does not seem to exist.
#2265SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Sancus
I'm going to have to say flat-out that I think that that WWS is nonsense, you have a merge with 5 players, when merging is known to create duplicate events and produce inaccurate results. So I personally would not believe any of the numbers in that parse as they are very likely to be simply wrong.

There's absolutely no good reason to be merging Teron parses like that, on top of including pets, which is also nonsense, makes the parse look extremely bad.

Originally Posted by Mojache
I'd also have to consider losing some fire talents and go 0/40/21 as not having imp blizzard in a raiding environment would simple create more effort on our raid team for hyjal/illidan.
You only need 14 points in Frost to get Improved Blizzard, 0/47/14 is a perfectly reasonable alternative to 2/48/11 and has the exact same fire damage talents.

Last edited by Sancus : 01/18/08 at 4:10 PM.
#2266SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Mojache
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
I'm going to have to say flat-out that I think that that WWS is nonsense, you have a merge with 5 players, when merging is known to create duplicate events and produce inaccurate results. So I personally would not believe any of the numbers in that parse as they are very likely to be simply wrong.

There's absolutely no good reason to be merging Teron parses like that, on top of including pets, which is also nonsense, makes the parse look extremely bad.
You can say whatever you wish about about the parse but it's the same damage we see from SWstats and Assessment. We include pet data because it SHOULD be there, theres no reason to rip out the data from a boss fight because some people think it should be taken out and others don't. There is no tank and spank, lets count who can push the 3 key the hardest fight in BT/Hyjal and when you start editing parses to exclude part of a boss to get the "real" numbers well then what is real?

That log is exactly what I said it was, just a log to show 40/0/21 DPS after the patch with 15 leatherworkers in the raid and a darkmoon faire buff. You should never ever take anyones opinion on any of these forums and use it as your argument until you have tested it for yourself anyway.
#2267SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Sancus
You should never ever take anyones opinion on any of these forums and use it as your argument until you have tested it for yourself anyway.
It's not anyone else's opinion, it's my opinion, I've seen too many nonsense merged WWSes, and since there is no reason for it especially on Teron, there's no sense in doing it. I don't see any reason to take such parses seriously, because it's like you've gone to every effort to make your parse look wrong.

Why would you do this when you're trying to use it as an epeen meter? Instead you should be trying to minimize factors that will cause people to point out that it's probably inaccurate, not maximize them as you have done.
#2268SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vonwen
Originally Posted by Vulkaire View Post
Considering the WE is immune to the AoE fireballs, no.
Well maybe you can explain me then how my ele has been oneshotted 2 seconds after being popped ? I admit it happens very rarely on Illidan, but there are many other bosses where it's vulnerable to say the least.
#2269SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Roywyn
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
Well maybe you can explain me then how my ele has been oneshotted 2 seconds after being popped ? I admit it happens very rarely on Illidan, but there are many other bosses where it's vulnerable to say the least.
On Illidan phase 2, pets are not hit by the AoE fireballs. At least WE pets are not hit.

Yes, my water elemental got oneshotted right after the summon so many times, it's beyond silly.
But on Illidan, WEs are actually a pretty reliable source of damage. I don't use them often though, trying to save the cooldown for emergencies when a need a second nova.
#2270SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Copernicus
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
Well maybe you can explain me then how my ele has been oneshotted 2 seconds after being popped ? I admit it happens very rarely on Illidan, but there are many other bosses where it's vulnerable to say the least.
Water Elemental does get destroyed by the blue lasers and fire trails. Depending on positioning, you might need to spin around to place the Water Elemental inside the grate.
#2271SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
Mojache
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Why would you do this when you're trying to use it as an epeen meter? Instead you should be trying to minimize factors that will cause people to point out that it's probably inaccurate, not maximize them as you have done.

Trust me, theres always cry babies to whine. Theres nothing wrong with MY numbers, this isn't a thread to chit chat about raid DPS on teron gorefiend. I was only showing the highest potential of arcane missiles that I can do as my current gear level with AM, which is close to optimal. You are crying about how someone in my guild merges pet data and data of another raid member, thats nice you personally feel all that should be left out besides the core numbers but then I'm sure you would cry that the DPS was of course being "fake" because we all went out and got the DMF buff, oh and that we run 15 leather workings in a raid, oh geeze and we used different amounts of healers then most people! Man were such cheaters! God I had a shaman and a shadow priest! So many hacks!

Sorry I didn't see the "rules" to posting WWS logs anywhere, so please kindly stop crying about something that doesn't matter for the point that was being brought up. WWS isn't for showing off, it's for maximizing my character. If I wanted to show off, I'd stack a raid and post on the WoW mage forums, not here. Sorry if I'm a bit harsh, but you are being fairly rude and unhelpful.


@Manly, I currently have every possible haste item in the game from craftables to all the badge rewards and even the healer cloak off ilidan. I have been reading about the rolling ignites and wanted to know if its possible with max haste items and hero, could you go below 2 seconds on fireball, without trinket poping. Just static haste.

Last edited by Mojache : 01/19/08 at 5:18 AM.
#2272SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vonwen
Well, maybe the WE can be targetted and hit by the fireball, but won't suffer the aoe damage then ?
#2273SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2edwin
40/0/21 is a quite good talent for the raids, which have just entered the black temple. As I know, this talent is very popular for Chinese raids because the Chinese TBC started at september 2007.
1 deep frost + 2-3 arcane/frost ---- cheap and efficient, frost bolt has no partial res, 2t5 + 2t4 already works well. I have enough evidence to prove the ghost hit of frostbolt on raid bosses before 2.3.2, but now I haven't enough data yet, in my opinion from recently raids, it is still alive
40/0/21 is restricted at Teron, but competitive at Supremus (I achieved 1300dps many times with t4+t5), Mother and Illidan. I am quite sure that, at item level of T5, deap frost has little chance to beat arcane/frost if they raid together.

1 question from me: is penetration really useless in pve?
I have compared many WWS data sheets with and without CoE, the difference is not obvious even against those bosses with high res (Supremus, Rage winterchill, Council), I have teseted Council fight with 10 and 80 penetration several times, the difference of my frostbolt miss rate was about 5%.
#2274SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
 manly
Originally Posted by Mojache View Post
Trust me, theres always cry babies to whine. Theres nothing wrong with MY numbers, this isn't a thread to chit chat about raid DPS on teron gorefiend. I was only showing the highest potential of arcane missiles that I can do as my current gear level with AM, which is close to optimal. You are crying about how someone in my guild merges pet data and data of another raid member, thats nice you personally feel all that should be left out besides the core numbers but then I'm sure you would cry that the DPS was of course being "fake" because we all went out and got the DMF buff, oh and that we run 15 leather workings in a raid, oh geeze and we used different amounts of healers then most people! Man were such cheaters! God I had a shaman and a shadow priest! So many hacks!

Sorry I didn't see the "rules" to posting WWS logs anywhere, so please kindly stop crying about something that doesn't matter for the point that was being brought up. WWS isn't for showing off, it's for maximizing my character. If I wanted to show off, I'd stack a raid and post on the WoW mage forums, not here. Sorry if I'm a bit harsh, but you are being fairly rude and unhelpful.


@Manly, I currently have every possible haste item in the game from craftables to all the badge rewards and even the healer cloak off ilidan. I have been reading about the rolling ignites and wanted to know if its possible with max haste items and hero, could you go below 2 seconds on fireball, without trinket poping. Just static haste.
First, its not possible to do fireballs casting fast enough that without cooldowns (yes, even drums on top of that) that you can do rolling ignites. Besides, if you read the thread you would have seen that the goal is not sub 2s fireballs, but I digress. Maybe with ashtongue trinket 100% uptime and perma-drums. In any case you're gunning for ~785 passive haste rating.

Something else to note. If you use WWS as a way to max your dps, then you definately don't want to merge data across players. First, there is no reason at all to do it, second you just increase the odds that your parses are unreliable as source of data. I have seen many merged logs with things such as 2 COD within the same minute (ie: not possible in game), or players gaining one or 2 extra fireballs. If you want to make a fun test, merge logs with players with extreme latency. And merge logs with players using non-english clients. You will be very surprised at the results. It has, it can and does increase player dps by numbers that have no correlation with your actual performance.

But regardless of whether or not you believe me, I challenge you to give me a single reason to merge logs. I know you won't be able to find one.

Last edited by manly : 01/19/08 at 12:33 PM.
#2275SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
drowsy
I was wondering how much thought people have to put into the problem of casts mysteriously getting interrupted when changing targets. I come across this problem frequently when I farm warlocks at legion hold and may have noticed a pattern to it.

It appeared as though every time I release a fireball, change targets, and start a new cast before it lands, the new cast would consistently be interrupted every time the first one was a killing blow. It would not happen if the preceding cast was a scorch, nor if a killing blow came from an ignite midcast, so it could possibly be something unique to airborne spells. It also would occur on both crits and non-crits, so I believe interactions with ignite and such are not an issue, though I can't rule out procs of things like Mark of Defiance or Darkmoon Card: Crusade. I have yet to see an interrupt happen changing targets on nonkilling blows, which I tend to do frequently at legion hold when trinketed.

Do we know if this is an issue for other ranged classes, or has anyone seen a counterexample or other situations where this happens? I plan to monitor this more closely in groups, to see if the killing blow is consistently the issue when there are other players involved.

Last edited by drowsy : 01/19/08 at 11:17 PM.
#2276SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by drowsy View Post
I was wondering how much thought people have to put into the problem of casts mysteriously getting interrupted when changing targets. I come across this problem frequently when I farm warlocks at legion hold and may have noticed a pattern to it.

It appeared as though every time I release a fireball, change targets, and start a new cast before it lands, the new cast would consistently be interrupted every time the first one was a killing blow. It would not happen is the preceding cast was a scorch, nor if a killing blow came from an ignite midcast, so it could possibly be something unique to airborne spells. It also would occur on both crits and non-crits, so I believe interactions with ignite and such are not an issue, though I can't rule out procs of things Mark of Defiance or Darkmoon Card: Crusade. I have yet to see an interrupt happen changing targets on nonkilling blows, which I tend to do frequently at legion hold when trinketed.

Do we know if this is an issue for other ranged classes, or has anyone seen a counterexample or other situations where this happens? I plan to monitor this more closely in groups, to see if the killing blow is consistently the issue when there are other players involved.
I believe the specific issue involves changing targets mid cast (to chain cast) the first target dies before your next cast goes off, be it by you or the rest of your raid. The mobs need to both be the same type (bonechewer warlock or something) for it to occur. I believe it was mentioned earlier that in 2.4 mobs are getting their own ID's so the issue will possibly be resolved.
#2277SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Goedel
In fact, spells will be interrupted like that even if you've already cast one or two times on the second target (you underestimated target one's time to live) and are continuing to chain cast as the first goes down, which seems even stranger. Waiting for the cast bar to complete (accepting the bit of latency rather than chain casting) before one of the casts on target two seems to be the only way to avoid the possibility of such interruption now.
#2278SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Sancus
Originally Posted by Mojache
WWS isn't for showing off, it's for maximizing my character. If I wanted to show off, I'd stack a raid and post on the WoW mage forums, not here. Sorry if I'm a bit harsh, but you are being fairly rude and unhelpful.
Actually, merging Vengeful Spirits into rdps is specifically done for the purposes of showing off by increasing your rdps so that you show up higher on the rankings list. It has no effect on how fast Teron dies, and no effect on the fight, thus there's no conceivable "maximizing" reason to do it. So I'd have to say that WWS as your guild is using it is specifically to show off.
#2279SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Chimera
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Actually, merging Vengeful Spirits into rdps is specifically done for the purposes of showing off by increasing your rdps so that you show up higher on the rankings list. It has no effect on how fast Teron dies, and no effect on the fight, thus there's no conceivable "maximizing" reason to do it.
If we had used ghost data when other people were not doing it, then I would agree with you. Since every other top 5 parse (and most of the parses on the first page) for teron has ghost data merged, merging it is the only way to put yourself on an even footing (rankings wise) with the other guilds posting parses.

However, this is completely beside the point, since Mojache was not talking about our guild DPS. He was talking about his personal DPS, to which the ghost data in the parse is completely irrelevant.

So I'd have to say that WWS as your guild is using it is specifically to show off.
This point is pretty much completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but I'll address it anyways. That's true, the point of posting a number 1 dps parse is to show off. WWS is one of many valuable ways to recruit quality applicants. Ghost data being included in teron parses isn't a new thing. Not so long ago we were not merging pet data, and were wondering why what we thought were very high DPS kills were not making it to where they ought to on the WWS rankings. We investigated and realized that the guilds beating us were merging ghost data into their parses. That bothered me too, but what can you do? So now we merge ghost data to put ourselves on an even footing with them. This may obfuscate the data a little bit, but it adds roughly the same amount to every parse, so the relative rankings remain correct.

If you want a more accurate way to compare parses, just look at the fight time. (in this case 2 min 14 sec)

More importantly, WWS doesn't attribute ghost damage to a player, so the individual DPS numbers for each player in the parse are still correct. Therefor, for the purposes of this, or any other thread that is focused on breaking down an individual player's performance, ghost damage is a non-issue.
#2280SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Andersnordic
Ive made a post on the general mage forum (EU atleast) regarding suggestions for how they can strengthen our synergy/utility.

If you want us to have more synergy/utility in raids, feel free to bump the thread. Its not as pragmatic as it would be if posted here though, but its a start.


WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Why bring more than 1 mage to a raid?



#2281SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Akuman
1. We need mages in TK and SSC to sheep trash.
2. Frost mages for the parasites on Illidan
3. Fire mages for a consistent scorch debuff on the boss.
4. Several frost novas have its uses while raiding.


But besides that, I suppose you're right.

I think the idea of having molten armor affect everyone in your party is a bit too much like having an oomkin.

Perhaps a new buff like 'ever time you crit twice in a row your party get +5% haste on spells for the next 5 seconds' would be nice.

Might be a bit too overpowered...
#2282SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Nurru
Originally Posted by Akuman View Post
2. Frost mages for the parasites on Illidan
Fire mages can do this job just fine. We've done it with a single Fire mage before even. Frost makes sense when learning Phase 2 at least though.
#2283SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Kiklerakos
Indeed i've solo'ed it as fire mage with some help from hunters , though at enrage it gets tricky.(You have no CD's to CC parasites)
#2284SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Well, this is why you use cone of cold / frostnova (in that order, counter-intuitively). If you use dragon's breath you induce a 20s cooldown on cone of cold, which only makes things riskier.
#2285SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2spiderella
I'm usually spec'd deep fire w/ improved blizzard for demons on Illidan, an improved blizzard (even rank1 if it's really desperate) can be pretty clutch if you don't have any other cooldowns up or even to assist another mage from a distance.
#2286SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Sancus
2. Frost mages for the parasites on Illidan
3. Fire mages for a consistent scorch debuff on the boss.
Scorch debuff is not utility, it's a ramp-up penalty on Fire mage damage. They are not the same thing. If Scorch helped anyone else, it'd be utility, but it doesn't. Only extremely bad, incompetent Warlocks use Incinerate or Immolate, and no one else has fire-based abilities.

And, technically speaking, Hunters can frost trap and multi-shot parasites dead just as effectively as Mages if you wanted to do it that way.
#2287SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2eaglesrock
just because i havent seen any post about it in a while, is elemental precision still bugged for frost dmg that it gives 6% hit instead of the stated 3% hit?
#2288SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Gofa
Originally Posted by eaglesrock View Post
just because i havent seen any post about it in a while, is elemental precision still bugged for frost dmg that it gives 6% hit instead of the stated 3% hit?
Pretty sure it is stilled bugged.

This ID I've been deep frost for some dps testing (about ~1600dps @teron, not too bad) and I had about 11% hit. Well.. I sometimes had a shamy (+1%hit), but my resist rate was lower than 3% on all the bossfights, rather it was 1%.
#2289SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
xiaoxin21
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
I'm usually spec'd deep fire w/ improved blizzard for demons on Illidan, an improved blizzard (even rank1 if it's really desperate) can be pretty clutch if you don't have any other cooldowns up or even to assist another mage from a distance.
Won't rank 1 frost bolt do the same thing? or am I missing something?

Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Scorch debuff is not utility, it's a ramp-up penalty on Fire mage damage. They are not the same thing. If Scorch helped anyone else, it'd be utility, but it doesn't. Only extremely bad, incompetent Warlocks use Incinerate or Immolate, and no one else has fire-based abilities.

And, technically speaking, Hunters can frost trap and multi-shot parasites dead just as effectively as Mages if you wanted to do it that way.
It is utility if you bring a few mages as not all of them have to take imp Scorch. I would reckon it will help deep arcane/fire mages and also frost mages sometimes in fights you have to run around as they can throw a fireblast or 2. Also if I am not wrong, Affliction warlocks do use immolate on their dps cycle.

Last edited by xiaoxin21 : 01/20/08 at 9:11 PM.
#2290SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 Nurru
Originally Posted by Gofa View Post
Pretty sure it is stilled bugged.

This ID I've been deep frost for some dps testing (about ~1600dps @teron, not too bad) and I had about 11% hit. Well.. I sometimes had a shamy (+1%hit), but my resist rate was lower than 3% on all the bossfights, rather it was 1%.
Manly did 2000+ (2100+?) as 2/48/11 without CoE. Aspire to do more than 1600.
#2291SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Roywyn
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
Won't rank 1 frost bolt do the same thing? or am I missing something?
A long range channeled -75% speed AoE snare doesn't even begin to compare with rank 1 frostbolt really.
It does to Shadow Demons the same that a protection paladin does to Hyjal trash (ghouls in particular).

Honestly, demons with improved blizzard is a joke. It's totally trivialised to hell and back. I don't even have the words to describe it. Viscious parasites too, actually.
#2292SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2spiderella
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
Won't rank 1 frost bolt do the same thing? or am I missing something?
For parasites, if you use blizzard you can snare the two while other DPS (not using snares) help. It's not optimal over frost nova (or pet nova if a mage has that out) but I do it if someone manages to pick up parasites from melee contact, and not that it should be planned for necessarily but other range DPS probably also want to help kill these quickly. Rank1 frostbolt is also a lesser snare than imp blizz (assuming both fully talented).
#2293SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Fireflash38
Originally Posted by eaglesrock View Post
just because i havent seen any post about it in a while, is elemental precision still bugged for frost dmg that it gives 6% hit instead of the stated 3% hit?
For all the WWS that I have done in the last few weeks, yes it is still bugged.
#2294SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
Manly did 2000+ (2100+?) as 2/48/11 without CoE. Aspire to do more than 1600.
Well, to be honest the fight is like perfectly tuned to ruins frost dps as a whole. I would not expect super numbers on teron, even with 2pct4 (mostly because your pet will die from all the 'aoe' damage). (and its 2200 dmg for reference :P )
#2295SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Vasquez
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
Well maybe you can explain me then how my ele has been oneshotted 2 seconds after being popped ? I admit it happens very rarely on Illidan, but there are many other bosses where it's vulnerable to say the least.
I can confirm that stupid elemental tends to spawn in the blaze and die instantly (depending on what positioning you use for p2 of course; we use 4 groups N,S,W,E). On our first Illidan kill yesterday I popped elemental in p2, it died, I congratulated myself... moved to what looked like a safe position, coldsnapped, popped it again. It died.
#2296SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2galzohar
Yeah scorch helps other classes, but that help is negligible. You'll generally have very low fire dmg from warlocks and shamans, multiplying that already small dmg by 1.15/1.25 (well slightly less considering misery but let's ignore that for the moment) is a very, very small bonus to your raid that you can safely say imp scorch and CoE are only really buffing mage dps.
#2297SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Imbar
Originally Posted by Vasquez View Post
I can confirm that stupid elemental tends to spawn in the blaze and die instantly (depending on what positioning you use for p2 of course; we use 4 groups N,S,W,E). On our first Illidan kill yesterday I popped elemental in p2, it died, I congratulated myself... moved to what looked like a safe position, coldsnapped, popped it again. It died.
People with pets should be able to get a targetting ring (like AOEs have, flamestrike, blizzard, etc) so you can plop the elemental someplace where the stupid thing won't die and just park it the hell away from danger.
#2298SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2andastra
Dragon's breath is actually pretty good for parasites. We used to have two fire mages on parasites and two dragon's breaths would kill them.
#2299SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
The problem isn't that dragon's breath is good or not, the problem is that it triggers a 20s cooldown on your cone of cold. It should not be used unless you know for a fact you won't have to deal with an extra parasite. You should plan ahead of time, in case parasite infects another player or anything going wrong, in which case cone of cold is just safer.
#2300SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2andastra
From what I understand, though, parasites infect another player by melee. The disorient of dragon's breath takes care of that. And my guild just plays it safe by having hunters help with traps and multishot.
#2301SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
Dragons Breath+Blast Wave usually takes care of parasites. If you or another player gets infected, got Frost Nova still there to take care of them, then scorch/fire blast then AE finish em.
#2302SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
What I do is, in this order: cone of cold + frostnova (insert either arcane explosion, ice lance or fireblast)
You can also pre-cast a flamestrike, although a tad riskier.

In case of possible problem, I always have my blastwave available as a backup plan. And by not using dragon's breath I increase the odds I don't run in problems due to shorter cooldown.
#2303SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Roywyn
Hm, what is his cooldown on parasites anyway?
In phase 1, it's 20-25s seconds. You can catch them all with 21s novas, but you can't or just about can catch them with 25s novas.
In phase 3, he seems to cast parasites far less often. Seems like half as often, and using the flamstrike instead every other time.
But in phase 5, human phase under 30%, he uses parasites every 10 seconds or something? Seems faster than the usual 20-25s to me, or am I just making things up?
#2304SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
Roywyn, you're correct, in Phase 5 he does cast them a lot faster.

The only times I cast Flamestrike is when the MT gets hit with Parasite, or when I don't want to risk my positioning.
#2305SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Gofa
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
Manly did 2000+ (2100+?) as 2/48/11 without CoE. Aspire to do more than 1600.
Sure 1600dps is not comparable to fire dps, but my point was that i expected much lower numbers for frost Let me get 4/5 t6, destruction potions, maybe some drums + some upgrades in gear and i can see frost dps get close to 2000dps on a "patchwerk fight" (no interrupts + no dead pet) (although I will be fire again next week).



In my experience dragon's breath works just fine for killing parasites. We bring 2-3 mages to Illidan. If someone gets parasites, we just all use dragon's breath (+ maybe an arcane explosion or blastwave) and they will die instantly. If we have some trouble keeping up with them, we still have frostnova, which will be enough to get them under controll again.
#2306SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Hm, what is his cooldown on parasites anyway?
In phase 1, it's 20-25s seconds. You can catch them all with 21s novas, but you can't or just about can catch them with 25s novas.
In phase 3, he seems to cast parasites far less often. Seems like half as often, and using the flamstrike instead every other time.
But in phase 5, human phase under 30%, he uses parasites every 10 seconds or something? Seems faster than the usual 20-25s to me, or am I just making things up?
He does spawn them a lot more in phase 5, which is why cone of cold is preferred however I almost always dragons breath in the other phases along with blinking over at the last second in the early phases and fire blasting Illidan on the way back if I happen to still be in range.
#2307SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Hate Monkey
When you're first learning Illidan, using Frost Nova is a good idea, but as you get deeper into the fight and get more lax about how control goes, using DB and CoC before any nova's happen is best. Save Frost Nova for lose parasites only.

Well Gofa, unlike fire, Frost has zero benefit from 100%+ haste effects, so when you stager your cooldowns just right, you technically should finish just behind Fire because of rolling Ignites providing a dps boost.
#2308SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2
Edited onPatch 2.3.2
maxavier
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I just added it up and frankly I'm pissed about ignites even more now.

You lost 11737.4 damage of ignites rolling off at the end if i added it up correctly

04:27'00.388 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 7949 Fire damage
04:27'03.378 Manly's Ignite dots Teron Gorefiend for 3006 Fire damage
04:27'03.949 Manly's Fireball dots Teron Gorefiend for 34 Fire damage
04:27'04.594 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 7617 Fire damage
04:27'06.284 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 7384 Fire damage
04:27'08.172 Manly's Fireball dots Teron Gorefiend for 34 Fire damage
04:27'08.376 Manly's Fireball crits Teron Gorefiend for 6703 Fire damage
04:27'08.879 Manly's Fire Blast crits Teron Gorefiend for 3667 Fire damage

The only ignite in there is 20% of the first fireball listed + previous crits..and you never see any other ignites.
I'm curious, is this a proven thing? I somewhat was wondering on whether fire dots are overwritten by consecutive applications or do they ramp up. Needless to say I did not get any response as no one could actually tell me exactly how it works. Could someone shed some light on this? Is the loss of damage from overwritten dots a major loss of DPS? Or is it fairly minor and negligable

p.s. I'm sorry if this is inappropriately placed in the wrong thread, I am just using a quote from a previous post.

Last edited by maxavier : 01/21/08 at 8:57 PM.
#2309SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by maxavier View Post
I'm curious, is this a proven thing? I somewhat was wondering on whether fire dots are overwritten by consecutive applications or do they ramp up. Needless to say I did not get any response as no one could actually tell me exactly how it works. Could someone shed some light on this?

p.s. I'm sorry if this is inappropriately placed in the wrong thread, I am just using a quote from a previous post.
In the case you quoted it wasn't that ignite got overwritten. The ticks will get pushed back on sub 2 second crit streaks, meaning assuming teron lived another 5 seconds or so after that last fireball crit (assuming he did not crit again to push it back) the total ignite damage would still tick off. The reason he "lost ignite damage" was that teron died.
#2310SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2maxavier
What about the dot component of a fireball? Or is the damage from a fireball dot so low that it is inconsequential. Nevermind the Teron Gorefiend case, talking about a general case on an average boss.
#2311SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Etherealz
Originally Posted by maxavier View Post
What about the dot component of a fireball? Or is the damage from a fireball dot so low that it is inconsequential. Nevermind the Teron Gorefiend case, talking about a general case on an average boss.
Sorry I had assumed you were talking about the ignite dot.

The fireball dot gets refreshed by new fireball applications - it does not stack up, and assuming you don't have issues with debuff slots it won't get knocked off.
#2312SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2 manly
Oh man if only the fireball dot stacked !
#2313SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Morkai
I'm wondering if I can get some advice on this matter.. I'm 2/48/11, with mostly tailoring gear and a couple of spare PvP pieces. Although my DPS is more than fine, I often find I run out of mana too quickly. On fights like Prince or Nightbane, I simply can't DPS the whole fight. I use gems and pots every cooldown, evocate, and I'm using mage armor instead of molten. Lately I've been also using mp5 consumables instead of +damage. Still I'm unable to DPS the whole fight. A shadow priest is a rare commodity for me. I just realized that the tailoring gear is so good because it's itemized for pure DPS, and has almost no stats..
So I was thinking, should I switch back to 10/48/3, or maybe switch some pieces of gear for others with more int? While it would theoretically lower my DPS, that DPS is no good if I don't have mana to do it, right?
#2314SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Tifordin
Originally Posted by Morkai View Post
I'm wondering if I can get some advice on this matter.. I'm 2/48/11, with mostly tailoring gear and a couple of spare PvP pieces. Although my DPS is more than fine, I often find I run out of mana too quickly. On fights like Prince or Nightbane, I simply can't DPS the whole fight. I use gems and pots every cooldown, evocate, and I'm using mage armor instead of molten. Lately I've been also using mp5 consumables instead of +damage. Still I'm unable to DPS the whole fight. A shadow priest is a rare commodity for me. I just realized that the tailoring gear is so good because it's itemized for pure DPS, and has almost no stats..
So I was thinking, should I switch back to 10/48/3, or maybe switch some pieces of gear for others with more int? While it would theoretically lower my DPS, that DPS is no good if I don't have mana to do it, right?
Your INT is looking a little low. To be honest stacking MP5 isn't going to help you all that much, by far your biggest source of regen is gems and evocation. As you say, going back to clearcasting (10/48/3) over icy veins (2/48/11) will give you better mana efficiency. Your potential DPS will drop a little, but again as you say, you can't DPS without mana

General tips for when to use mana regen abilities (which you may or may not be doing already...)
- Pop your first gem as soon as possible without overflowing your mana pool (ie when you have used more mana than the maximum regen for that gem).
- Do the same for your first pot.
- Pop evocation early, preferably before your second gem/pot. This way you may get a chance to use it again (particularly in long fights such as Nightbane) - and when you do, it will usually coincide with that critical sub-20% stage where you are doing more damage.

Finally, if you are still having serious issues, talk to your raid leader or guild officers about getting a shadow priest or shaman in your group. Chances are the healers would love one too.
#2315SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.2Finkum
Originally Posted by Morkai View Post
I'm wondering if I can get some advice on this matter.. I'm 2/48/11, with mostly tailoring gear and a couple of spare PvP pieces. Although my DPS is more than fine, I often find I run out of mana too quickly. On fights like Prince or Nightbane, I simply can't DPS the whole fight. I use gems and pots every cooldown, evocate, and I'm using mage armor instead of molten. Lately I've been also using mp5 consumables instead of +damage. Still I'm unable to DPS the whole fight. A shadow priest is a rare commodity for me. I just realized that the tailoring gear is so good because it's itemized for pure DPS, and has almost no stats..
So I was thinking, should I switch back to 10/48/3, or maybe switch some pieces of gear for others with more int? While it would theoretically lower my DPS, that DPS is no good if I don't have mana to do it, right?
I'd say a lot of the problems you have are simply a result of low raid dps - as your guild gears up and people become more comfortable with the fights, you will find the boss will drop before you are mana-starved. In the meantime, respeccing back to 10/48/3 is an option, but I'd advise against regearing for intellect. The amount of mana you receive from pots, gems, BoW, spirit returns (when using Mage Armor), MoE etc. dwarfs the extra 500 - 1000 mana you can get from regearing. Also, the lesser amounts of spell damage/crit found on high stat gear mean that your worse DPM may lead you to doing the same or even less damage.

Alternately you can just use a very mana-efficient rotation such as AB Scorch x4, which is what I favoured back when Nightbane was progression content for me. The advantage of just changing your rotation is that you save on the respec money and can still utilise IV+Combustion+IotSC for those fights where mana is not an issue.

Finally, questions like this probably are better placed in Mage - Help me please?
#2316SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Morkai
I apologize for that, I actually meant to post on the Help Me thread. I think I opened both threads, went to do something else and posted on the wrong one when I came back.

Thanks for the answers, now that you mentioned, my raid dps is kind of low. I'm usually 20-25% of the raid damage on bosses, and that's considering that I have mana problems. I think I'll take the advice to use a different roation on long fights. There are still a lot of fights where I don't have mana problems, and I'm in love with Icy Veins :*
We only have 1 raiding spriest at the moment, and he doesn't play very often, but I get him when he comes.
#2317SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Came close to hitting 2400dps this week, but being the only mage grr at being the only scorcher and 1 resist below 20% hurt .

Did 2358 - WWS Loading...

Group was Ele Shammy, Oomkin, Sp, Me, Destro Lock
Had CoE, 2 drums. We blow hero early on, so only had double trinket + iv + destro pot below 20%.
#2318SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3ninor
Using CoE in that group, don't you sacrifice raid DPS for personal gain?
#2319SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vonwen
Group was Ele Shammy, Oomkin, Sp, Me, Destro Lock
Well, that's like the absolutely perfect group, but I'm not so sure it really shows what a mage can usually do ;p On a side note, what's the cooldown on the drums again ? 2 minutes ?
#2320SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
Yes it's 2min. CD and 30secs duration."Group was Ele Shammy, Oomkin, Sp, Me, Destro Lock" i have people whining on me for the SP even
#2321SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Originally Posted by ninor View Post
Using CoE in that group, don't you sacrifice raid DPS for personal gain?
hmmm CoA, wouldn't do 230dps .
#2322SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Originally Posted by Vonwen View Post
Well, that's like the absolutely perfect group, but I'm not so sure it really shows what a mage can usually do ;p On a side note, what's the cooldown on the drums again ? 2 minutes ?
Ehh, my dps varies very little when in the other caster dps group 2x bm hunter/sp/resto shammy (drops hunter totems). And before that night i've actually had some of my strongest dps come when it was 1 bm hunter + 4 casters and the shammy dropped wrath of air so i would have WoA + FI.

And since thats our caster group every night it's what the mages in our guild can do
#2323SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Ozzmar
~Misinformed post - please delete~

Last edited by Ozzmar : 01/24/08 at 3:15 PM.
#2324SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
This is why you do trinketed COD with ISB up. Yes, the DPS is absurd.
#2325SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Searix
On a side note, mages aren't balanced until we can rival CoDing warlocks. Manly, while it was impressive to get such high dps on fights like Teron, are you still doing enough damage to justify your spot over a CoD lock? Who can still bring the raid synergy of his extra soulstone?

Edit: Sorry, more than a CoD lock. Additional DPS is lost by the CoE lock who has to do CoE (which only helps us) over CoD.

Assuming max dps, a mage shouldn't even be in a boss fight, they should do what some paladins do and do their buffs, then log out until the next boss, and repeat.

Hate to sound pessimistic, but with sunwell coming up the min/maxing will have to be there to compete.

Last edited by Searix : 01/24/08 at 3:44 PM.
#2326SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Well, I am not delusional. I am fully aware that redoing my performance will not be an easy task. Although I did get ignites falling off, but regardless, high dps is certainly reproducible, but it really requires precision. On the other hand, trinketed COD is mindless, and will give 'garanteed' results. For mages, its a bit a crapshoot, in the sense that one fight I might push 1950-2200 dps non-coe (and maybe even less, if sufficiently unlucky). I think on average you will still prefer or should be doing COD over COE in the case of 1 mage. I mean, I cannot garantee to match the COD dps. I can get close, but I can't know for sure. I think the best compromise would be to COD, then switch to COE for the 'last' COD. For instance, on a ~3min fight, 2 COD + COE would be best, your fire mage can take advantage of execute-ish COE, and the warlock would have had to COA anyway if he knows COD will not have the time to tick, and COA is only good if you get those last ticks in (and debatably, not worth casting for destro locks).

So yeah, this is what I would recommend. If you have 1 fire / frost mage, COD while you know its gonna tick for sure, then switch to COE. For 2 mages, I think nobody can realistically debate that COE > COD.

And although I do agree with the general stigma that mages dont have any raid synergies, and don't really top meters (that is - we would be better be replaced by destro locks), keep in mind that since the venue of icy veins this puts mages on equal footing as destro locks, as long as they don't have COD and we get COE. Our strenght is that we have cooldowns whereas they don't. This is where our focus, as a player, should be put, on our distinctive advantages. I gueninely believe icy veins allows mages to scale better than locks (or rather, very slightly above), because it allows us to stack a considerate amount of cooldowns. However, as I admitted, it does assume a very very precise control of your play, something that is not easy to accomplish.

My request for a new mod (the bar) would greatly help to that end. I started working on an article about how to play your cooldowns properly, and there is a lot more than meets the eye.

So yeah, I fully agree with you that warlocks are still more desirable, but I think this is why we, as mages, should strive and play better than we ever did to repell the idea that mages are bad dps, which sadly seems like a recurring theme.

Last edited by manly : 01/24/08 at 4:57 PM.
#2327SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3beta4Life
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
On a side note, mages aren't balanced until we can rival CoDing warlocks. Manly, while it was impressive to get such high dps on fights like Teron, are you still doing enough damage to justify your spot over a CoD lock? Who can still bring the raid synergy of his extra soulstone?

Edit: Sorry, more than a CoD lock. Additional DPS is lost by the CoE lock who has to do CoE (which only helps us) over CoD.

Assuming max dps, a mage shouldn't even be in a boss fight, they should do what some paladins do and do their buffs, then log out until the next boss, and repeat.

Hate to sound pessimistic, but with sunwell coming up the min/maxing will have to be there to compete.

I tend to disagree with this, perhaps my guilds warlocks aren't up to snuff, however I regularly out dps them, in fact on tuesday in BT we switched groups with our locks just to see how they did with the elemental shaman. That night without my elemental shammy (so i had to change some gear around to reach the hit cap, losing some dmg/crit/haste) I still beat the warlocks in dmg on najentus, and was pulling ahead of them on gorefiend when I was smashed by a construct that someone had failed to kill.

Basically a well-geared/played mage can easily put out 2200+dps with CoE, and can push it up over 2400+, which is around the highest I have seen locks using CoD doing. Yesterday on rage our top3 DPS were all mages, me with 2300+ second mage right around 2100, third one sitting around 2050, sure we could use some raid synergy, but our DPS is no laughing matter these days, heroism +IV+skull+dmg trinket +molten fury range = ludicrous DPS.

Then you have our utility, polymorph makes trash easier, and when you think about it 75% of any raid instance you are doing is trash, maybe it sucks that our utility isn't useful on bosses but we do save alot of time and are very useful for trash. As long as our dps is on a similar level as warlocks there will always be a spot for 2-3 good mages in a raid.
#2328SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Actually, with mage dps at its current level, and the failure of scaling that is Curse of Doom, i'm pretty sure that CoE is now more beneficial than CoD with even one mage.

Assuming CoD does 13.2k (which is average), and you doing 2.3k dps, elements being 10% more dps (230 dps), over 1 minute you will do 13800 extra damage thanks to CoE. Add a little bit more slightly for imp SB and trinkets, and subtracting heavily for being a 1.5 second cast when he could have been doing shadowbolts, and i must say that at our current level of dps Elements is better for the raid than Doom even with 1 mage.

Then again manly, what class doesn't change drastically depending on their luck on any given fight?
#2329SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3beta4Life
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Actually, with mage dps at its current level, and the failure of scaling that is Curse of Doom, i'm pretty sure that CoE is now more beneficial than CoD with even one mage.

Assuming CoD does 13.2k (which is average), and you doing 2.3k dps, elements being 10% more dps (230 dps), over 1 minute you will do 13800 extra damage thanks to CoE. Add a little bit more slightly for imp SB and trinkets, and subtracting heavily for being a 1.5 second cast when he could have been doing shadowbolts, and i must say that at our current level of dps Elements is better for the raid than Doom even with 1 mage.

Then again manly, what class doesn't change drastically depending on their luck on any given fight?
I agree completely all though the randomness of it is the problem, for those fights where you are doing the 2300 dps it is worth it, however when you get unlucky and only do 2k, it isn't worth it. Really you would need your dps increase from CoE to be large enough to out weigh the randomness of your dps, since CoD will be doing 230 dps pretty much guaranteed.
#2330SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akuman
Manly, your idea for the addon seems good.

I could honestly see an addon like that working.

You would just have the slight problem of all the calculations that go into the addon, such as the number of members alive, and some serious syncing of dmg done.

I would expect all the members to have this addon, and then perhaps it would be possible.


Try checking up with the Author of 'Recount' since that seems to be the best 'ingame' addon for dmg done.

SWstats is great for WoWweb stats, but Recount seems to deal with ingame analysis better than Swstats.
#2331SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by manly View Post
This is why you do trinketed COD with ISB up. Yes, the DPS is absurd.
Minor point, but unless I am highly mistaken (and I might be), you have to have CoD tick while ISB is up. The time you cast it is irrelevant as you have no idea whether ISB will be up 1 minute later.
#2332SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Originally Posted by beta4Life View Post
I agree completely all though the randomness of it is the problem, for those fights where you are doing the 2300 dps it is worth it, however when you get unlucky and only do 2k, it isn't worth it. Really you would need your dps increase from CoE to be large enough to out weigh the randomness of your dps, since CoD will be doing 230 dps pretty much guaranteed.
CoD isn't random? Half the time it doesn't have imp shadowbolt, sometimes the shadow priest dies and shadow vuln drops when it ticks. Occasionally it gets bumped off. The what "ifs" apply more to CoD i'd say, and if it didn't, this game is all about averages, and the average dps of a mage should be enough to warrant CoE over CoD with even one mage.
#2333SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Actually, with mage dps at its current level, and the failure of scaling that is Curse of Doom, i'm pretty sure that CoE is now more beneficial than CoD with even one mage.

Assuming CoD does 13.2k (which is average), and you doing 2.3k dps, elements being 10% more dps (230 dps), over 1 minute you will do 13800 extra damage thanks to CoE. Add a little bit more slightly for imp SB and trinkets, and subtracting heavily for being a 1.5 second cast when he could have been doing shadowbolts, and i must say that at our current level of dps Elements is better for the raid than Doom even with 1 mage.

Then again manly, what class doesn't change drastically depending on their luck on any given fight?
Well, not all fights are tank and spank. I would have a hard time to imagine much above 2.3k dps on gurtogg given the necessity to do a full invis, and the fact that you probably need to use 1x gem and/or 1x mana potion. I think 2.1k (with coe) would be much closer to the expected average of high-end mage dps on gurtogg. Then again, this is fairly a tank and spank, but fights like archimonde (ignoring here decursing duties), you're pretty much garanteed that COD will be better than COE for 1 mage.

I think it all comes down to common sense. You know whether or not you can push 2+k dps consistently on a given fight, if you can, I think COE will 'equal' COD as far as the 1-mage-context goes.

Also Akuman, you should try timetodie. It simply checks the time taken for the boss hp to change. The algorithm is the simpliest thing ever. Yet, I think for all intent and purpose it is good enough, and definately does not require any much more advanced settings. All you need to do is slightly adjust the execute range. If we wanted to get something more accurate, then we would take into consideration the number of bloodlust activated. Not much more than that should be needed.

EDIT: ah I stand corrected then. I thought COD damage was calculated on cast (as far as debuffs go). question: do you activate the trinkets on cast or when it lands to get the extra bonus on COD ?
#2334SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Good addon, especially now that our guild has seen the value of heroism at 20% for fire mages our 3 get it at ~25-30% (depending on when the mod says to) and go at it.

You do have a point too manly, Doom is of course better on a fight where you move. But with blink for doomfire and air burst, i find that i get a lot more dps time than other classes. That said, warlocks just have to be in range to cast doom once, but the converse is true, if they're out of range they can't cast doom and lose said time and raid dps by not having a curse up.

Also fights like Gurtogg Serpent-Coil the roughly on par dps trinket works wonders, both in the extra mana and the fact that it stacks like a double trinket.
#2335SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by manly View Post

EDIT: ah I stand corrected then. I thought COD damage was calculated on cast (as far as debuffs go). question: do you activate the trinkets on cast or when it lands to get the extra bonus on COD ?
Curse of Doom is considered a DoT effect, and gets its spellpower bonus on cast. Effects like Curse of Shadows and ISB affect individual ticks while they are up, but trinketing at this point has no benefit.

For example, if my corruption does 300 damage a tick normally, it will go 300-300-300-300 etc.

Say trinketing increases that to 400 a tick, or 400-400-400-400 etc.

If ISB is up for ticks 2 and 3, that changes to 300-360-360-300 etc, or if you trinket, 400-480-480-400 etc. The latter sequence will retain its 400 'base' damage even if the trinket expires right after the cast.

But given the minute timer for CoD to tick, its a coin toss as to whether ISB is up at that time.
#2336SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
You do have a point too manly, Doom is of course better on a fight where you move. But with blink for doomfire and air burst, i find that i get a lot more dps time than other classes. That said, warlocks just have to be in range to cast doom once, but the converse is true, if they're out of range they can't cast doom and lose said time and raid dps by not having a curse up.
This sort of gets into randomness of fight lengths, but in say a 7:45 fight, we have that 45 seconds off 'leeway' time between CoDs. On a 7:45 second Archimonde, there would have to be a lot of bad luck for me to get less than 7 curses off. So in that sense, I'd have 100% CoD 'uptime'. On an 8:00 fight, I probably don't cast that last CoD as its not a sure thing to tick.

I guess the theorycraft of this is rather hard to model; you'd probably have to estimate how much dps uptime the mage has to pick the better option. That said, on any given 10 minute fight, a lock will probably have 9 CoDs go off, and certainly no less than 8.

The bigger issue is threat. Our nukes get the same 10% threat reduction as yours, but damage from CoD does not get it. I'm not as geared as you guys, so its not an issue for me at the moment (the highest DPS I have done is 2108 on Kaz'rogal), but it can be with 4 pc t6.

I think overall our classes' dps is comparable, but warlocks come with the advantages of Soulstones, higher stamina, healthstones, and the lack of cooldown management simply makes us easier to play.
#2337SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
beta4Life: You might be viewing the "lifetap effect". While warlocks will undoubtably dance over the possibility of 3% extra hit and crit the 25mp5 difference between elemental and resto shamans, as well as the hugely potent mana tide mean that they might be better off having the resto. Every single lifetap is 3/5 of a shadowbolt they didn't cast and ele shamans start to become better than resto shamans only when they don't incur more lifetap's worth of DPS loss than their ToW provides.
#2338SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I don't know about all this "resto shaman for warlocks" thing. Doing some rough numbers on lieuler's spreadsheet: Mana tide on a 10 minute fight seems to add about 11 dps on my baseline ~1600 dps warlock (basically eqqual gear quality to my mage). Improving mana spring seems to add about 4 more dps. Adding 3% crit alone will add 32 dps and that's with lieuler's not taking into account the increased ISB time. That's quite better than the ~15 dps a resto shaman would give. 3% hit if he can swap some gear would increase spell dmg as well, giving even more dps.

My mage gets 39 dps (again using same gear level as the warlock I put in lieuler and actualyl doing similar baseline dps as well) with 3% more crit and again would gain more with gear swapping. Of course if the mage is using any mana consumeables he could swap them with dps consumeables with a resto shaman available, although it's probably slightly less effective than reducing lifetaps (considering on the warlock thread it was calculated that a super mana pot is more worthwhile than a destro pot + lifetaps).

Warlocks definitely don't get more from a resto shaman than they'd get from an elemental shaman unless I'm missing something big here. Note I set the lieuler spreadsheet to lifetap so it goes oom after 10 minutes (and used 2 mana tides). On a 5 min fight using 1 mana tide it would still add 11 dps, and improved mana spring still adds 4 dps. 20 minutes fight you still get 4 dps for improving mana spring and 10 dps for mana tide (note that these are all rounded values but you can see the dps gain of improving mana spring and mana tide at different fight lengths is within +-1 dps). So fight length is hardly relevent to the benefit of destruction warlocks from a resto shaman over an elemental shaman, and obviously not relevent for the loss (as ToW is simply a dps multiplier).

When you have to choose at the end if to give the elemental shamans to the mages VS the warlocks, it would depend on the ISB model and how mages' mana is actually doing (as in how much dps they'd gain by using less mana consumeables and more dps consumeables, if they were even using mana consumeables in the firstplace).
#2339SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Well...you can't really compare a resto vs an elemental shaman in terms of just what dps gain is given to the warlock/mage. You need to consider the damage done BY the elemental shaman as well. The damage done by a single persion really doesn't matter that much if it is a raid dps loss.

So lets go with the warlock + elemental sham + resto shaman. The highest dps I've seen bye an Elemental shaman is around 1750 on Teron. So lets assume around 2100 for a destro lock. Together, this team of 3 will do 3850.

Now for the mage + warlock + resto sham. With both the mage & warlock around 2100...you're losing 350 dps by bringing an elemental sham. A +39 dps increase on the mage OR warlock isn't going to make up for this. Even if you have 4 destro locks & an elemental shaman, it's still going to be a raid dps loss.

This is why you don't see that many elemental shaman in BT.
#2340SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Elemental shamans don't have pushback protection (in a PVE context). So yeah their teron dps will be low (just like some other mage spec...)
#2341SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
drowsy
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Adding 3% crit alone will add 32 dps and that's with lieuler's not taking into account the increased ISB time ... 3% hit if he can swap some gear would increase spell dmg as well, giving even more dps.

My mage gets 39 dps (again using same gear level as the warlock I put in lieuler and actualyl doing similar baseline dps as well) with 3% more crit and again would gain more with gear swapping.
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
A +39 dps increase on the mage OR warlock isn't going to make up for this. Even if you have 4 destro locks & an elemental shaman, it's still going to be a raid dps loss.
Maybe folks have mathed it out and the result is the same, where an elemental is less total raid dps, but shouldn't that comparison be made assuming the whole group is gearing appropriately for that extra 3% +hit? Surely 3% hit is worth more than 7 dps of item budget.

Last edited by drowsy : 01/25/08 at 1:40 PM.
#2342SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I didn't include the hit because I was showing it's close, and assumed the benefit of increased spell damage by dropping 3% hit on your gear would yield again similar dps for the mage and warlock.

This wasn't about wether to bring the elemental shaman or not, but for who to put with the elemental and who to put with the resto. Granted if your elemental shaman is doing 200-300 dps under your mages/warlocks/hunters he probably isn't worth bringing, assuming your raid composition can actually replace a non-shaman healer with a resto shaman and the elemental shaman with a mage/lock/hunter. In my guild the elemental shaman is just an amazing player and gets very high dps consistently, so he doesn't meet the threshhold of elemental shaman not being worth bringing. For us it's more about who to put with him over who.

That said, I'd love to see numbers though of elemental shaman dps at similar gear levels and wether his dps increase to his group via totem of wrath is worth the loss of personal dps + mana returns. Then again does anyone really raid with 4 shamans in a raid with 3-4 of them being resto? Since shamans are big dps buffs regardless of spec, if you're min maxing why would you not bring 4 shamans of whatever spec? In that case (where you agree max dps requires a shaman in every group except tank group) the spec choices for the shamans isn't only about maximizing dps, it's also about how many healers you actually want in the raid and of what classes.

For example, while a resto shaman + another dps - holy priest for example may be more dps than elemental shaman + holy priest, the healing in your raid may (or may not...) become suboptimal as a result.
#2343SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by drowsy View Post
Maybe folks have mathed it out and the result is the same, where an elemental is less total raid dps, but shouldn't that comparison be made assuming the whole group is gearing appropriately for that extra 3% +hit? Surely 3% hit is worth more than 7 dps of item budget.
As a mage in top gear...you're going to have to really try to get to where you can use 3% more hit. Sure it's possible, but I'm at 170 hit and the only item I have on specifically for the hit is the Belt of Blasting. I would only gain 5 damage from wearing the noose. The only real way is to use Zhar'doom.

As for a lock, it is easier I'll give you that...but I question the logic of doing this. What happens if that ele sham can't raid a night...or quits wow. Sure a mage can throw on a few pieces to get to 164 easily...but a lock would have to re-gem himself or do much lower dmg.

Manly:

I forgot about the pushback protection of an ele sham...but I'm not seeing anything better on Rage.

If someone has a valid parse of an ele shaman doing 1800+ dmg, i'd love to see it.
#2344SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Problem in min/maxing is that its hard to determine where you draw the line. I'm pretty sure I would ideally run 15 shamans in a raid just for chain bloodlusting. You could also drops all mages and affliction warlocks. It's really not obvious, and no matter how much min/maxing you do you always end up with the same problem that every fight will cater to one class/build or another, in which case you min/maxed group needs to be changed.

I don't think raid composition min/maxing holds much water in practice. You either aim towards the most 'flexible' raid (ie: no need to swap players in/out for any boss fight) or you min/max a little and swap a few players here and there before a certain boss fight. I know in EJ we aim towards the former rather than the last.
#2345SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Aiming for not swapping people on farm content is cool, as all that really matters is how fast it's cleared and adding dps doesn't help if it costs wasting time getting people swapped. But when progressing I bet you'd take the best available. Not to mention even in the "average" raid, it's still not clear-cut wether you should have the mages with an elemental+sp and warlocks with resto+sp or the other way around. Even with a given raid group maximizing dps by party setup is not simple since things are so close. Add pushback elements to a fight and it's even more complicated if you try give dps casters conc auras.
#2346SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Jarlyn
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
As a mage in top gear...you're going to have to really try to get to where you can use 3% more hit. Sure it's possible, but I'm at 170 hit and the only item I have on specifically for the hit is the Belt of Blasting. I would only gain 5 damage from wearing the noose. The only real way is to use Zhar'doom.

As for a lock, it is easier I'll give you that...but I question the logic of doing this. What happens if that ele sham can't raid a night...or quits wow. Sure a mage can throw on a few pieces to get to 164 easily...but a lock would have to re-gem himself or do much lower dmg.
Warlocks receive larger amounts of spell hit on their Tier 6 sets than mages do. Assuming T6 or equivalent in most slots you're not going to lose a substantial amount of DPS from having to wear, say Ring of Captured Storms in place of Ring of Ancient Knowledge, or as you mentioned, Belt of Blasting vs Anetheron's Noose. Using my own gear as an example, I could get up to 202 hit without dropping any appreciable amount of DPS, and that isn't factoring in that warlocks get +hit from a few pieces that mages generally don't (Nethervoid Cloak, Translucent Spellthread Necklace) or the inherent gap in +hit from mage vs. lock T6 (or that I don't have T6 chest because Illidan loves the Conqueror tokens in my guild). The bottom line is that as a general rule, I think it's difficult to not hit cap yourself in T6 gear, and as a result, Totem of Wrath becomes less and less valuable as you approach "perfect" gear.

This is sharp contrast to Enhancement shamans, who give fantastic group buffs at any level of gear, and make me wish Elemental shamans had some sort of scaling buff to match their Enhancement counterparts. That's entirely off-subject, though.

As a sidenote, however, I've had great success on RoS (and to a lesser extent, Gurtogg) with splitting up our usual caster group and creating two groups of caster/caster/paladin/priest/shaman, where the caster can be a mage or lock, the priest can be shadow or holy, and the shaman can be elemental or resto. It's a bit difficult to quantify via WWS because mage DPS (in my experience) tends to vary wildly per person and per week on RoS, mostly related to who mashes Spellsteal the fastest in p2 and who's a bit luckier with crits in p3, but the net result is that the majority of the time, there isn't an appreciable gap in DPS between the two groups, and both groups as a whole seem to perform favorably against not having the Concentration Aura.

Edit: grammars.

Last edited by Jarlyn : 01/25/08 at 7:59 PM.
#2347SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Well, you can't use akama or ros for any dps measurements. The results will vary far too widely.
#2348SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
I know, RoS is just the only example of a fight where Concentration Aura is going to always be useful, rather than situationally so.
#2349SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andersnordic
I try to draw a line on logical approaches (What will actually benefit the raid as a whole, instead of minor details that would just "rearrange the dps" or give a minor boost. If the content was a lot harder I guess it would give us incentives to min/max a lot more. But unfortunately the content has a rather modest difficulty lvl.


Here is our situation atm (I think this is the situation in most BT/Hy guilds).

On trash, one lock always put up CoS. CoE is never up because the other two locks cant be arsed. I know this issue is widespread and Ive even heard it has caused some drama in a few guilds (Locks refusing to put up CoE on trash). Locks getting kicked for being slackers. But personally I haven't bothered making an issue out of it.

I'm curious about your view on this. I feel that asking locks to put CoE on trash is going too far.


As for curses in cases where only 1 fire mage; Ive discussed this with one of the locks. As far as I know "agony" will give him an average 8% boost (Compared to the 10% from CoE) so he ignores CoE automatically when only 1 fire mage.

If my estimate of 0-2% difference in DPS is correct I don't feel like making an issue out of it. It would basically be irrelevant whether the lock did his own dmg curses or put up CoE.

The only annoying thing about this issue. Locks can smell if a mage has respecced from 5 miles away;p As soon as one mage want to experiment with arcane (We only take 2 mages to raid) it is basically screwing the fire mage out of CoE.

Last edited by Andersnordic : 01/27/08 at 11:24 AM.
#2350SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
If he can spare a global cooldown for agony, he can spare a global cooldown for CoE. The only reason to not CoE on trash is if the total damage done by mages to that mob until it dies is lower than 3/5 of the average shadowbolt damage. Since full duration CoA isn't better than CoE with the raid setup you're probably running with, if it's worth it to cast CoA it's definitely worth it to cast CoE isntead.
#2351SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
I can't re-iterate this point enough: Who cares about trash? Theorycrafting the bejezus out of 1% RDPS on a boss might hold merit and value but starting to theorize which of the trash has so many hitpoints as to mandate CoE over CoA over no curse at all to maxinize RDPS stinks a little too obsessively OTT in my book.
#2352SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
It's not that I care about trash much, was just trying to show how pointless it is to be stubborn and not cast CoE. Using the logic of my post it's easy to realize that on bosses his warlocks should always be using CoE...
#2353SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3cbags
Some people feel the "every man for himself" nature of some raid groups. Were also familiar with some peoples need to look at their own damage/dps output, to justify either to themselve or other people in the group of their necessity.

Maybe you should approach the situation by mentioning that the whole purpose of a raid group is to down a boss...if there are things that anyone can do to make the entire account from Trash -> Boss easier...it should be done.
#2354SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 faykan
We're in SSC and I've had some people come back from a pre-BC WoW break who still thought the night's overall damage was indicative of his performance. He went around very smug for a while, and it was at that point where I begin to link directly to the boss WWS parses (unfortunately we tend to log trash) and people quickly got the picture without me having to say anything directly. It makes me wonder a lot about the old MC days and how much information we didn't have available to us.

I'm in a unique position as a raid leader to have control over those scenarios and thus I could drive the point home, but if anyone is in a situation where your raid leader doesn't understand as such, I can't imagine the quality of raiding is very high to begin with. Sorry for going a bit off topic there.
#2355SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I can't re-iterate this point enough: Who cares about trash? Theorycrafting the bejezus out of 1% RDPS on a boss might hold merit and value but starting to theorize which of the trash has so many hitpoints as to mandate CoE over CoA over no curse at all to maxinize RDPS stinks a little too obsessively OTT in my book.
While trash can be cleared with half the raid afk or not putting out good dps you could say the same about most of the bosses. You would theorize how to kill a boss 10% quicker and then say trash is worth nothing at all, however you might note that in a typical BT clear 2/3 of the entire raid damage is done on trash. While I wouldn't necessarily condone complete min / max thinking on trash dps - a little forethought isn't a bad idea. It makes the raid go a lot faster.
#2356SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
If we want to min/max our trash dps, before we can even start of the tc of debuffs and such, we need to contain the afk's down to 1-2 people at the most. If people go afk, any numbers ran are now off. So its a moot point to continue doing anything of the sort.

Until we have trash mobs than resemble the difficulty of the AQ40 Anubisath Defenders, don't even start.
#2357SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andersnordic
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
While trash can be cleared with half the raid afk or not putting out good dps you could say the same about most of the bosses. You would theorize how to kill a boss 10% quicker and then say trash is worth nothing at all, however you might note that in a typical BT clear 2/3 of the entire raid damage is done on trash. While I wouldn't necessarily condone complete min / max thinking on trash dps - a little forethought isn't a bad idea. It makes the raid go a lot faster.
Yea, I made a post earlier arguing that arcane is actually superior to fire (For the weekly BT/Hyjal clear (Not progression raids).

What is the definition of superior? Is it trash dmg or boss dmg, maybe total dmg. Or perhaps how long you spend clearing the instance?

If you have a raid with 3 arcane mages you will basically clear hyjal 15-25 minutes quicker (And BT 10-20 mins) than if you had 3 fire mages. Replace your 3 locks with another 3 arcane mages (For a total of 6) and you will probably reduce your clear time of Hyjal to around 60-70 minutes or shorter.

The last few weeks we have stopped sheeping trash mobs in BT, but instead we AOE them down (With some exceptions).

However, even though you will clear the instance significantly faster by going arcane, the mere thought of reducing our class to "king of trash" is repelling (To 95%+ of mages). Ppl want to pwn and top dmg meters on bosses and I guess thats understandable.
#2358SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3JasonX
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
Yea, I made a post earlier arguing that arcane is actually superior to fire (For the weekly BT/Hyjal clear (Not progression raids).

What is the definition of superior? Is it trash dmg or boss dmg, maybe total dmg. Or perhaps how long you spend clearing the instance?

If you have a raid with 3 arcane mages you will basically clear hyjal 15-25 minutes quicker (And BT 10-20 mins) than if you had 3 fire mages. Replace your 3 locks with another 3 arcane mages (For a total of 6) and you will probably reduce your clear time of Hyjal to around 60-70 minutes or shorter.

The last few weeks we have stopped sheeping trash mobs in BT, but instead we AOE them down (With some exceptions).

However, even though you will clear the instance significantly faster by going arcane, the mere thought of reducing our class to "king of trash" is repelling (To 95%+ of mages). Ppl want to pwn and top dmg meters on bosses and I guess thats understandable.
I don't quite agree with you. You are implying that bringing arcane mages in place of warlocks will result in faster clear. However, I believe that destro warlocks are superior for clearing thrash, simply because they can sustain their Shadow Bolt spam with less downtime compared to Arcane Blast spamming. With T6 gears, Shadow Bolt and SoC are superior than Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion, with the added benefit of lesser downtime from Life tap.

In fact, I even feel that bringing anything more than 1 mage is a waste if you don't intend to sheep anything. Warlocks are straight out superior for most BT/Hyjal bosses.
#2359SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by JasonX View Post
I don't quite agree with you. You are implying that bringing arcane mages in place of warlocks will result in faster clear. However, I believe that destro warlocks are superior for clearing thrash, simply because they can sustain their Shadow Bolt spam with less downtime compared to Arcane Blast spamming. With T6 gears, Shadow Bolt and SoC are superior than Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion, with the added benefit of lesser downtime from Life tap.

In fact, I even feel that bringing anything more than 1 mage is a waste if you don't intend to sheep anything. Warlocks are straight out superior for most BT/Hyjal bosses.
The problem is we don't have threat reduction on SoC.
#2360SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kirion
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
The problem is we don't have threat reduction on SoC.
Its not like you really need it on trash clears. Our warlocks "tank" aoe trash. Healers just spam heal on them and paladins ready to cast bop. I'd also call bs that bringing arcane mages can signigicatly faster your clears. Especially when you already clear all t6 content in less than 2 days.
#2361SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Does anyone else get the impression this thread is getting derailed? I somehow feel that while discussing the perfect trash-clearing setup is technicaly Theorycraft, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Somewhat like the rather abhorent "king of trash" title Andersnordic noted above.
#2362SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kirion
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Does anyone else get the impression this thread is getting derailed? I somehow feel that while discussing the perfect trash-clearing setup is technicaly Theorycraft, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Somewhat like the rather abhorent "king of trash" title Andersnordic noted above.
A bit offtopic, but probably its because we are bored and there isn't anything significant that we want to discuss. its not just this thread, look at other class threads. We really need some more 2.4 info.
#2363SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Castia
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
The problem is we don't have threat reduction on SoC.
I could be wrong but this is how I understand threat works for AoE.

Seed of Corruption Threat:
130% buffer, 30% Salvation

Arcane Explosion Threat:
110% buffer, 30% Salvation, 40% Arcane Subtlety

Assuming tank has 10k threat on a target for the ease of math,

Warlocks can do:
((10,000 x 1.3) x 1.3) = 16900 damage before pulling aggro

Mages can do:
(((10,000 x 1.1) x 1.3) x 1.4) = 20020 damage before pulling aggro.

Even without threat reduction, warlocks can put out fairly similar damage simply due to the 30% ranged buffer.

Personally I'd rather have Seed and have the range to react and Soulshatter before getting killed. Often times GCD and Iceblock don't get along too well.
#2364SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Nurru
What gems are people using in T6 level gear these days when spinels aren't available? We've had a spinel drought and I'm needing to gem a lot of gear defaulted to this character, so I'm been poking around. It seems like it comes down to [Potent Pyrestone] or [Living Ruby], but in the case of the former there are some items with +4 dmg bonuses ([Belt of Blasting], [Mantle of the Tempest] that make it come out to effectively +8 damage per socket, which is obviously preferable to a ruby.

I've poked around at Mage armories and it seems like a lot of people still have [Crimson Spinel]s due to their gear being gemmed for [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] in the past. This is probably part of the reason it's hard to get a bearing on what people are using now that [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] is the new Mage meta. Pardon my ignorance, getting back into Mage from SPriest is taking a bit of catching up.

edit: fixed a note about rubies

Last edited by Nurru : 01/29/08 at 1:07 PM.
#2365SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
6 dmg 5 crit is definitely better than 9 dmg... I woudln't count socket bonus too quickly though as it means you have to use a purple gem too, which in itself is a 6 dmg loss for a 4 dmg gain on top of the smaller loss from the orange gem. Still in just about any case a good combo of non-spinel epic quality gems will beat your best option of blue quality gems, socket bonuses or not.
#2366SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
To clarify, I was meaning to say +5 crit / +6 dmg is preferable to rubies, but especially so in the case of bonuses.

Originally Posted by galzohar
I woudln't count socket bonus too quickly though as it means you have to use a purple gem too, which in itself is a 6 dmg loss for a 4 dmg gain on top of the smaller loss from the orange gem.
I'm not sure what you mean here. In the case of those two I linked if you use two Pyrestones you're sitting at +10 crit, +12 damage. If you use a Pyrestone and Amethyst it's +5 crit, +16 (+12+4) damage, +7 stam. Are you referring to deciding between 5 crit vs 4 damage?
#2367SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
what I meant is that any non-dumb combo of epic gems will beat any combo of non-epic gems. In your example, 5 crit and 4 dmg is pretty close and the better choice actually depends on your gear, as I've seen on spreadsheets your gear could change the spell dmg equivalent of crit rating anywhere between 0.75-0.83 on gear setups I was looking at, and might even fluctuate more with other setups. Bottom line is both double pyrestones and pyrestone+amethyst are close, and both are quite better than any non-epic gem combination.
#2368SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3andastra
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
Yea, I made a post earlier arguing that arcane is actually superior to fire (For the weekly BT/Hyjal clear (Not progression raids).

What is the definition of superior? Is it trash dmg or boss dmg, maybe total dmg. Or perhaps how long you spend clearing the instance?

If you have a raid with 3 arcane mages you will basically clear hyjal 15-25 minutes quicker (And BT 10-20 mins) than if you had 3 fire mages. Replace your 3 locks with another 3 arcane mages (For a total of 6) and you will probably reduce your clear time of Hyjal to around 60-70 minutes or shorter.

The last few weeks we have stopped sheeping trash mobs in BT, but instead we AOE them down (With some exceptions).

However, even though you will clear the instance significantly faster by going arcane, the mere thought of reducing our class to "king of trash" is repelling (To 95%+ of mages). Ppl want to pwn and top dmg meters on bosses and I guess thats understandable.


I disagree. I've played BT/MH as all specs (arcane during 2.2).

In Hyjal, arcane hits the AE limit so fast you're not doing significantly more damage than a fire/frost mage.

In BT, even using the more mana efficient frost/fire builds, I'm still spending a lot of time drinking while other classes are already beating up on the next pull. Arcane really only rules on trash if your guild pulls slowly. Otherwise, you'll waste a lot of dps time drinking.
#2369SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by andastra View Post
I disagree. I've played BT/MH as all specs (arcane during 2.2).

In Hyjal, arcane hits the AE limit so fast you're not doing significantly more damage than a fire/frost mage.
That's exactly the reason why arcane does more dps on AE trash - better crit% and better crit modifiers break the AoE cap.
#2370SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
Rogues and Warriors with the necro buff stacked do such ridiculous amounts of damage on the trash that it seems like shitting up our thread with "WUT SPEC IS BEST FOR TRASH" seems all sorts of stupid.
#2371SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Glad people just skip over my posts when dealing to these retarded topics of discussion.

Have we gotten to the point where we've seen that boss's no longer matter, and it comes down to trash dps performances? Give me a break, we still have two specs floating out there that are needing a little testing, 40/0/21 on 5min+ fights, and 0/40/21 on 5 minute fights.
#2372SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andersnordic
Maybe the current instances are new, challenging, fascinating to you. If thats the case, thats cool, enjoy.

But some ppl have farmed these instances quite hard, and actually like to shorten the time spent there as much as possible (While waiting for Sunwell). Considering trash is 80% of the instance, speccing for "speed clear" can save your guild a considerable amount of time.

So simply labeling arguments relating to speeding up clears as "retarded" will only be viewed as a narrow minded comment.

The essence of the issue is that they made BT/Hyjal too easy. And Sunwell will hopefully change that.
#2373SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Glad people just skip over my posts when dealing to these retarded topics of discussion.

Have we gotten to the point where we've seen that boss's no longer matter, and it comes down to trash dps performances? Give me a break, we still have two specs floating out there that are needing a little testing, 40/0/21 on 5min+ fights, and 0/40/21 on 5 minute fights.
I don't think spec'ing for trash dps was the point of the last page of posts - You should obviously spec for maximizing your Boss dps. The issue was one of warlocks putting coe on trash mobs. It doesn't take much to see that it is almost always beneficial to raid dps - you can argue about people being afk however that's not a variable in TC - people shouldn't be going afk.

With that said, I believe 0/40/21 modeling has shown to be superior dps on sub 3 minute fights.
#2374SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
I guarantee that trash clear time is more related to attention of the raid and afk people and not debuffs of the mobs. That has and always will be the determining factor on trash clears. Until you get a 100% non-afk raid, with everyone giving 100% attention and effort on trash, making this silly discussions is pointless. You can clear content for a year and still have these issues, it's not worth the energy to type out whats better for trash clearing.
#2375SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
I guarantee that trash clear time is more related to attention of the raid and afk people and not debuffs of the mobs. That has and always will be the determining factor on trash clears. Until you get a 100% non-afk raid, with everyone giving 100% attention and effort on trash, making this silly discussions is pointless. You can clear content for a year and still have these issues, it's not worth the energy to type out whats better for trash clearing.
The same exact argument can be made with respect to boss dps - A mage who is better and has a higher dps uptime will likely out dps a better itemized / specialized mage, yet we theorycraft anyways because there's absolutely no reason not to perform as best as possible all the time. I don't know how your guild works but an afk raid is not a productive or entertaining raid.
#2376SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
The largest argument is simply that most trash mobs don't live long enough for it to matter. The difference between CoE and CoA is irrelevant when the mob barely lives long enough for me to get a full stack of scorches on it, much less cycle through my cooldowns. I could spec 20/20/21 and it'd look like passable dps on trash (exaggerating, but not a lot).

I don't understand the obsession with clearing T6 content super-fast though. I'm all for an efficient raid that moves quickly through things with minimal deaths/wiping, don't get me wrong, but for my guild and I imagine most other Illidan farming guilds, it will take us 2 days to clear our content. We clear BT in one night, we clear Hyjal on the next night, and it's not realistic to speed either up to the point that they could be done in one day. I'm perfectly content to have a relaxed raid where people can enjoy themselves without being stressed about moving as quickly as possible. If I feel like we're slacking or underperforming, then yeah, I'll get on people about it and move us back on track, but I just don't see need to be hyper-concerned about clearing in record times when there's absolutely zero pressure to do so.
#2377SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
That's exactly the reason why arcane does more dps on AE trash - better crit% and better crit modifiers break the AoE cap.
I'm going to try to break down the details on this, I've failed at math on these forums before . . .

Spell Power is 1/4 more damage on an AE crit compared to untalented. Talents will increase crit%, which is notable - Arcane Instability 3%, Arcane Impact 6%, Arcane Mind 2-3%, Clearcasting is 3%. I think with this crit it's reasonable to say crit chance with AE could be around 33%, so 1/3rd will do 1/4th more damage, so the sum of the additional +crit (14-15%) and better crit modifier (spamming AE, ~8%) is something like 23% more damage accounting from pure AE spam.

Relative to deep fire, Playing with Fire is 3% crit that an arcane spec wouldn't have, also Molten Fury will let one hit the AE cap but not exceed it (source: WoW forums) which I'd be hard pressed to quantify, but certainly not worth more than a percent or two.

I was surprised at how this adds up, I would've expected it to be a lesser advantage. Of course a WWS would be better than laying the numbers out as the collective significance of other factors in a Hyjal trash clear dwarf the relative merits of AE spam w/ differing mage specs.
#2378SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
The same exact argument can be made with respect to boss dps - A mage who is better and has a higher dps uptime will likely out dps a better itemized / specialized mage, yet we theorycraft anyways because there's absolutely no reason not to perform as best as possible all the time. I don't know how your guild works but an afk raid is not a productive or entertaining raid.
I admire your stamina if you can focus 100% of the time for 4 hours. I know I can't.
#2379SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
When you really think about it, reading these forums in order to clear BT/hyjal faster once they're on farm is probably more of a waste of time than just not reading the forums and doing the runs slower.

Not that I'm saying these forums are useless, since I bet many guilds would take a LOT more time to down new bosses without these forums and many would not be as useful on bosses (see: new bosses). It's definitely a waste of time, though, to discuss what's the best way of farming, as discussing+farming fast is generally a longer time than just farming slow. Also you will never reach an agreement to the fastest way of clearing trash because you're not even close to agreeing on what actually matters on the trash and makes it faster. You can't maximize speed at doing something when you can't even decide on all the factors that affect that thing you're trying to do fast.
#2380SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
When you really think about it, reading these forums in order to clear BT/hyjal faster once they're on farm is probably more of a waste of time than just not reading the forums and doing the runs slower.

Not that I'm saying these forums are useless, since I bet many guilds would take a LOT more time to down new bosses without these forums and many would not be as useful on bosses (see: new bosses). It's definitely a waste of time, though, to discuss what's the best way of farming, as discussing+farming fast is generally a longer time than just farming slow. Also you will never reach an agreement to the fastest way of clearing trash because you're not even close to agreeing on what actually matters on the trash and makes it faster. You can't maximize speed at doing something when you can't even decide on all the factors that affect that thing you're trying to do fast.
I believe you've missed the entire point of the class mechanic forums. It is not how to clear bt faster, but how to play your class to the best it can be played and out perform other equally geared people of the same class. The challenege is not to shave 30 seconds off Teron...but to maximize the amount of dps you do. Now if you do not care about competing against other people, don't read the forums.
#2381SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Well to get this a bit back on topic towards boss dps , I had a pretty solid raid last night.

Started out with all stars aligning on Rage (had coe) not gonna post the number as it was pretty much a one time thing but uh yea it was amazing (it's in the wws)

Then did 2166dps (no coe) on kaz this one shocked me as i wear SR cape, Mage Armor no destro pots.

Then for Teron 2267dps (no coe) which was my personal goal to beat manlys 2189 no coe, soooo manly go do more dps so i have something to strive for.

wws here WWS Loading...

Group was kinda same as last time, Ele Shammy, Moonkin, SP, 2 mages.
#2382SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
If you truly intend to compare dps output, be aware that I don't have a moonkin, and that my gear is not optimum either. With this said the results should be fairly close.

My parse was done using boots of blasting/ring of ancient knowledge. Swapping to slippers of the seacaller + mana attuned band should yield a 35-40 dps boost. Then theres the moonkin. In any case, variance in RNG is what will make the most difference -- any resist or > 4% partial resists will highly mess up the numbers.

What matters most is that you did reach the goal of getting the same kind of dps. Now the next question is whether you think you did anything wrong in that attempt, and try to cull out the bad parts next time. I know personally I tend to mis-use my flame caps and drums of battle.

Last edited by manly : 01/30/08 at 12:34 PM.
#2383SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Originally Posted by manly View Post
If you truly intend to compare dps output, be aware that I don't have a moonkin, and that my gear is not optimum either. With this said the results should be fairly close.

My parse was done using boots of blasting/ring of ancient knowledge. Swapping to slippers of the seacaller + mana attuned band should yield a 35-40 dps boost. Then theres the moonkin. In any case, variance in RNG is what will make the most difference -- any resist or > 4% partial resists will highly mess up the numbers.

What matters most is that you did reach the goal of getting the same kind of dps. Now the next question is whether you think you did anything wrong in that attempt, and try to cull out the bad parts next time. I know personally I tend to mis-use my flame caps and drums of battle.

Well my gear is still not 100% optimum either I need Anetheron's Noose, small difference but still an upgrade. Then I still need to try the haste route, need a Zhardoom none have dropped and first 1 is accounted for possibly first 2 before i even get to dabble with it.

And yea RNG in this case basically made the moonkin no difference, u had 45% crit on yours to 47% crit on mine.
But I did have the better partial resist rate, but again RNG at it's finest.

And my dps is no place near capped at the current point in time IMO wether it's 20-30dps increases or more but i can still fine tune, I capped out pre 2.3 i couldn't do any more, but now dps will only improve and the biggest dps increase to come is when our RDPS gets up more and more, we shoulda had our first sub 3min kill but someone failed and we had some constructs in raid and 3 people got atropgy.
If we some how manage to get in the 2:30 range for RDPS everyones dps should go up just from the greater time under trinkets/hero.
#2384SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
What you need to change is mostly get a ring of ancient knowledge over captured storms. Swapping blasting to anetheron's noose will not really change things much, all you gain realistically is more stats (and some crit from the int, but again, very minor). I know your gear isn't optimal either, but I am under the impression mine was less optimum. In any case, all I need now is mana attuned band, should the RNG gods decide to be merciful.

And also I disagree with being damage capped. Maybe from a gear perspective, but from a play perspective I believe there always is something to improve upon. I know I've never had a single fight that I was unable to remember anything I did wrong. There's always something suboptimal, which you learn over time to best manage.

Last edited by manly : 01/30/08 at 1:13 PM.
#2385SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Originally Posted by manly View Post
What you need to change is mostly get a ring of ancient knowledge over captured storms. Swapping blasting to anetheron's noose will not really change things much, all you gain realistically is more stats (and some crit from the int, but again, very minor). I know your gear isn't optimal either, but I am under the impression mine was less optimum. In any case, all I need now is mana attuned band, should the RNG gods decide to be merciful.

And also I disagree with being damage capped. Maybe from a gear perspective, but from a play perspective I believe there always is something to improve upon. I know I've never had a single fight that I was unable to remember anything I did wrong. There's always something suboptimal, which you learn over time to best manage.

I have a mana attuned band and will prolly snag a ring of ancient knowledge, not a huge fan of haste so passed on the first bunch of them.

As for second paragraph not sure if your agreeing with me which i think you are or misread what i wrote cause of my 2.3 comment.

I concur my dps currenlty is not capped and room for improvement either in gear/or play style

pre2.3 Is when i felt i was capped, maybe it was gear, or just how gimped mages were lol.
#2386SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
I believe that icy veins has really made a huge difference. I think the net effect of icy veins is that it makes proper cooldown stacking particularly apparent. Before 2.3.2 (or before icy veins if you prefer), proper cooldown timing had a much more minor impact on your dps. As such, the variance in top mage parses was mostly meaningless (ie: 2000-2050 dps, and once upon a time 2100-ish). Nowadays I think mages started picking up on the concept of proper cooldown stacking, which I kinda started in a way in quite a few of my posts. Now mages have noticed that hey I'm getting a huge dps boost form icy veins, and the only plausible explanation seems to be proper cooldown stacking -- or proper play if you prefer.

There is lots of room for min/maxing. And pre 2.3.2 those min/maxing were mostly not apparent (in WWS) because there wasnt a key spell that would greatly affects the numbers as much as we have now. Thus, it gave the 'false' impression we were damage capped.

EDIT: I know this is somewhat late, but keep in mind the RNG has a much bigger impact on DPS. Notably, the timing of crits (during cooldowns) will have a huge impact on numbers. This is not something that is easily seen in WWS. Also, you can get lucky in the fireball damage range, which also is not easy to see. Looking through the resists, partial resists, and crit rate will give a good idea, but it also only shows some of it. Unfortunately I don't think it can be settled out in any meaningful way. I think what matters is honing personal play.

Last edited by manly : 01/30/08 at 1:36 PM.
#2387SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Just on a side note, since your fights go so short your dps variance would be huge from crits alone! 30% crit would cause [(1-crit)*crit/N]^0.5 deviation in your crit chance, and similar deviation in your dps. 5 minutes of non-stop fireballing with 45% crit will have almost 5% deviation in crit chance, so having your average 2000 dps go 1900 1 fight and 2100 the other is very very likely, and if your fights are shorter it only gets bigger. Add in other random factors and you only increase the deviation/variance (not by much though).
#2388SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Something we all need to aim for at <20% in addition to getting hero and drums, is getting PI. PI at 20% in addition to hero, drums, skull, destruction potion, hex shrunken, flame cap, icy veins, combustion (and maybe a band of eternal sage proc!) i was doing something like 10,000 crits every 1.55 seconds. PI makes such a huge difference.
#2389SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
Haste bracers >> Cuffs aswell right?Playing your CD's properly makes HUGE diference , this week i was on 2K dps but i played my IV just 20secs too late , also bloodlust was bad(hardly got any <20%) and SP got ghosts(no flamecap/destro pot) so it really wasn't best conditions.It's kind of hard to time your cd's with tanks aggro/mana/RDPS
#2390SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Something we all need to aim for at <20% in addition to getting hero and drums, is getting PI. PI at 20% in addition to hero, drums, skull, destruction potion, hex shrunken, flame cap, icy veins, combustion (and maybe a band of eternal sage proc!) i was doing something like 10,000 crits every 1.55 seconds. PI makes such a huge difference.
Well you won't have PI specced priest lol
#2391SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3graver
Yeah, i wish some of our priests would spec PI!
#2392SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Finkum
It's just not sensible for holy priests to go deep enough into Discipline to pick up PI. It's certainly not "something we all need to aim for" (especially given that in a substantial percentage of raids, the number of fire mages will be greater than the number of holy/disc priests). It's about as reasonable as asking a second lock to forgo destruction and go deep aff. so you can have maledicted CoE.
#2393SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Something we all need to aim for at <20% in addition to getting hero and drums, is getting PI. PI at 20% in addition to hero, drums, skull, destruction potion, hex shrunken, flame cap, icy veins, combustion (and maybe a band of eternal sage proc!) i was doing something like 10,000 crits every 1.55 seconds. PI makes such a huge difference.
To bad you're not a troll, could of had a 30% berserking and hit 1.2s fireballs, switch to 2.6s Pyroblasts and crit for 13k. It's fun when that all lines up and Fireballing is a dps loss.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 01/31/08 at 12:16 AM.
#2394SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Originally Posted by Finkum View Post
It's just not sensible for holy priests to go deep enough into Discipline to pick up PI. It's certainly not "something we all need to aim for" (especially given that in a substantial percentage of raids, the number of fire mages will be greater than the number of holy/disc priests). It's about as reasonable as asking a second lock to forgo destruction and go deep aff. so you can have maledicted CoE.
It's all about raid dps with sunwell coming up. Keep that in mind.
#2395SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Finkum
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
It's all about raid dps with sunwell coming up. Keep that in mind.
Do you really think Blizzard will tune Sunwell such that you won't be able to pass whatever arbitrary enrage timers are there without PIs consistently handed out to mages? If they do, wouldn't it be just as effective to replace all your mages with warlocks, hunters or rogues (especially as there will no doubt be the token boss with immunity to mage school x in there somewhere)?

Consider also, depending on how healer-light you typically run, that requiring one or more of your holy priests to pick up PI may mean that you need to slot an extra healer to pick up the slack (especially if there's lots of the sort of splash damage that CoH is excellent at mopping up, and doubly so if you aren't lucky enough to run with 2 - 3 resto shaman).

I'm all for min-maxing, but there are limits!
#2396SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Finkum View Post
It's just not sensible for holy priests to go deep enough into Discipline to pick up PI. It's certainly not "something we all need to aim for" (especially given that in a substantial percentage of raids, the number of fire mages will be greater than the number of holy/disc priests). It's about as reasonable as asking a second lock to forgo destruction and go deep aff. so you can have maledicted CoE.
I'm curious, given 2 destros and 1 affli, three mages all fire, would it not be superior RDPS for one of the destros to go affli for Mal-COE if the mages were all in the 2k DPS region? I mean the 2.7% difference is bound to be rather gloriously huge with all this cooldown stacking going on...

Or at the very least, for all the poor gentlemen on non-CoE raids, would it be so much to ask to get a CoE at >20% instead of the damned CoD/CoA? Clearly to make overall 2100 DPS, when in non-molten fury range a mage makes signifficantly less can only mean a 30-50sec CoE at the start of MF range (when we burn CDs) would blow heads off.
#2397SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akron
Well, about Discipline Priest and PI: You should always have one in raid, not so much for PI, but rather for (Improved) Spirit for all your raid and Pain Suppression. The latter especially is very useful to deal with predictable burst damage when learning an encounter. Just think of Fel Rage, Enrage at RoS, Dark Barrage, Enrage on Illidan and so on - and even on Mages/Warlocks when we are doing AoE. Of course, I am assuming you usually have more than one holy priest in your raids. Full Holy with CoH + T6 gear is probably the most potent healer at the moment.

In our raid we usually give PI to the best shadow priest, not because he does most damage (he still does very good damage still) but because it will yield higher mana and health returns from VT/VE for himself and his group.
#2398SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tyrian
Full Holy with CoH + T6 gear is probably the most potent healer at the moment.
I agree with all you said. If theres one healing priest in the raid, I would want them to be COH - its just such an invaluable spell. If theres 2, then DS/PI is fine for the other.

I've got one quick question about item stat depreciation, specifically haste. I was wondering how valuable my Skull of Gul'dan will be in the next expansion - namely how much blizzard will depreciate the value of haste rating to achieve +1% haste at lvl 80. If I recall, 1% from lvl 60->70 was:

8 hit -> 13 hit
14 crit -> 22 crit

What pattern are we likely to see when we get to level 80 with hit/crit - Is it likely to follow the same % devaluation? If 1% is 16 haste now at 70, would it be reasonably accurate to assume ~27 haste for 1% at level 80?

(My numbers might be a little off, but I hope the point is clear - Ill leave the serious maths for others ;P )
#2399SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
In the grand scheme of things it won't matter. You put the best items you have in every slot. The skull might be your best one one given time, or become outclassed. There is no way to know how well itemised the trinkets in the next dungeons will be.
#2400SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I'm curious, given 2 destros and 1 affli, three mages all fire, would it not be superior RDPS for one of the destros to go affli for Mal-COE if the mages were all in the 2k DPS region? I mean the 2.7% difference is bound to be rather gloriously huge with all this cooldown stacking going on...

Or at the very least, for all the poor gentlemen on non-CoE raids, would it be so much to ask to get a CoE at >20% instead of the damned CoD/CoA? Clearly to make overall 2100 DPS, when in non-molten fury range a mage makes signifficantly less can only mean a 30-50sec CoE at the start of MF range (when we burn CDs) would blow heads off.

No it wouldn't, as affliction dps is downright miserable. You're looking at a 600-800 dps loss for that Maledicted CoE.


What I could fathom, though, is 2 locks 'switching' the maledicted CoS to a maledicted CoE at the 20% mark. You lose 2 globals and 2.7% of your shadow DPS (4 users) and gain 2.7% of fire dps.
#2401SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Well, thing is, fire mages will stack every single cooldown known on earth during that 20%. Its arguably a lot more than just 2.7% fire damage, given that typically I will use:
- molten fury (+20% damage)
- drums of speed (+5% haste)
- combustion
- icy veins (+20% haste)
- skull of gul'dan (+11.15% haste)
- hex shrunken head
- bloodlust
- destruction potion
- flame cap
(in total: 1.5s fireballs, combustion, +411 spell damage, +2% crit, +20% damage)

I am sure you can see why COE would be awesome for the last 20%.
#2402SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Remember that all those cooldowns simply multiply the effect of those 2.7%. So even if you do double DPS during the last 20% (which is probably not realistic considering your cooldowns won't stay up for the entire 20->0 period) the effect is only 5.4% dps increase for the mages at the cost of 2.7% dps to your shadow users (btw isn't it additive to scorch and misery making it less than 2.7%?).
Swapping malediction to the CoE is a lot less straight-forward than you make it seem. Not saying you should or shouldn't, but it's definitely not an obvious thing, especially if u run with 3 locks, 3 mages and 3 shadow priests in your standard raid, as the lack of malediction on CoS will cause 6 people to lose dps compared to 3 peopel that gain, so if the gain is doubled during the last 20% you only gain as much as they would. It just doesn't look like swapping malediction to CoE would be a good idea, but there's a lot more you need to calculate to really tell for sure what's worthwhile, evev the trinkets SPs/locks have and when they used/will use it can make a difference, nontheless their actual dps etc.
#2403SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Inoko
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Remember that all those cooldowns simply multiply the effect of those 2.7%. So even if you do double DPS during the last 20% (which is probably not realistic considering your cooldowns won't stay up for the entire 20->0 period) the effect is only 5.4% dps increase for the mages at the cost of 2.7% dps to your shadow users (btw isn't it additive to scorch and misery making it less than 2.7%?).
Swapping malediction to the CoE is a lot less straight-forward than you make it seem. Not saying you should or shouldn't, but it's definitely not an obvious thing, especially if u run with 3 locks, 3 mages and 3 shadow priests in your standard raid, as the lack of malediction on CoS will cause 6 people to lose dps compared to 3 peopel that gain, so if the gain is doubled during the last 20% you only gain as much as they would. It just doesn't look like swapping malediction to CoE would be a good idea, but there's a lot more you need to calculate to really tell for sure what's worthwhile, evev the trinkets SPs/locks have and when they used/will use it can make a difference, nontheless their actual dps etc.
Indeed, all factors must be considered in any given raid, but the point is simple: fire mages get a benefit from Molten Fury, which is further amplified by CoS (or CoS is amplified by Molten fury, however you like to think of it), that shadow users don't. Each guild will need to examine their set up, the DPS being pulled by each member (remembering to account for differences in who got Malediction, etc.) to accurately model wether it's more useful to trade 2.7% of the raids shadow damage at 20% and below for an increase of 3.36% (2.7*1.2, for the molten fury effect) in the raid's sub-20% fire damage.
#2404SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Keep in mind it's most likely to not be the case, though, as just the fact that there are generally twice as many shadow users as mages, and that you're much less than doubling your dps with molten fury+saved cooldowns. While it's best to just run full numbers, it's just not likely to be worthwhile to swap the malediction curse without an extremely wierd raid composition.
#2405SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, thing is, fire mages will stack every single cooldown known on earth during that 20%. Its arguably a lot more than just 2.7% fire damage, given that typically I will use:
- molten fury (+20% damage)
- drums of speed (+5% haste)
- combustion
- icy veins (+20% haste)
- skull of gul'dan (+11.15% haste)
- hex shrunken head
- bloodlust
- destruction potion
- flame cap
(in total: 1.5s fireballs, combustion, +411 spell damage, +2% crit, +20% damage)

I am sure you can see why COE would be awesome for the last 20%.
What is the exact cast time of your fireballs with all of that & your passive +haste? I've never bothered to look to see if I'm hitting the GCD on fireball during everything being popped. Since you have such a large increase of damage during this point...the value of haste would be 0 once you hit the GCD...and lower the overall value of haste on all fights...but more noticable on sub 3'30" fights.

Last edited by Cardynal : 01/31/08 at 4:13 PM.
#2406SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Oh that's an easy one.
Using [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer][Bracers of Nimble Thought][Ring of Ancient Knowledge][Drums of Battle][The Skull of Gul'dan]
(or [Mana Attuned Band] ideally - it won't really affect the numbers much)

[top] 369 spell haste


~ 23.50% haste

3 / (1 + 0.2350) / 1.3 / 1.2 = 1.55s per fireball

(in other words, the max haste you can use with bloodlust/icy veins is 28.21% =~ 443 haste)

EDIT: Also, I don't think the debate is about swapping maledictioned COS/COE on execute range. It's more when you have 1 mage and 3 locks (1 using COD), the last COD/COA should be swapped for COE in that case I think.

Last edited by manly : 01/31/08 at 3:35 PM.
#2407SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Inoko View Post
Indeed, all factors must be considered in any given raid, but the point is simple: fire mages get a benefit from Molten Fury, which is further amplified by CoS (or CoS is amplified by Molten fury, however you like to think of it), that shadow users don't. Each guild will need to examine their set up, the DPS being pulled by each member (remembering to account for differences in who got Malediction, etc.) to accurately model wether it's more useful to trade 2.7% of the raids shadow damage at 20% and below for an increase of 3.36% (2.7*1.2, for the molten fury effect) in the raid's sub-20% fire damage.
But you get the molten fury effect regardless of whether you get Malediction or not. It's still 2.7% of fire damage whatever way you slice it.
#2408SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Benegesserit
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, thing is, fire mages will stack every single cooldown known on earth during that 20%. Its arguably a lot more than just 2.7% fire damage, given that typically I will use:
- molten fury (+20% damage)
- drums of speed (+5% haste)
- combustion
- icy veins (+20% haste)
- skull of gul'dan (+11.15% haste)
- hex shrunken head
- bloodlust
- destruction potion
- flame cap
(in total: 1.5s fireballs, combustion, +411 spell damage, +2% crit, +20% damage)

I am sure you can see why COE would be awesome for the last 20%.
Do the skull and the hex head not put a cooldown on the other? Would you possibly get better dps out of the 225 dmg from the [Serpent-Coil Braid] stacked instead of the haste from the skull? I doubt it, but I wonder how close it would be from a stacking perspective.
#2409SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Castia
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Oh that's an easy one.
Using [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer][Bracers of Nimble Thought][Ring of Ancient Knowledge][Drums of Battle][The Skull of Gul'dan]
(or [Mana Attuned Band] ideally - it won't really affect the numbers much)

[top] 369 spell haste


~ 23.50% haste

3 / (1 + 0.2350) / 1.3 / 1.2 = 1.55s per fireball

(in other words, the max haste you can use with bloodlust/icy veins is 28.21% =~ 443 haste)

EDIT: Also, I don't think the debate is about swapping maledictioned COS/COE on execute range. It's more when you have 1 mage and 3 locks (1 using COD), the last COD/COA should be swapped for COE in that case I think.
I'm assuming you are using molten armor and have a shadow priest. How long is that sustainable w/ using flame cap/destro pot at the final 20%

Last edited by Castia : 01/31/08 at 3:45 PM. Reason: Added quote
#2410SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
As was said many times over, if you activate the skull before any +dmg activable trinkets then it stacks. In other words, its as if all +dmg increasing activable trinkets will trigger a cooldown on other trinkets, but the trick is that some trinkets, like skull of gul'dan, aren't +dmg. In this case, for as long as you pop skull first, it stacks.

As for serpent-coil braid, using it implies you lose on flame cap (and use a 'bad' trinket assuming best gear avail).
#2411SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Yeah I suppose with a 3 lock 1 mage setup you would most likely use CoD for most of the fight but be better off with CoE for the last 20%, probably even regardless of whatever cooldowns you're stacking. Isn't that a rather odd raid setup though?
#2412SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Oh that's an easy one.
Using [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer][Bracers of Nimble Thought][Ring of Ancient Knowledge][Drums of Battle][The Skull of Gul'dan]
(or [Mana Attuned Band] ideally - it won't really affect the numbers much)

[top] 369 spell haste


~ 23.50% haste

3 / (1 + 0.2350) / 1.3 / 1.2 = 1.55s per fireball

(in other words, the max haste you can use with bloodlust/icy veins is 28.21% =~ 443 haste)

EDIT: Also, I don't think the debate is about swapping maledictioned COS/COE on execute range. It's more when you have 1 mage and 3 locks (1 using COD), the last COD/COA should be swapped for COE in that case I think.
Well, when I made that statement, I was thinking more along the lines of a 3 mage/2 destro/1 afflic/1-2 spriest raid, and curse swapping.

Your criteria here is probably more applicable to a typical raid. Regardless, the math should be similar, and it depends on how much your mages outdo your locks in that 20% range.
#2413SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Castia
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Yeah I suppose with a 3 lock 1 mage setup you would most likely use CoD for most of the fight but be better off with CoE for the last 20%, probably even regardless of whatever cooldowns you're stacking. Isn't that a rather odd raid setup though?
I don't know.. last night on Rage we had 3 warlocks, and the CoE lock died almost instantly off the pull for some reason.

The other two locks kept doing CoS/CoD and I checked his damage of Curse of Doom after and it did 40k damage total, and I did 400k damage so its roughly a wash.. plus without Curse of Dooms ticking every minute, the warlock can put out more shadowbolt DPS.. not to mention the extra benefit you would get from Fire Elemental Totems and Flame Shock by having CoE.

So no I still think even with 1 mage you do more raid DPS with CoE.
#2414SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
You warlocks just dont quite understand the dps gain we get at 20% when we pop all this. We're talking 10,000+ fireballs BEFORE ignite every 1.55 seconds for 20 seconds then a slight taper off for the rest of the fight but still high. I wish WWS would model it, but during that 20 second time period i was topping 8000 dps with PI.

On a side note, with 83 passive haste, drums, and heroism i'm getting into rolling ignite range. I wonder if not using icy veins here is a dps nerf though.
#2415SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
As far as I know rage is a short fight. Since it's such a wash it'd probably be best if he swapped for CoE after his last CoD tick as it would be a combination of <20% HP and <1min fight length, wouldn't it? This would shift matters even more in the favor of "CoD until 20% then CoE". Especially considering you did 307.7k before the 20% and 92.3k after 20%. Depending on when his CoDs ticked it could be anywhere between a small to huge benefit if he'd swap to CoE at last 20% or at least after his last CoD if he casted it well before the last 20% (or even CoA so he can swap to CoE at 20% although that's harder to calculate).
Bottom line is CoD->CoE at the end would've netted more DPS than just CoE as well as more DPS than just CoD, assuming done correctly taking fight duration into account.
#2416SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Castia
Yeah typically Rage is a short fight for us too, just had a lot of DPS die.

But anyways, I was curious how you guys are modeling CoE. Is it just a flat 10% damage boost or does the 88 less resistance to cold/fire effect anything?
#2417SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Acustar
Originally Posted by Castia View Post
Yeah typically Rage is a short fight for us too, just had a lot of DPS die.

But anyways, I was curious how you guys are modeling CoE. Is it just a flat 10% damage boost or does the 88 less resistance to cold/fire effect anything?
The only true difference the 88 less resist makes is on Supremus (fire) and Rage (frost), so I'd assume it's not even worth trying to include in the modeling.
#2418SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
Originally Posted by Acustar View Post
The only true difference the 88 less resist makes is on Supremus (fire) and Rage (frost), so I'd assume it's not even worth trying to include in the modeling.
It also helps a lot on Council due to the resistance aura. Have a heck of a time getting our locks to use it there due to one mage taning and leaving only 1-2 dpsing, but without it I usually see around 15% partial resists. With CoE it is usually around 5%, so CoE is a 20% boost on that fight. That makes it viable with only one mage dpsing.
#2419SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
I had this post written out on how Molten Fury scales poorly with rdps, but figured I'd rather turn it into a question. How much raid dps would be needed in order to warrant a 40 21 build (without molten fury) over the more standard x-4x-11 builds?

The fastests Teron kills are ticking in just over 2 mins 20 seconds, that's 32 seconds pr 20% on average. Sub 20% will most certainly (usually) go faster than 100->80% as rdps evolves. I don't have the best estimate, but let's assume 20%->death takes a perfect 20 seconds, no wasted cooldowns etc. In a best case scenario you'd do 20/1,5 = 13 fireballs with all the stacking going on, is it even possible for double icey veins and high enough rdps to outshine that? I'm not familiar enough with simulations and the math associated with it, this is why I'm asking.

Edit: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft this is the build I was thinking about.
#2420SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Acustar
Originally Posted by Vulkaire View Post
It also helps a lot on Council due to the resistance aura. Have a heck of a time getting our locks to use it there due to one mage taning and leaving only 1-2 dpsing, but without it I usually see around 15% partial resists. With CoE it is usually around 5%, so CoE is a 20% boost on that fight. That makes it viable with only one mage dpsing.
Ah yes, I'm usually the tank for council, I think I've only dps once so far. Totally forgot about that aura.
#2421SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I had this post written out on how Molten Fury scales poorly with rdps, but figured I'd rather turn it into a question. How much raid dps would be needed in order to warrant a 40 21 build (without molten fury) over the more standard x-4x-11 builds?

The fastests Teron kills are ticking in just over 2 mins 20 seconds, that's 32 seconds pr 20% on average. Sub 20% will most certainly (usually) go faster than 100->80% as rdps evolves. I don't have the best estimate, but let's assume 20%->death takes a perfect 20 seconds, no wasted cooldowns etc. In a best case scenario you'd do 20/1,5 = 13 fireballs with all the stacking going on, is it even possible for double icey veins and high enough rdps to outshine that? I'm not familiar enough with simulations and the math associated with it, this is why I'm asking.

Edit: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft this is the build I was thinking about.
I don't know why you would use kill times using darkmoon faire buff (Thottbot World of Warcraft: Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage) with 15 leatherworkers as your baseline assumption of what to expect.
#2422SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Yeah, looking at the top 50ish worldwide parses is not a reasonable assumption of what most guilds are capable of doing. Moreover, whatever the threshold for double IV is (if it exists), there's still plenty of fights that will never be realistically short enough qualify, and even for the encounters that might qualify, there's no guarantees you'll be able to output the needed RDPS. Sometimes it just isn't your night, whether it's sloppy play or just bad luck or whatever else, and you struggle even with fully farmed fights.

To add on to previous talk about PI, I certainly don't believe it's worth speccing out of CoH, but man is it fun. Last night on Winterchill (was getting CoE there), one of our priests was PvP specced and PI'd me when our bloodlust went just before 20%. I pulled ~8500 DPS for the duration of my cooldowns, all crits above 10k. The DPS from that sort of stacking is just insane.
#2423SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Assuming Molten fury range is approximately 15% of the actual kill time, you need a 4:30 kill to use double veins entirely within MF range. That kill length coincidentally would be long enough to get the first veins in after stacking scorches. The reason I believe it still not better above 4 minutes would be that the second veins is not nearly as powerful as the first since trinkets / destro pots would be on cooldown. Although having veins up through an entire lust all during molten fury range sounds powerful at least.
#2424SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
I must remind people that the ultimate goal of this theorycraft is to lead your guild to victory in whatever progression they're attempting to win.

On that note, when learning progression, there's 4 scenarios concerning molten fury.

1) You kill the boss just fine and dont get the full duration of molten fury. A dead boss is a dead boss you've acheived your progression goal.
2) You're dead, in which this theorycraft doesn't matter.
3) You're one of the last people standing, and you're doing whatever you can to beat enrage timer. In which good theorycraft can make or break the kill (Ouro anyone?).
4) You and the entire raid's up but the fight is so intense you're struggling to kill it and good theorycrafting makes or breaks the kill (Ouro again anyone?).

My point is if you kill a boss except for epeen what does it really matter if your guild gradually kills him faster and you get less molten fury time?
#2425SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mearis
Originally Posted by Castia View Post
I don't know.. last night on Rage we had 3 warlocks, and the CoE lock died almost instantly off the pull for some reason.

The other two locks kept doing CoS/CoD and I checked his damage of Curse of Doom after and it did 40k damage total, and I did 400k damage so its roughly a wash.. plus without Curse of Dooms ticking every minute, the warlock can put out more shadowbolt DPS.. not to mention the extra benefit you would get from Fire Elemental Totems and Flame Shock by having CoE.

So no I still think even with 1 mage you do more raid DPS with CoE.
Using CoD over CoR is absolutely retarded. CoR is the highest DPS curse on most fights, CoS second, CoE 3rd assuming multiple mages, then CoD.
#2426SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Chance for other people to die and thus increase molten fury effect is probably just as much as your chance to die and get absolutely nothing from molten fury. On average the value of molten fury is probably the same as if nobody died. And yes it matters as just like you say you can get a first kill with people dead if you do enough damage and they did enough damage before they died, so can they get a kill if you died early if you did enough damage. So I would say the "other people died so molten fury is better" gets pretty much balanced by the "I died so molten fury sucked" and can be safely ignored.

Looking at kill times of fights that had been on farm for a very long time as a basis for progression theorycraft is definitely pointless. I doubt new instances will have fights that will be finished within 3-5 minutes on "first kills", just like a guild's first kill of void reaver takes nearly the whole 10 minutes for example... Of course it's nice to get fights farmed faster but it's not really something that should be focused on.
#2427SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Vhad
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I don't know why you would use kill times using darkmoon faire buff (Thottbot World of Warcraft: Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage) with 15 leatherworkers as your baseline assumption of what to expect.
So let's take our Rage Winterchill kill this week:

Wow Web Stats

No Faire, no flasks. 2 minute 40 seconds, 32 seconds pr 20% on average (flaw in my initial post, 2min20 sec kill would be 28 sec pr 20%)

The point wasn't much to set a baseline assumption, the question was "At what point would double Icey Veins be superior to Molten Fury". We can agree that the faster a boss dies the shorter the execute 'uptime' would be and certainly there must be a point where 20 extra seconds of Icey Veins would outshine the +20% dmg in wounded phase. Is it clearer now what I'm asking?

Edit: in reply to Galzohar, the point would be to optimize, there's alot of raider's who's been killing Illidan for 20+ weeks now, the only thing fun to do in bt/hyjal is to try and beat your own and others records. If I could get 50-60 more dps by switching to 40 21 over the normal fire builds on short fights, I'd do it.

We don't know what new instances bring, there could be a more difficult RoS encounter where the "last" phase is basically nuke as hard as you can before the boss kills the raid, this would probably favor double icey veins. There could be a Murmur/Vael type encounter where the boss is at 20%-30% and Molten Fury would be absurdly good. If this was ever the case it'd be great information to know at what point 40 fire 21 frost would outshine x arcane 4x fire 11 frost.

Last edited by Vhad : 02/01/08 at 10:07 AM.
#2428SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Vulkaire View Post
It also helps a lot on Council due to the resistance aura. Have a heck of a time getting our locks to use it there due to one mage taning and leaving only 1-2 dpsing, but without it I usually see around 15% partial resists. With CoE it is usually around 5%, so CoE is a 20% boost on that fight. That makes it viable with only one mage dpsing.
You can also combine this with the fact that it's viable to CoD Zerevor if you really want to. Or you can do it on Malande.....but I have personal experience with that being a bad idea.
#2429SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
I don't get why you're arguing pro- dual Icy Veins and contra Molten Fury. Instinctively I want to beat that notion with a stick, but honestly I just want to ask.

Assuming for a second an occasion arises that 21 frost is superior, why would you forsake Molten Fury in favour of quite shit talents like Play with Fire and Pyromania? Why not select your 40 fires from Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft instead? Ditch 1 measly % overall dmg and 1 moderately useless pyromaniac point for the Molten fury if you must, but for the sake of God don't lose fire's single most powerful buff in favour of Cold Snap.
#2430SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Molten fury is 4% dps increase, or if your last 20% are actually 3/4 of any other 20% of the fight, 3% extra damage. 1.5% damage per talent point, which is better than the other fire talents you could drop. Not to mention molten fury multiplies the effect of your doubled icy veins if the last 20% last over 20 seconds (preferably 40 of course).
#2431SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
I'm not arguing pro dual icey veins. I was merely asking if there was a point in which it'd be preferable over molten fury. I suppose it could be entirely pointless granted you can get both, but surely there must be a point where the execute phase is so short that even 1 or 2% extra crit would be preferable.
#2432SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Molten fury is 4% dps increase, or if your last 20% are actually 3/4 of any other 20% of the fight, 3% extra damage. 1.5% damage per talent point, which is better than the other fire talents you could drop. Not to mention molten fury multiplies the effect of your doubled icy veins if the last 20% last over 20 seconds (preferably 40 of course).
I would say MF is worth more than 4% dps increase when you stack all of your cooldowns during this 20%.

And why would you not want MF in a 0/40/21 build. Just drop 2% crit since you're not going to get 4% damage out of 2% crit.

Last edited by Cardynal : 02/01/08 at 12:11 PM.
#2433SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
I'm not arguing pro dual icey veins. I was merely asking if there was a point in which it'd be preferable over molten fury. I suppose it could be entirely pointless granted you can get both, but surely there must be a point where the execute phase is so short that even 1 or 2% extra crit would be preferable.
How can you argue a 1-2% crit increase can ever be better than a 20% increase 20% of the time, particularly at this day and age when we have more cooldowns than we ever had before?

Did you not notice the quotes of 7k DPS with all CDs on in molten fury range? Which concievable scenario can you envisage where 1 point in MF will ever be inferior to 1 in Pyromaniac? Even with an absolutely statistically flat model assuming 0 cooldowns at any point, 1 point in MF will be 2% increase overall where as 1% crit will always be less than 1% increase overall.

Unless I completely fail at maths there is no concievable scenario in which the loss of MF will be beneficial to gain any single talent in any of the mage trees. Not even AP will offset MF as far as I'm concerned.


Speaking of which, has anyone else had wet dreams thinking of WotLK specs with 33/38/0 spell power, arcane power, molten fury and 3/5 emp. Fball? Or perhaps 33/35/3 with a view to Ap-AB spam in MF range... Mmm... Chocolate.
#2434SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
Again I'm not arguing it, I'm asking for the 5th something time now if it'd be possible to model that high enough raid dps would lower the benefit of MF to such a degree that 2% crit could be better. It's all about how raiddps is paced, MF is not 20% dmg 20% of the time, as CLEARLY the last 20% are faster than the first 20%. It's 20% more dmg the last 20% of the boss health, this could easily be less than 10% of the time it takes the boss to die, it could be more, it could be less.
#2435SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Perox
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
How can you argue a 1-2% crit increase can ever be better than a 20% increase 20% of the time, particularly at this day and age when we have more cooldowns than we ever had before?

...

Unless I completely fail at maths there is no concievable scenario in which the loss of MF will be beneficial to gain any single talent in any of the mage trees. Not even AP will offset MF as far as I'm concerned.
Well, that's of course assuming that the last 20% of a boss will take 20% of the total time. Which is quite often not the case imho. Marginal maybe for this argument, but molten fury really doesn't bring +20% damage for 20% of the fight. You'll have other mages with MF, warriors executing, people popping CD's all over the place for that last 20%.

One HUGE improvement in WWS would be some graphical display of the cumulative damage done/received/heals etc on a timeline. That would be pretty insightfull stuff.
#2436SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Re-read my post man, it's already explained - even if you reap through the last 20% 33% faster than normal molten fury is still 3% DPS increase which is already better than your other talents, before even adding up the fact it multiplies all cooldowns used during that part of the fight. Molten fury > 1.5% dmg per talent point. Other talents you could drop are <1% dmg per talent point. I just don't see any kind of raid dps levels that can change that.
#2437SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nolez
Any chance someone has a write-up reguarding mages who are not tailors,and gear choices.Our progression is up to lady Vash.Any help in this would be great.Thx
#2438SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Perox View Post
Well, that's of course assuming that the last 20% of a boss will take 20% of the total time. Which is quite often not the case imho. Marginal maybe for this argument, but molten fury really doesn't bring +20% damage for 20% of the fight. You'll have other mages with MF, warriors executing, people popping CD's all over the place for that last 20%.

One HUGE improvement in WWS would be some graphical display of the cumulative damage done/received/heals etc on a timeline. That would be pretty insightfull stuff.
As long as it lasts 20 seconds...it's still a HUGE dps increase. I did the math a bit ago and my fireballs are dropping down to 1.58 seconds during 20 seconds of that 20%. So lets assume each 20% takes 30 seconds and the last 20% takes 20 seconds. That's a 2 minute 20 second fight. My cast time during normal casting would be 2.84 seconds for 100% - 20%

So that's 42.25 fireballs during this period or 10.56 fireballs per 20%. (This is assuming my 91 passive haste rating…a 2.84 second cast time)

Now once you pop all your haste...you get 12.66 fireballs off in 20 seconds....or 54.91 fireballs off in a 140 second fight. So 23% of your fireballs actually see the 20% dmg increase from MF...which means you get at the very least a 4.6% dps increase from MF. However...this doesn't include popping a damage trinket, destruction pot, or flame cap.

Just popping these 3 things seem give roughly a 20% dps increase according to Lhivera's calculator. 20% of 20% is 4%. So I'm estimating that MF in this scenario is giving roughly an 8.6% dps increase. Granted these are some rough calculations but I would like to see what other people have to say about it.

This doesn't take into account combustion...which I’m not even going to touch.

Granted this is a best-case scenario, you still get the idea
#2439SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos

In 2.4, Spell Haste will reduce the global cool down on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. It won't apply to melee and ranged abilities though however.


https://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/t...24006&sid=1#15
#2440SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kasi
Does the news about in 2.4 spell haste dropping the gcd to a min of 1 second do anything about the viability of Arcane Blast? I know the mana costs would just be insanely out of this world, but its possible 1.1-1.3 second arcane blasts could be some insane dps.
#2441SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
There are many implications to this change. Depending on what exactly they mean, it could mean a major revamp for mage AOE dps.

Does this means bloodlust allows sub 1.5s AE spam ? Its not too obvious reading it. Or does it mean only my haste rating will lower my GCD by bloodlust/icy veins/berserking won't ?

Otherwise, it affects very slightly - if at all - fire spec. Frost spec can now use bloodlust + icy veins, a very welcome change I suppose. Arcane can now make a meaningful use out of spell haste, which is also welcome. As per the implications, I doubt it would affect numbers any kind of noticeably for anything else than AOE.

edit: and also allow AB spam to be more worthwhile.

Last edited by manly : 02/01/08 at 4:05 PM.
#2442SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3hypetech
Do you think this would make a scorch spam spec any more viable?
#2443SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
No, simply because scorch spam scales far far worse than fireball. It would allow to use procs much better, but the problem is that the scorch dps is just too bad to make efficient use of. I don't recall the numbers offhand, but I do recall its rather staggering and definately not a trivial amount.
#2444SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
As a fire mage who generally only raids with one other mage, I really like this change. I've always liked haste from a theorycrafting aspect, but using it in practice has always caused a bit of a shitty feeling because you know that every time you are casting a scorch, you are wearing some useless gear / stats.

Or hell, I can't count the number of times a shaman has dropped heroism only to notice scorch debuff just feel off. Banging out 5 scorches while hasted with heroism is a sickening feeling.
#2445SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I just realize now, it means in 2.4 [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] is the best AOE trinket. It sounds soo awkward.
#2446SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Since arcane has issues competing even without any haste, I don't see this change as the "savior of arcane". It'll definitely make AOEing different and make you feel less stupid (but still kinda stupid as it's still a waste) when you need to scorch during BL/hero.

On a side note, arcane mages will be able to hit new records of how fast they can go oom.
#2447SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I just realize now, it means in 2.4 [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] is the best AOE trinket. It sounds soo awkward.
Assuming icy veins will now effect the global cooldown as well - I can't see flamestrike ever being good - Even with 3 points in imp flamestrike, where range is a non issue, aside from double dipping a combustion stack assuming you have blastwave or dragons breath.
#2448SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Isn't flamestrike more mana efficient than arcane explosion still?
#2449SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Assuming icy veins will now effect the global cooldown as well - I can't see flamestrike ever being good - Even with 3 points in imp flamestrike, where range is a non issue, aside from double dipping a combustion stack assuming you have blastwave or dragons breath.
You totally missed the point. [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] for arcane explosion spam...
#2450SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
You totally missed the point. [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] for arcane explosion spam...
That was my point - before the trinket made flamestrike competitive with AE - now that AE gets equal benefit this is void.
#2451SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
That was my point - before the trinket made flamestrike competitive with AE - now that AE gets equal benefit this is void.
Assuming a deep-fire build and both Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike are at the cap, how much crit rating do I need to make Flamestrike better DPS than Arcane Explosion?
#2452SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
2.4 Arcane

I know Arcane is currently not en vogue but I've decided to report on my findings regarding the incoming 2.4 changes for anyone that's still Arcane for whatever reason. The findings are based on 4T5+ gear level.

So far AP was restricted to AB spam only with IV used on AB cycle. Change to global cooldown changes this and opens more options for stacking cooldowns. Basically it comes down to using all cooldowns on AB spam, the only difference is about which cooldowns to stack. At 0 haste level it's benefitial to stack both IV and AP on heroism at the same time. At 80+ haste rating the benefits of stacking AP and IV during heroism are countered by GCD clipping at which point only AP should be used during heroism. Outside heroism stacking AP and IV is always benefitial.

Overall damage increase compared to 2.3.2 is in the 1.5-2% range. Haste obviously gained in value but it is only as good as crit. Spell damage and Intellect are still the best stats for deep arcane IV build.
#2453SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
Assuming a deep-fire build and both Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike are at the cap, how much crit rating do I need to make Flamestrike better DPS than Arcane Explosion?

Assume 1400 spell damage and AOE capped.
77 dps flamestrike dot per target
10 targets (capped)
Let C be untalented Crit%asdecimal
Let H be haste%asdecimal
Assume 3/3 Imp flamestrike with deep fire build
Flamestrike cap = 7830
Arcane explosion cap = 6730

Solve for 2.4 -
Flamestrike Dps + Flamestrike dot dps = Arcane explosion dps

(7830)*(1 + 1.1*(C+0.24))/(3/(1 + Min(H, 2)) + 770 = 6730*(1 + 0.5*C)/(1.5/(1 + Min(H, 0.5))

With less than 50% overall haste this can be simplified to

7830*(1 + 1.1*(C+0.24))/(3/(1+H)) + 770 = 6730*(1 + 0.5*C)/(1.5/(1+H))
7830*(1 + 1.1*(C+0.24)) + 2310/(1+H) = 13460*(1 + 0.5*C)

I think it can be seen here that before 50% haste all aditional haste is more beneficial to AE given that the flamestrike dot is not changed. So I am going to solve for 0% haste.

10821.12 + 8613C = 13460 + 6730c
c = 1.40

Over 100% crit is needed - therefore flamestrike as of 2.4 will never be more DPS than arcane explosion when less than 50% haste is active - regardless of spec.

For pure curiosity let's assume you would stack all haste cooldowns - with a haste set equipped.

Haste from gear (the works) + ashtoungue trinket + activated skull = 699
Bloodlust and Icy veins added in (unfortunately now I need to solve H the way I implemented my equation)

(1+ 0.4435)*1.3*1.2 -1 = H = 1.25186

Solve for original equation
-0.47 = c

Obviously then with all that haste up there is no crit % making flamestrike worse dps.

The crossover point then would be easier to determine via a constant crit% with haste as the variable
Let's assume 25% base crit
Since I've already determined haste must be > 50% the equation can now be written

(7830)*(1 + 1.1*(0.49))/(3/(1+H)) + 770 = 6730*(1 + 0.125)
H = 0.69

Realistically lust wouldn't be popped so -
(1+gearhaste)*1.2 -1 = H = 0.69
gearhaste = 0.408 which is not possible without a skull of gul'dan.

I conclude - you need bloodlust and icy veins popped before flamestrike becomes better dps than AE in 2.4 as deep fire on a realistic scenerio. Spreading out your cooldowns so as not to exceed 50% haste ultimately would provide better dps via AE however.

Last edited by Etherealz : 02/02/08 at 5:51 AM.
#2454SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
If those damage caps are correct (and are pre-crit) than on a capped scenario arcane explosion is also much more mana efficient with 30% crit, even counting the fact AE would only have 21% crit, and master of elements and +15% talent for flamestrike. Nothing I wouldn't expect with the 3s cast spell having not much more of a cap than the instant ;p

I'm not sure about flamestrike and AE coefficients though to check for non-capped situations though.
#2455SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3xiaoxin21
Has anyone measured the travel speed of ice lance? With the change in gcd I would think there might be a chance for a dbl icelance shatter with heroism and icy veins? Not too sure if they calculate the bonus damage after the icelance left your hand or when it hits.
#2456SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3alvinrod
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
Has anyone measured the travel speed of ice lance? With the change in gcd I would think there might be a chance for a dbl icelance shatter with heroism and icy veins? Not too sure if they calculate the bonus damage after the icelance left your hand or when it hits.
Unless things have changed recently, I believe that the damage and whether the spell crits or not is calculated at the time of spell cast instead of impact.
#2457SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Originally Posted by alvinrod View Post
Unless things have changed recently, I believe that the damage and whether the spell crits or not is calculated at the time of spell cast instead of impact.
I think the question is whether you can lower the GCD to a point where you can launch a second lance before the first one hits (or crits). I don't know if it's possible to have reactions quick enough to both:

- Not automatically cast a second lance (and incur GCD)
- Cast a second lance after noting that the first one hasn't broken the freeze on the current target *without* losing a few split seconds react to the first one hitting.

If a hasted GCD guarantees a target is still frozen as the second lance is cast, this could actually be a pretty trick-y buff against anything that can be frozen.
#2458SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
I doubt it'd be possible for several reasons. Frostbolts traveltime was just around 1 second unless I'm mistaken, and we all know you can icelance hit before frostbolt hits this means you'd have to get the GCD to be less than 1 second which is impossible.
#2459SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Just the haste change of allowing it to go as low as 1 second could be a big boost for arcane relative to other specs. Right now, arcane gains the least from haste because arcane blast spam is already at 1.5 seconds. While other specs like fire or frost all gain from haste. So, bloodlust, battle drums and haste gear has a large impact on the DPS of the other specs.

Come next patch, Arcane will now at least scale as well in the haste department compared to other specs. So, while the full chagnes aren't out yet, at least in this area, it seems like a bigger (and much needed) buff to arcane.
#2460SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but assuming some passive haste, with any combination of Skull, Icy Veins, Bloodlust, and Drums active, you're still going to run right back into the GCD with AB spam (or instants, or any other 1.5s cast). The lowered GCD will give Arcane some leeway with haste, of course, but only marginally so, since Arcane had no room to expand to begin with. It will still fall way short of haste scaling in regards to Fire and Frost, though, and if anything the lowered GCD should only further exacerbate one of the primary issues with Arcane, mana consumption. 1.0s AB spam would completely obliterate your mana pool.

To my mind, speaking in terms of boss DPS, the GCD haste seems most likely to affect Frost, since fully hasted frostbolts were the most prone to dipping under the GCD. A lowered GCD should bring the "burst" capabilities of Frost more in line with Fire, since Frost should no longer be subject to clipped bolts.
#2461SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
1.5 seconds to 1 second is a lot of leeway. You need a fair amount of haste rating to bring it down by 0.5 seconds. In any case, at least it allows for some amount of haste rating scaling for arcane. Previously, any amount of haste rating or increase was essentially wasted during AB spam. Now, you can stack some without that worry.
#2462SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Dryssa
I'm curious about how the new spell haste mechanic will affect the possibility of a Scorch build, especially one using the Ashtongue trinket. How would its potential DPS compare to that of the current Fireball w/ Icy Veins build? And how much would haste be valued?
#2463SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by Dryssa View Post
I'm curious about how the new spell haste mechanic will affect the possibility of a Scorch build, especially one using the Ashtongue trinket. How would its potential DPS compare to that of the current Fireball w/ Icy Veins build? And how much would haste be valued?
Even with the haste buff, scorch will lag far behind deep fire builds because fireballs just scale much better than scorch.
#2464SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
I was able to get up to Dr. Boom to do some testing on 1.5s spells assuming the 2.4 1.0s GCD.

Using only Ring of Ancient Knowledge + Bracers of Nimble Thought for passive haste, I was able to get my scorches (being identical in cast time to ramped up AB) to around 1.07s using only Skull + Icy Veins. I don't have a Zhar'doom, but throwing on miscellaneous haste pieces I had (Supremus belt, Zul'Jin neck) I was able to get down to 1.03-1.04s on my spells. Even with that gear, I was still using less haste than what I would consider an "ideal" haste setup (Zhar'doom + Mana Attuned Band), so ultimately, reaching the GCD using only Skull + IV is quite possible.

Which means that Arcane (and scorch) is going to afford you very little room to work with in terms of haste, less even than Frost currently has, before you hit the GCD. Using drums or adding in Bloodlust would knock you well under 1.0s.

As far Scorch spam being viable, its coefficient simply isn't large enough to compete against Fireball. My WWS logs now indicate that it takes more than 3 Scorches to equal a single fireball, so even assuming 100% uptime on AToI, three 1.0s Scorches is still less than damage than one Fireball. And then there's the problems I just mentioned with cooldown stacking running into the GCD, which is where Fireball really shines right now.
#2465SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
What makes scorch suck so much is not related with its cast time, its all about the lack of talents that boost it further. Empowered fireball power cannot be denied, particularly as your gear gets better. This alone is too much to be made up for.

If you can't find a way to make scorch gain 10% more dps from somewhere that isn't available for other spells/specs, then I'm afraid there is no possible way to ever make this works. As it is, scorch has a worse DPS and DPM than fireball on every competitive mage spec that I know of.

What caps [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] is mostly cast-time, not crit rate. I know that is what you said, but I just wanted to re-iterate. 33/28/0 can easily get 50% scorch crit rates, which would indeed make the ashtongue trinket solid in such a build. Problem is, skipping icy veins is too much to be outdone.
#2466SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
I was able to get up to Dr. Boom to do some testing on 1.5s spells assuming the 2.4 1.0s GCD.

Using only Ring of Ancient Knowledge + Bracers of Nimble Thought for passive haste, I was able to get my scorches (being identical in cast time to ramped up AB) to around 1.07s using only Skull + Icy Veins. I don't have a Zhar'doom, but throwing on miscellaneous haste pieces I had (Supremus belt, Zul'Jin neck) I was able to get down to 1.03-1.04s on my spells. Even with that gear, I was still using less haste than what I would consider an "ideal" haste setup (Zhar'doom + Mana Attuned Band), so ultimately, reaching the GCD using only Skull + IV is quite possible.

Which means that Arcane (and scorch) is going to afford you very little room to work with in terms of haste, less even than Frost currently has, before you hit the GCD. Using drums or adding in Bloodlust would knock you well under 1.0s.

As far Scorch spam being viable, its coefficient simply isn't large enough to compete against Fireball. My WWS logs now indicate that it takes more than 3 Scorches to equal a single fireball, so even assuming 100% uptime on AToI, three 1.0s Scorches is still less than damage than one Fireball. And then there's the problems I just mentioned with cooldown stacking running into the GCD, which is where Fireball really shines right now.
So, just spread out your cooldowns. Its still a much bigger buff to arcane than to fire and frost which is receiving the full benefit of haste scaling at this point while arcane isn't.

Imagine, for an arcane heavy, and geared mage, who can spam AB say 70% of the fight. Say 50% of those are at 1.5 seconds. Now reduce that to 1 second. His DPS during those 50% just sent up by one third. If he has the mana for it, he will be doing one third more damage during that time. That's a lot. Key issue would more of whether there is the mana avialable to sustain that kind of arcane blast spam.
#2467SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Alvira, you make false assumptions. You simply can not "say 70% AB" and then "say 50% of those are 1.0sec". How do you get from 1.5 to 1.0? If you're using cooldowns, said cooldowns will not total 35% of the fight. Even so, a poster above proved you would not be talking of simpy Skull/IV, but plenty of passive haste. If you are talking passive haste, then the 1.5 isn't viable.

You're used to looking at arcane with 0 haste and now somehow think that some haste -not- being useless means it's fantastic. It isn't. "his dps sent up by one third". Big deal, any other spec with that much haste would partake of exactly the same buff, only if it was Fire it would have Combustion and Flame Cap as well as Molten Fury in the mix, where as arcane can only show AP to stack with this mythically huge haste.

This all is before one looks at the grossely inadequate DPM of arcane; Mana management has always been the number-one bane of the spec and it has just gained the potential to get much much worse; can you even begin to immagine 70% AB time with haste? Mage armor, spirit spec, r-shaman, SP, chain-pott, chain-gem/serpentcoil-braid will not even sustain that madness without evocation. The "Mage cooldown management" thread is there to prove that for mages, the devil's in the details. The more potential we waste on these minor swaps the more the dps benefit from the superior spell dwindles. What can stand up to a quartet of 10k fireballs at the end of the fight?
#2468SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Err, I am not as good a maths person as the others, so I will leave the math to them. But to me, its a bigger buff to arcane than to fire or frost (which already benefit from haste). So, it brings arcane dps up relative to fire and frost. Would it make arcane better? equal? still worse? I don't know. But it certainly buffs arcane DPS. Saying it doesn't is similar to saying that haste does nothing to frost or fire DPS, when it clearly does help.
#2469SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
What was keeping arcane from not sucking was not it's irrelevance towards haste, it was and still is terrible scaling, small crits, horrific mana efficiency and problematic reliance on range/pushback/rotations/mana sources. These do not change and neither does the fact that haste (to an extent) is not irrelevant any more make arcane competitive enough to come realistically close to either of the two current specs.

Yes arcane is buffed, (well, technically "un-nerfed" if you will) but by making a shit spec into a terrible spec nothing has changed.

As was mentioned before, the most signifficant impact the haste/GCD change will have will be to AE DPS as IV-AE will potentially become quite devastating, possibly surpassing the locks SoC.

I see plenty of scope for 13/0/48 spec to gain a better foothold in the raiding scheme of things.
#2470SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Err, I am not as good a maths person as the others, so I will leave the math to them. But to me, its a bigger buff to arcane than to fire or frost (which already benefit from haste). So, it brings arcane dps up relative to fire and frost. Would it make arcane better? equal? still worse? I don't know. But it certainly buffs arcane DPS. Saying it doesn't is similar to saying that haste does nothing to frost or fire DPS, when it clearly does help.
The buff to arcane is notable compared to frost or fire given that you had to gimp some of your gear choices before the change because haste just wasn't that good for the AB rotation. However just like every other spec you are forgoing other stats to gain said haste - so the buff is not just "my cast is x% faster" sort of buff, but being able to use some of the better items more effectively IS a buff to arcane.

With that said - arcane will benefit a lot more from bloodlust and icy veins now. Previously one would switch to AM spam or frostbolt spam during such haste effects - AM / frostbolt spam by it's nature is less dps than arcane blast - however it became slightly better obviously with the haste that AB spam saw no benefit from. The reduction of the global cooldown will change that rotation - however, and I haven't seen the new numbers modeled yet but, I don't believe it is enough to be competitive with fire on a consistant basis. (even without COE)
#2471SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3andastra
Here's the thing with arcane. If you can do, for example, AB spam 70% of the fight, that means you are having mana problems. Anything below 100% AB spam means you are having mana problems. Allowing lower than 1.5s casts and using it means that you will have to use your lower dps rotation for a larger % of the fight.

I don't think that the dps increase of AB spam versus AB+something else rotation outweighs the dpm loss. Unless you can do 100% AB spam and end the fight with lots of mana to spare currently, the change won't do a thing for you.
#2472SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Even without empowered fireballs fireball gets more dps per spell damage than scorch.
Let's clarify by looking at the coefficient per second (how much of your spell damage is applied every second, ignoring % modifiers as they apply to both spells equally):

Scorch: 1.5/3.5 coefficient, 1/3.5=~0.285 per second. Even if the extra 4% crit would be +4% DPS (in reality quite a bit less than that) you'd have 0.296 per second.
Untalented fireball: 3.5/3.5=1 coefficient, 1/3.5=~0.285 per second.
Improved fireball: Same coefficient, but 1/3-~0.333 per second.
Empowered fireball: 1.15 coefficient, 1.15/3=~0.383 per second.

As you can see scorch scales much slower than fireball. Not to mention they start out with fireball being higher DPS. So at any gear level if you have improved fireball it will outDPS scorch by a noticeable amount. Empowered fireballs just makes it even better. Haste not helping scroch makes fireball even better, but taking out that factor in 2.4 isn't going to save scorch, because as you can see, scroch sucks anyway.
#2473SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Stein
A couple of points:

1) I think almost everything said by the premier posters in this thread implies full T6 gear level. That's not the case for a lot of people. in the 2/5 T5 to 3/5 T6 gear range, 40/0/21 has a home.

2) The arcane haste un-nerf is significant for people in that progression range. More ABs can fit within AP/trinket times. AB has always been about throttling mana consumption based on ever changing variables. We now have a sixth gear. That's not a bad thing.
#2474SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
Even in that gear and fight range, arcane just doesn't work as well as deep fire or deep frost.

Drawbacks of deep arcane-
* 30 yard range
* No pushback prevention
* Strict rotation that has to be kept. If it's broken, it's a large DPS loss.
* Heavy mana requirements forcing the mage into a shadow priest group and reliant on the shadow priest to be alive and DPSing 100% of the time.
* Worse scaling with crit rating, hit rating, and damage.

Advantages-
* Better AE
* Better burst damage if the mana pool can keep up and the mob isn't sub-20%.

---

Pre-2.2 I was deep arcane using an AB/AM/Scorch rotation. From what I remember back then, it was a barely viable spec due to the strange DPS requirements of fights that I was in (Kael Phase 2 AE spam and early MH/BT bosses featured some very short boss fights and heavy AE requirements). Deep fire was competitive with that spec, but a lot of it came down to fight length and the amount of mana the arcane mage could gain. I remember thinking that I needed a Shadow Priest AND a Resto Shaman/Ret Paladin to match or exceed the possible DPS of a deep fire build.

Then 2.2 came out and it was all Arcane Missiles spam.

Then 2.3 came out and AM was dead and Fireball/Frostbolt weren't getting a damage tax anymore. So Fire had a clear advantage over Arcane in most circumstances when it came to raw damage. In addition, it was just a more forgiving spec. Deep arcane, in some circumstances, might be the higher-DPS spec than deep fire. But in most cases, it isn't. In addition, it requires more support and more effort to fail to match the standard of deep fire. It's just a spec that requires a lot of effort to master for little to negative gain.
#2475SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I'm sorry, but the tired old argument about arcane 'burst' dps is really really outdated. Yet, I see it every once in a while. Arcane power is +30% dmg for 15s every 3min, whereas WE is +35-40% dmg for 45s every 3min. Firespec has no real 'burst' per-se, but you can heavily stack on execute range and take advantage of molten fury.
#2476SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Darkmantle
Originally Posted by alvinrod View Post
Unless things have changed recently, I believe that the damage and whether the spell crits or not is calculated at the time of spell cast instead of impact.
Base damage from +dmg is calculated when a spell is cast. ( tested by popping a trinket just as a spell leaves your hand)

Damage bonuses from debuffs is calculated when the spell hits. ( tested by putting Cos up on a target while a bolt was on it's way to the target)

Whether PI needs to be on you before or after the spell goes off I don't know but I would presume it is calculated into the base spell, since my already active dots don't get larger after I get a PI.
#2477SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Right now, drums of battle seem to be skewing DPS a lot because it stacks and anyone with LW can have it. Just wondering, for theorycraft purposes. In a heavily drums of battle stacked raid, would going full arcane, and using AM as a primary nuke actually do as well as fire?

While it seems wierd. But AM was so good when mystical skyfire was broken because of the haste factor. Now, with a stacked raid, might it approach the same level again?
#2478SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
MSD was so good with Arcane Missiles because it could have a chance to proc each wave. The Arcane Missiles spec only makes sense if you're abusing proc/hit abilities.

---

When I say Arcane has burst possibilities, I'm referring to AB spam. I believe that's still the highest possible DPS in the game (barring haste in 2.3). It's also about the only argument an arcane enthusiast has.
#2479SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Voley
Is leatherworking worth taking for the drums? I got herbalism and enchanting right now, and I am thinking to drop herbalism for letherworking. Will it be worth it?
#2480SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Yes. Level herbs an alt, keep professions that are directly beneficial to you as a raider on your main.
#2481SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
In a heavily drums of battle stacked raid, would going full arcane, and using AM as a primary nuke actually do as well as fire?

While it seems wierd. But AM was so good when mystical skyfire was broken because of the haste factor. Now, with a stacked raid, might it approach the same level again?
Haste scales better for fire than arcane as well, there is no point.

AM wasn't good because of haste.
AM was good because MSD was an average 15% more haste for arcane than for fire, and TLC/AToI were ~8-10% damage increase trinkets for arcane and fire/frost were taxed.
AM DPS then was cut by 25%. You don't think you can make up for such a loss, can you?
#2482SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Right now, drums of battle seem to be skewing DPS a lot because it stacks and anyone with LW can have it. Just wondering, for theorycraft purposes. In a heavily drums of battle stacked raid, would going full arcane, and using AM as a primary nuke actually do as well as fire?

While it seems wierd. But AM was so good when mystical skyfire was broken because of the haste factor. Now, with a stacked raid, might it approach the same level again?

Why does everyone insist on finding ways of making Arcane work?

People, think, if it SCALES WORSE with everything than the other two specs how will stacking ANYTHING make it better?

Yes, if you have 100% Drums time you will signifficantly improve. Possibly, 100% Drums Arcane might be superior to 0 Drums Fire, but we know fire scales better with haste so:

x% (where x is between 0 and 100) Drums time with Fire will Always be more then x% Arcane.

What if you down every consumable and stack every buff, and have a SP+3hunter grp? And a machine gun? No, arcane will never surpass fire in any possible way, the gap will simply multiply with more and more buffs.

It simply scales That Bad.
#2483SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Saphya
I think with the haste change in 2.4 (reducing GCD and allowing arcane to make more use of haste and probably heroism/bloodlust) in 2.4 and a group/raid setup that highly disfavors Fire (i.e. no Curse of Elements due to not enough mages or warlocks, but 13% Curse of Shadows) Arcane could be able to outperform Fire, especially in relatively short fights or with heavy mana support.


I just plugged in the following numbers in Lhivera's script (using Arcane with IV in comparison to Fire with IV, numbers for fire in "()" )

Int 500 (500)
Spirit 350 (350)
Spellhit capped (capped)
Critrating 330 (350)
Arcane/Fire/Frostdmg 1300 (1350)
Molten Armor, all buffs/flasks; all target debuffs EXCEPT curse of elements for both builds; 2T5 for arcane and 4T6 for fire. The +50 spelldmg and +20 Crit for fire is a wild guess, since Arcane will be using the inferior 2T5 for +20% Arcane blast set bonus.
Fight duration 5 minutes.

Arcane numbers:
2,818.24 DPS Arcane Blast / spammed w/AP (DPM: 6.27)
2,167.88 DPS Arcane Blast / spammed (DPM: 6.46)
1,454.53 DPS Arc Blast x3/Arc Msls x1/Frostbolt x1 w/AP+IV avg'd (DPM: 11.85)
Also interesting: 1,216.16 DPS Arcane Missiles and 1,037.37 DPS Frostbolt. This basically means that all of your spells are pretty much inferior to the Fireball with firespec except for Arcane Blast, to make arcane work most of your damage has to come frome Arcane Blast!

Fire numbers:
2,256.13 DPS Fireball w/IV (< 20% health) (DPM: 15.53) (to compare burst dmg only)
1,649.60 DPS Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV avg'd (DPM: 13.6)


A number for Arcane Blast / spammed w/AP+IV avg'd for 2.4 is missing

But if you manage to do something like 30%+ of your time spamming Arcane Blast and using your CD's properly (and the rest of your time the somewhat manaefficient rotation), i think arcane would outperform fire in this specific scenario. It's also a lot less threat.



And i'd like to add that fire might very well STILL be a better choice due to things like spellpushback, range and all the other things that make the life of arcane mages miserable. If you still go OOM (or near OOM at the end of the fight) with the fire build, the usual fire build will be better (since it's definately more DPM). Some of the numbers above might also be quite inaccurate, i don't have the time to look up erverything and make my own calculations at the moment.


Edit: I just realized that 40/0/21 would be a better choice, if there is no spellpushback (if there is you should choose fire anyway), since both DPS and DPM of Frostbolt are higher than empowered Arcane Missiles, using the same stats i used above. 3x Arcane Blast 3x Frostbolt w/IV+AP avg'd is 1520 DPS with 13.68 DPM; this would also give more Arcane Blasts due to higher DPM. There also seems to be a bug in the script: i use 164 Spellhit, but i get 1.00 Hit Rating: 0.99 Damage, 1.19 Crit Rating, 0.70 Haste Rating for relative DPS Values. Spellhit shouldn't increase DPS since it is both capped with Arcane and Frost.

Last edited by Saphya : 02/06/08 at 9:28 AM.
#2484SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
Originally Posted by Voley View Post
Is leatherworking worth taking for the drums? I got herbalism and enchanting right now, and I am thinking to drop herbalism for letherworking. Will it be worth it?
I just did it yesterday , it wasn't even that expensive as I read.Kind of miss herbing nightmare vines though :-)
#2485SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Saphya View Post

-stuff-

But if you manage to do something like 30%+ of your time spamming Arcane Blast and using your CD's properly (and the rest of your time the somewhat manaefficient rotation), i think arcane would outperform fire in this specific scenario. It's also a lot less threat.

And i'd like to add that fire might very well STILL be a better choice due to things like spellpushback, range and all the other things that make the life of arcane mages miserable. If you still go OOM (or near OOM at the end of the fight) with the fire build, the usual fire build will be better (since it's definately more DPM). Some of the numbers above might also be quite inaccurate, i don't have the time to look up erverything and make my own calculations at the moment.
Firstly claiming threat is irrelevant. Secondly, I wouldn't call the numbers -inaccurate- pre se; It's more a case of inadequate modelling.

Lhivera's can't account for bloodlust, dual trink, IV, Comb, destropot, flamecap and drums during Molten Fury. This alone is enough to push fire so far into the stratoshpere arcane will never recover.

Even with the CoE/CoS-mal issue, fire beats everything hands down, simply because it's stacking an astonishing number of effects together to produce two lines worth of buffs for 20 sec.

Even with 0 cooldown stacking and not taking into account most buffs (flamecaps, destropots, trinks, drums and bloodlust) fire's beaten arcane to a pulp; Adding cooldowns to the mix simply nails the coffin.

Don't forget, it's not the fact that arcane doesn't get the same buffs; it does (Except the flamecap) but because Fire combines them with more effects, undoubtably the biggest one of which is Molten Fury, it will stay way ahead.

Personally I can't wait for Manly to post a 2500DPS parsing where he gets a CoE at execute range. Go on Manly, you know you want to.
#2486SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphya
Sorry i just added an Edit to my post, since nobody replied to it yet and i didn't want to make another post

As you could see from my profile i haven't even been in MH/BT, and we also both don't have any knowledge about the Sunwell encounters yet, which might or might not favor arcane over fire or vice versa. I also don't have a reason to choose arcane for myself, because the DPM of it is just bad, so i'm using fire myself

Still, i wouldn't claim fire to be always the best option (note that i didn't deny that fire is superior under most circumstances), arcane seems to be fine if you have enough mana support to do heavy Arcane Blast spamming (Arcane Missile DPS is really low though, due to poor scaling) or if there will ever come a threat-sensitive bossfight like some of the bosses in BWL again.
#2487SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru

Still, i wouldn't claim fire to be always the best option (note that i didn't deny that fire is superior under most circumstances), arcane seems to be fine if you have enough mana support to do heavy Arcane Blast spamming (Arcane Missile DPS is really low though, due to poor scaling) or if there will ever come a threat-sensitive bossfight like some of the bosses in BWL again.
We're never going to have another era of fights as stupid as BWL's in regards to threat. These days raids all have Salv, Tranq air if needed, Invisibility, Pain Suppression and significantly better threat meters than we used to have back in those days. Plus, if you want to bring up old encounters imagine how much damage arcane would miss out on if we had a new Vael. As for AB spam, the spell scales terribly and even if you maintain it for 100% of the time (doubtful) you're still missing out on Molten Fury at 20% which is enormous when cooldown stacking. AB also doesn't get along with Icy Veins at all, even if the GCD lowers a bit in 2.4.

Why do people want Arcane to work so badly? It was easily the most mindless spec imaginable. Socket red gems, get a MSD and press AM for 3 minutes (or better yet, bind AM to a mouse wheel and just scroll while watching tv). Is that the appeal?
#2488SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Maledict
Arcane before the patch that made AM spam the best option was actually a fun spec. It's also completely viable in 5 player instances, heroics and Karazhan (or at least it was when TBC was first released). I don't think peopel want a return to the AM spamming days, but I think a lot of the arcane fans would like some of the complexity of Arcane adding back to the class - the option of different AB rotations, the fact that spirit and intellect actually matter when gearing, the mana balancing trick that when done right led to some fantastic fun results.

I doubt many miss the AM spam, but I do miss the complexity of full arcane before AM spam. It just doesn't work at all now, and until Blizzard changes something there's no real reason to look into making it work.
#2489SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
Arcane before the patch that made AM spam the best option was actually a fun spec. It's also completely viable in 5 player instances, heroics and Karazhan (or at least it was when TBC was first released). I don't think peopel want a return to the AM spamming days, but I think a lot of the arcane fans would like some of the complexity of Arcane adding back to the class - the option of different AB rotations, the fact that spirit and intellect actually matter when gearing, the mana balancing trick that when done right led to some fantastic fun results.

I doubt many miss the AM spam, but I do miss the complexity of full arcane before AM spam. It just doesn't work at all now, and until Blizzard changes something there's no real reason to look into making it work.

This is how I feel as well. When I am fire spec, and I look at gear upgrades, T6, etc. I feel frustrated. I find myself thinking, why not just wear spell fire / spellstrike all the way and such. And Int, Spirit absolutely doesn't matter. And playing fire is keeping scorch up and then just pressing fireball.

When I am arcane, there's arcane rotations to think about. There's mana to manage. When to hit AP matters. And suddenly, all gear upgrades scale correctly and T5 and T6 are actual upgrades. I can like int and even accept some spirit on my gear. And its a lot more flexible. I can trottle/burst out large damage at the cost of mana in a short period of time, and use lulls to regain back mana. Its very good for the many movement oriented bosses that Blizzard put into TBC.

Its just that its so dumb that arcane needs to try so hard, and possible still end up not being competitive to either fire or even frost at max gear settings (luckily I am not there yet, but I bow to the wisdom of those who already are there). Arcane was never meant to lag fire or frost so badly. It was supposed to BE the preferred raiding spec for the min-maxers of raiding.
#2490SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
This is how I feel as well. When I am fire spec, and I look at gear upgrades, T6, etc. I feel frustrated. I find myself thinking, why not just wear spell fire / spellstrike all the way and such. And Int, Spirit absolutely doesn't matter. And playing fire is keeping scorch up and then just pressing fireball.

When I am arcane, there's arcane rotations to think about. There's mana to manage. When to hit AP matters. And suddenly, all gear upgrades scale correctly and T5 and T6 are actual upgrades. I can like int and even accept some spirit on my gear. And its a lot more flexible. I can trottle/burst out large damage at the cost of mana in a short period of time, and use lulls to regain back mana. Its very good for the many movement oriented bosses that Blizzard put into TBC.

Its just that its so dumb that arcane needs to try so hard, and possible still end up not being competitive to either fire or even frost at max gear settings (luckily I am not there yet, but I bow to the wisdom of those who already are there). Arcane was never meant to lag fire or frost so badly. It was supposed to BE the preferred raiding spec for the min-maxers of raiding.
You know very little about high end raiding if you feel spellfire/spellstrike = T6.

1) You NEED stam. You'll never live fights like Naj, Gurtogg, or Council w/o a decent amount of stam.

2) If you think the rotation is boring with fire...try actually using your cooldowns correctly. It makes a HUGE difference in your overall damage output. What part of 1.6 second fireballs isn't fun?

3) umm...5% more damage on your primary spell....I'm not even going to touch this one.

4) Arcane Blast was always broken...it REQUIRES you to have 2t5...which prevents you from upgrading. Any spec that is only made viable by wearing downgraded gear (TLC for AM spam, 2t5 for ab rotations) is simply horrible planning on the part of blizzard.
#2491SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
Uh, I think that's a overly wrong statement saying arcane was supposed to be the prefered raiding spec for min/max'ers. I don't have the link but unless I misunderstood or remember the post in another way, all blue ever said about Arcane spec was that they wanted it to be the best dps at the cost of poor dpm - which is still true.

I loved arcane when it could shine, when we were in t5 content/just getting into t6, and I loved the MSD patch that made AM really fun to raid with and you could actually use the spell you left in the spellbook at lvl 8 when you learned it 3 years ago... It's a dead horse though, and unless a major overhaul is incoming Arcane will be bad - WOTLK could change things too, hopefully. In the meantime trying to make Arcane work appears to be rather pointless.
#2492SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Its just that its so dumb that arcane needs to try so hard, and possible still end up not being competitive to either fire or even frost at max gear settings (luckily I am not there yet, but I bow to the wisdom of those who already are there). Arcane was never meant to lag fire or frost so badly. It was supposed to BE the preferred raiding spec for the min-maxers of raiding.
Combat dagger rogues have strict positioning requirements and have to watch their combo points carefully to pick their best rotations of finishing moves, and deal less damage than combat sword rogues.

Same situation. Less scaling for more effort. There have been mini step buffs, but there is still a notable difference.

Yes, it's dumb. But it's probably better than being 100% dependant on the 2T5 set bonus and having to skip T6+ gear for it.
I agree that arcane deserves a reason to exist outside of 1 minute boss fights, but not much we can do about it. It needs some talent and gear overhaul to make it happen, and there are better things to invest the time into before WotLK hits.
#2493SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
text
I hit 2014 dps last night on teron. My crits were a bit low compared to my chance to crit...33% when it should have been about 39% with a ret paladin & raid buffed...and I only had one destro pot on me which i managed to forget to pop until my trinkets were nearly finished. (I'll be making a macro to use for execute range that I have the option to hit if i'm ok on mana for destro pots =)

What i'm wondering is what kind of damage I would be putting out if the fight were to only last 2'30" vs ours that lasted 3'38". The execute range lasted a full 40 seconds...and I still managed to put out 3374 dps during it. By my calculations...I was doing 4204 dps when my trinkets/IV were up during the last 20%.

A rough ratio could be figured out for the amount 1 minute extra dps time lowers your dps by.

WWS - 2/5/08 - Hardlycore

And yes...our interrupts were horrible on ROS =)
#2494SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
A few notes.

First thing first. Every spec will have advantages and disadvantages. There will be times where one spec will shine, and others where it won't. If we wanted to put it in the most simplistic terms, arcane is good on trash and AOE because of the lack of ramp-up-time and less requirement on debuffs. Fire sucks hard on trash, with scorch stacking and ignites falling off. Frost is in-between.

Using the vast majority of fights available in raiding, generally fire should serve you best given that it has arguably everything you want for a PVE spec (ie: high single target DPS with very few drawbacks in that domain).

If you want my honest opinion, I think almost every TC misrepresents arcane spec. The closest we've had was Vontre' spreadsheet because it dynamically adapted your spell rotation depending on DPM. But again, it wasn't perfect and I am not sure if it would do AP/AB spam rotations at all. But it gave the closest results that I am aware of. Fire spec is highly misrepresented on a large amount of TC and simulationcraft that I have seen. Currently, in my view, the best model available is Vontre' webtool, with the minor hiccup that cooldown stacking is not perfectly optimum, but the results are close enough. For frost spec, I think the spec is simple enough that any off-the-hill TC will give 'proper' numbers simply because theres no 'complex' cooldown stacking involved -- "pop any cooldown as soon as they're up" is close enough for purposes of TC that it can be viewed as accurate. Personally I use Vontre' webtool, but thats just me,

I don't think mages will ever come to an agreement in terms of what spec is the best. Everything is situational. Hell, theres even a teron-buster spec for those really inclined to it (0/40/21). Ideally you would have one different best spec for every encounter. But beyond all of that, 2/48/11 will give you the best possible scaling out of everything that exists. And this has got nothing to do with cooldown stacking. Or fight mechanics. That same spec happens to adapt arguably the best on a vast majority of fights due to its low number of downsides (ie: arguably only scorch ramp-up time and ignites falling off).

I don't think I'll ever manage to convince arcane mages for the simple reason that there is no tool that gives a result I would deem close enough to use myself as for reference-TC. I can't show to arcane mages why their spec is bad with a simulation because theres none I trust enough to give me a good output. Oh I can give a rather long list of reason for any mage to spec one spec or another. Arcane happens to have the most amount of downsides, and sadly enough, doesn't really have much upsides beyond 'low threat' which is mostly irrelevant theses days.

-------
Originally Posted by Alvira
stuff
I understand firespec play is kinda 'dull' in itself. However, I find it interesting that not many people seem keen on honing their play. I am being very honest when I say I think I've never had a single fight where I had literally near perfect play. Theres always something to pick up on your play that could have been improved upon. Sometimes its not too obvious, and requires WWS after-the-fact-analysis, but more often than not you can make a mental note of things like 'moved too much here' or '3s left on flamecap at end of fight'. Why not take that focus you enjoy so much from arcane spec and try to use it to better master (or enjoy?) deepfire playstyle? everything is about cooldown management. Sure, you won't see a 'huge' dps upgrade from a decent cooldown stacking to a perfect cooldown stacking, but its those last dps that makes all the difference. It is far more impressive to see a 2450 parse (+50 dps from your previous best) than a 2050 parse. If the vast majority of parses are 2.4k DPS, and you see a mere few breaching 2450 dps, then that is where you can see your efforts truly shine.

-------
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
[...]Personally I can't wait for Manly to post a 2500DPS parsing where he gets a CoE at execute range. Go on Manly, you know you want to.
Well, my previous parses I had sub-optimal gear. But now I have the optimum gearset. I should get 40-50 more dps from the gear change. Then also I get better at cooldown timing every time. I still severely misuse flamecap and drums of battle. I know I can push more dps from proper play. Problem is, while the basic principles that goes into cooldown stacking, in practice its not as easy to master as it sounds. We really need a mod that shows fight duration on a bar (like I pointed out a while ago), it would tremendously ease things up. I've yet to do a teron kill I would deem that was close enough to perfect play. I know I can do better, I know where I screwed up.

The interesting parse should be this week, given that odd are high I get an elemental shaman that is LW. 3-4 drums would ease things up, but sadly, odds of 3 warlocks is quite low.

-------
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
[...]
And yes...our interrupts were horrible on ROS =)
As ironic as it might sound, I am typically happy when that happens. Sure, it might cost you a dps loss, but more often than not what happens is that I end up exploding due to a double crit, which sucks. And ice block doesn't works against ROS damage, for some reason, so you cant ice block on a mid-air fireball to save your ass off.
#2495SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
My answer to what Manly said.

Cos I am not at that gear level yet, nor am I at that level on content yet. My guild isn't farming Illidan and I am not wearing four piece T6. Nor will I be in a position to get four pieces of T6 any time yet. My guild just killed Archimonde, Mt Hyjal is still currently a big part of our weekly raiding schedule.

We have killed a few bosses in BT. Probably Bloodboil next. In that context, you can see why I am still deep arcane/ minor fire. Because Arcane is great in MH, especially for AOEing the waves of trash. Its adequate to good for the MH bosses too.

In early BT, arcane is fine too. Supremus has higher resist to fire. And I just swop to using fireballs for fights like najentus or teron, where there is a fairly high amount of spell knockback. Shade of Akama is a joke, and a 1 min Burn down anyway.

Maybe the remaining bosses of BT will require me to spec fire. But I seem to recall that Illidan has a portion of which involves fire immunity. The prospect of going fire, and then, changing to either frost, or arcane to progress or kill on Illidan on a weekly basis doesn't sound very appealing. Not when I could still continue to play like a fire mage and use fireball for the selected bosses where it is better. Average fireball dmg is lower, but crits are higher. In the end, its probably not so far below a deep fire spec that it matters so much. (Just because I am deep arcane doesn't mean I can't use fireball on certain fights).

The same reason was why I stayed arcane throught out SSC/TK. Arcane was good for those instances, and the prospect of changing spec everytime we did Alar every week was not appealing. Not when arcane was competitive enough in SSC/TK.

Between practicality vs trying to have the best theoratical possible DPS. I choose practicality. I am still waiting for the day when practicality will cause me to change to being a fire spec. Maybe when I am at the stage of having 4 piece T6 and when my guild has Illidan on farm. So, since I am not there yet, and arcane serves its purpose more than adequately in the meantime, I will still use arcane.

We don't know the full details of the next patch. But the lowering the min threshold to 1 sec on cooldown for spells buffed with haste is certainly going to buff arcane more than it buffs fire or frost (which already receives most benefits of haste). So, it will only postpone the day when I change to fire.
#2496SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
My answer to what Manly said.[...]
To be honest my reply to you was more addressing your distate of firespec playstyle more than trying to convince you to switch spec. I know that I wouldn't change specs based only off on someone else internet posts. I make my own opinion of things and move along with it. Personally I don't give much credibility to heresay until I see a parse. Believe me when I say I will be the first in line to switch spec as soon as another spec is best DPS spec.
#2497SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tzal
Alvira-I believe being competitive isn't the goal here. It's being the best every single time out. Those are two very different things. TC shows that fire is better for reasons explained by other mages far better than I could. So TC suggests going fire.

Your reasons for staying Arcane are anecdotal. And since you are sharing anecdotes, I'll offer some as well. Our Arcane mages do great on trash, but our fire mages dominate them on boss fights and during the times that matter, the last 20% of boss fights. So my anecdotal evidence suggests fire as well.

Manly-Do you use a mod to track scorch stacks? I've used a few, but they are unreliable and don't pick up scorch stacks applied by other mages. Based on WWS parses, I'm scorching way too much because I mistakenly believe I need to reapply 5 stacks. I could look at the boss's portrait, but the scorch debuff is usually too hard to pick up.
#2498SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
In regards to fire, since coming back to Mage once I started getting into better cooldown management the whole thing has been a lot more fun. That and switching fireball to shift-mwheelup, but that's another story. Manly is right when he says you can tell where you have room to improve by doing simple things like seeing where your timers are when a boss dies.
#2499SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
I use scorchio, quartz, and looking up at the debuffs while spamming fireball to monitor the scorch debuff. None of these are perfect...and aren't even 100% using all 3. I've yet to find a mod that keeps track of it perfectly.
#2500SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
For scorch tracking I highly recommend DebuffFilter. It's also excellent for tracking the timing left for buffs on yourself, and little details like whether the mob has CoE or not (likely not).
#2501SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
Scorchio is the best addon I have found for tracking the debuff. All of our mages use it and it tracks pretty well between all of them. Not sure if everyone needs to use it for it to work though. I believe Manly has also posted that he uses it as well.
#2502SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Well, I use scorchio, but it is easy to notice that it doesn't always pick up other mages scorches. For the most part it does a decent job.
#2503SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3chase
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Well, I use scorchio, but it is easy to notice that it doesn't always pick up other mages scorches. For the most part it does a decent job.
Will be interesting to see if the change to the combat log in 2.4 will produce a message for a scorch debuff when the target has a full stack.
#2504SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
I would say that from all that was stated Manly has the clearest view of the situation on specs. Arcane indeed is misrepresented in TC most of the time. I usually stay in the back and watch people fight over what is best, but when I see statements such as 'you should dump your arcane mages because it says in mage thread that arcane sucks' in cross-class threads I feel like I have to say something.

I've been Arcane since day one, I've raided with it in MC in Naxx and now in BT. You could say I'm crazy but I like creating great results with unorthodox setups. In all these years I've been pursuing Arcane TC and I am quite confident in saying that I have a very good understanding about it. I'll be the last to say that Arcane is better than Fire, but I know that it deserves more than kicking somone out of raid for using it.

I know how it is with WWS parses. There are those that will say you are not proving anything unless you have something to show. And there are those that will say it only shows that your guild sucks if you're doing good with nonoptimal spec. So here's some WWs parses and take them for what they are.

Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats
WWS Loading...
WWS Loading...
WWS Loading...

Again, I'm not telling anyone that Arcane is the best spec, neither am I claiming that I have done anything that can't be done with Fire or Frost spec. All I want to achieve is to get some more tolerance from people and better understanding regarding specs. It's perfectly reasonable for someone that just got 2t5 to try Arcane if the guild supports it. If anything there should be more TC available for them to better understand what it takes to make full use out of Arcane.

That said, I have high hopes for Vontre's simulation tool. Most of the TC I've done is on Arcane only and I don't have any means to do proper comparisons with other specs. I really hope this tool will evolve into a common platform for spec comparison. Ideally it would support user input for spell selection and cooldown timing in a form of scripts that have the spell information and character stats available to make the decisions. If you provide something like this so that mage community can submit their algorithms we could build a nice library of casting style algorithms and one could choose and see how each performs on different sets of gear.
#2505SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Be aware Kavan that the arcane specs on Vontres webtool do not use AB rotations. Well, its either AM spam, or its frostbolt spam, or its 3x AB/3x frostbolt. As you can see the webtool includes destro lock comparison -- well the reason is that the tool is somewhat an experimental testbed so far, and to be honest the interest in truly simulating proper play for an arcane spec is somewhat complex to code. For now, it is not what you're looking for. But for the other specs it should give a close enough estimate.

EDIT: I welcome your disclosure of information if I can call it this way. Too often people would just use one parse to 'prove a point'. I enjoy far more seeing a more clearer picture of a number of fights. I could post my parses but I know ultimately that the gear difference is too steep to come across to any possible comparison. Although the rage numbers are nice
#2506SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Prom
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
I hit 2014 dps last night on teron. My crits were a bit low compared to my chance to crit...33% when it should have been about 39% with a ret paladin & raid buffed...and I only had one destro pot on me which i managed to forget to pop until my trinkets were nearly finished. (I'll be making a macro to use for execute range that I have the option to hit if i'm ok on mana for destro pots =)

What i'm wondering is what kind of damage I would be putting out if the fight were to only last 2'30" vs ours that lasted 3'38". The execute range lasted a full 40 seconds...and I still managed to put out 3374 dps during it. By my calculations...I was doing 4204 dps when my trinkets/IV were up during the last 20%.

A rough ratio could be figured out for the amount 1 minute extra dps time lowers your dps by.

WWS - 2/5/08 - Hardlycore

And yes...our interrupts were horrible on ROS =)
its pretty impressive, what numbers one can get at execute range.
Unfortunately our officers don't understand how much mages gain by popping BL at around 20-30% so they waste it usually half a minute into the fight.
#2507SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 forostie
Scorchio is an excellent mod, though I tend to watch the CooldownCount debuff on the boss more than anything. Quartz tracks it well too.
#2508SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
* Blink mana cost reduced roughly 40%
* Improved Blink now increases the distance you Blink by 15/30%, and you have a 15/30% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Fireball, Frostbolt, or Arcane Blast spell by 50% after you Blink. (Might just do one of these effects…)
* Prismatic Cloak now reduces damage taken by 3/6%, up from 2/4%
* Mana Cost of Slow reduced roughly 40%
* Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
* Mana Shield now scales with spell damage. (Max rank with full S3/best gear will absorb around 1Kish, added damage absorb doesn't cost/consume mana to the shield, it will always cost what the tooltip says)
* Improved Fire Ward is now Molten Shield
* New Talent: Molten Shield – Reduces all damage taken by 2/4% while using Molten Armor, and causes your Fire Ward to have a 25/50% chance to reflect Fire spells while active.
* Frost Warding: Chance to reflect Frost spells while Frost ward is active by 25/50%, up from 10/20%.
* Icy Veins no longer increases the chance your chilling effects Freeze the target, but now reduces pushback by 100% for 20 sec.
* Icy Veins spell haste bonus no longer stacks with Bloodlust.
* Ice Flows now gives you a 15/30% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any Frost spell.

Sounds like fun ;-)
#2509SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Runkett
The IV/Heroism nerf would hurt cooldown stacking damage a little, and the rest has little to do with PvE, other than some pushback protection for frost.

Personally I enjoyed reading the warlock hammering, but since it could well be fake, there is no poing getting too excited.
#2510SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
Please, don't bring unconfirmed patch notes into this thread.

Even if the notes are 100% true, there's probably a more to them. To theorycraft or even predict with such an incomplete picture is an exercise in futility.
#2511SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3alvinrod
Was just reading the discussion about Flamestike and Arcane Explosion in 2.4. I was wondering if perhaps the best DPS could be obtained from a rotation of the two spells rather than just spamming Arcane Explosion. Has anyone done any calculations on a 1x Flamestrike, 2-3x Arcane Explosion rotation.

This would allow the Flamestrike DoT to fully tick off. The question is whether or not this is better DPS than spamming AE?
#2512SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raistin
Originally Posted by manly View Post
We really need a mod that shows fight duration on a bar (like I pointed out a while ago), it would tremendously ease things up.

Time-To-Die on WoWAce. It's fairly accurate.
#2513SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
No, I posted about this, and specifically mentioned time to die. The problem with time-to-die is that it only tells you half the vital information you need. What you want is the total time you were in combat, the time until execute range, and time to die. Just time-to-die alone is not really all that interesting (and plus visually its hard to use, seeing a bar would be far better)
#2514SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
I've been thinking, been trying to see how such an addon would be possible, and for fights of Teron, and Azgalor, the mod would completely freak out. You could have your worst dps'rs get all the Shadows/Dooms and your kill time would be fast, or all your best dps'rs could get it, and you're kill will go slow. So can't use that kind of an addon that Time-To-Die does.

But if such a mod is to be made, one thing to try is to have all the fight durations in seconds stored, and at certain times, the bosses health recorded, and each week, the bar starts up, and each 5, 10, 20, 25% or w/e of the boss, it compares the time in to where you were the last week, or at certain times it compares the health of the boss. I think this would be the optimum way of having the mod work.

It would allow you to compare how your raids dps is compared to the week prior, and judge cooldowns easily. Without having to estimate a bar, and use some fancy approximating code.
#2515SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raistin
Originally Posted by manly View Post
No, I posted about this, and specifically mentioned time to die. The problem with time-to-die is that it only tells you half the vital information you need. What you want is the total time you were in combat, the time until execute range, and time to die. Just time-to-die alone is not really all that interesting (and plus visually its hard to use, seeing a bar would be far better)
I'm not entirely sure what you would use Total Time you were in combat for. However, time to execute range would be helpful. I mostly use Time-to-die to time my cool downs. I usually cut off a minute off the calculation it gives me as a rough estimate as to whether that trinket cool down will be up again for execute range or if I wait to pop it.

I'll contact the author for permission to edit his addon and I'll see what I can work up.
#2516SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raistin
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
I've been thinking, been trying to see how such an addon would be possible, and for fights of Teron, and Azgalor, the mod would completely freak out. You could have your worst dps'rs get all the Shadows/Dooms and your kill time would be fast, or all your best dps'rs could get it, and you're kill will go slow. So can't use that kind of an addon that Time-To-Die does.

But if such a mod is to be made, one thing to try is to have all the fight durations in seconds stored, and at certain times, the bosses health recorded, and each week, the bar starts up, and each 5, 10, 20, 25% or w/e of the boss, it compares the time in to where you were the last week, or at certain times it compares the health of the boss. I think this would be the optimum way of having the mod work.

It would allow you to compare how your raids dps is compared to the week prior, and judge cooldowns easily. Without having to estimate a bar, and use some fancy approximating code.
Correct me if I'm wrong, as I've just recently started to use the addon, but I've only noticed tracking target DPS as opposed to RDPS. On Illidan tonight it accurately tracked our split DPS on the Flames.
#2517SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Well, what I mean is that Time-To-Die doesn't tell you how long to certain %'s of the mob, it will only show how long till the mob dies.

What the addon needs is that kind of availability to the user to be worth it, because unfortunate things can happen, and the RDPS will suffer, and the time-to-die will change based off that, and change your cooldown usage. Whereas with what I purposed is that since a guilds rdps doesn't vary by more than 2k per week, or shouldn't, it will give more acurate comparisons to where you stand, and when you can pop cooldowns reliably.
#2518SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Surprised you TCers haven't gobbled up the confirmation earlier today about spell haste and spells, until the post we weren't clear if veins/bloodlust would affect it and not just spell haste gear (Or focus gem). They've clarified with this response:

With haste gear you can work toward lowering the GCD down to 1 second, but it will take more than just gear to max it.
You can max it with the use of both haste on gear and abilities/talents.
Trying to think about the implications of this. At the very least this should allow 40/0/21 to become THE (at least burst) aoe spec, among other things like frostbolt double ice lance combos in arena.
#2519SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Double icelance... Now there's a thought. The modified GCD would have to be shorter than the 1st lance's travel time. Though I feel this is unlikely it will make for some very entertaining videos of freeze hitting max range, IV-frostbolt-doublelance.

Edit: Searix, I don't get you sig. Game reff to some fps?
#2520SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
I think we already established how double icelance is a near impossibility. Frostbolt's traveltime would have to be way above 1 second so would ice lance for it to even be slightly possible.

Edit: unless mistaken the sig is about the new team fortress?
#2521SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
So, just of a random rant heh. There is nothing more annoying then waiting 6 days to kill Teron again only to get ghosted right before 20% /sigh.

Sunwell needs to come out, I get way to depressed if Teron goes bad.

Though next week gonna finally give in and try using Bracers of Nimble Thought and Mana Attuned Band.
#2522SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
It doesn't beat clearing to teron with darkmoon faire buff, use blessed wizard oil, flask of pure death and get the first sacrifice.
#2523SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Originally Posted by manly View Post
It doesn't beat clearing to teron with darkmoon faire buff, use blessed wizard oil, flask of pure death and get the first sacrifice.
Ouch, yea a few of us were gonna use DMFB, but our GM kinda frowned on it, more like a do it if you really want.

I might use it for Rage tonight just cause I was so angry bout Teron last night lol.

But definately glad I'm atleast not alone in my depression of bad Teron's.
#2524SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
I tested the double ice lance with frostbolt, and i give it a "good" chance of working. Combat logs don't usually record when the spell leaves the hand, which as we determined is when shatter is figured. That said anecdotally it looked like ice lance was almost up when the spells landed, subtract off that .5 seconds and i'd say there's a fair chance it works.

Edit: Sig is TF2, more of an inside joke.
#2525SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
My simulation tool is scripted pretty well for the rotation... it skips arcane blasts that fall under GCD and automatically selects the correct filler based on timing. I think it's missing some minor stuff like AB spam mana dumping.

User uploaded script is a fine idea, but I don't want to spend a billion years writing a parser for a full-featured scripting language. Anyone have a good idea of how they'd like to see the simulation scripting done?
#2526SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Carisana View Post
So, just of a random rant heh. There is nothing more annoying then waiting 6 days to kill Teron again only to get ghosted right before 20% /sigh.

Sunwell needs to come out, I get way to depressed if Teron goes bad.

Though next week gonna finally give in and try using Bracers of Nimble Thought and Mana Attuned Band.
How about having more casts on Teron in a shorter time span than the week before, higher avg damage by 100, for a 4300 avg hit, then having a 25% crit rate for a total of 1750dps, barely making the top 10. The 2 other mages in the raid beat me, both had 42% crit rates, made me a sad mage.

If you need the hit from Mana Attuned Band, use it, else use Ring of Ancient Knowledge.
#2527SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Personally I find it somewhat amusing that people get pissed about low crit rate, yet you can be just as equally fucked by the min/max of fireball damage, even if you get high crit rate. There is no win with the RNG.

(don't read me wrong, I would be fairly pissed too if I had low crit rate on teron)
#2528SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Isn't the DPS variance from crit a much much bigger factor than the DPS variance from all other factors?
#2529SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3graver
the only bigger factor on Teron i believe is getting a nasty debuff
#2530SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Isn't the DPS variance from crit a much much bigger factor than the DPS variance from all other factors?
I admit, its been a long time since i checked the variance in the damage. Although thinking back about it, I doubt I get much more than 500-600 variance on a non-crit fireball, and on crit I don't really check. It would indeed seem like I grossly overestimated there.
#2531SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I mean that the variance in your DPS that is a result of sometimes doing X dmg and sometimes doing 2.1X dmg should be quite bigger than the variance that is caused by stuff like min-max dmg range on base fireball and/or partial resists and/or misses.
#2532SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carisana
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
How about having more casts on Teron in a shorter time span than the week before, higher avg damage by 100, for a 4300 avg hit, then having a 25% crit rate for a total of 1750dps, barely making the top 10. The 2 other mages in the raid beat me, both had 42% crit rates, made me a sad mage.

If you need the hit from Mana Attuned Band, use it, else use Ring of Ancient Knowledge.

Ouch that does suck I've had that happen on Rage before having a 26% crit rate and doing a whopping 1650dps. Then the very next day, cause it was a Monday/Tuesday had a 66% crit rate and did a ton of dps so yea GG RnG it does suck or can be awesome.

As for the rings, I still don't have Ring of Ancient Knowledge always passed to SP's, Boomkin, Ele Shammy's and another mage. I'll get one eventually I hope, haven't seen one in like 3 weeks now.
#2533SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
The worst RNG i ever had on Teron was a few weeks ago. I ended up with a 7% miss rate on fireball and a 25% miss rate on scorch. I was wearing 167 hit rating at the time. Also had no SP in the raid at all so was lacking misery.

WWS
#2534SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
RNG is a big reason why I prefer to rely on theorycraft over "testing".
#2535SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Leonina
So, after seeing the new patchnotes and the new spellhaste gems, how will those stack up against Veiled Noble Topaz?
Dawnstones (pure haste rating) , Talasite(haste + stam), and noble Topaz (haste + spelldmg). Or versus the 9spelldmg gem ?
#2536SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3LiquidHAL
Originally Posted by Leonina View Post
So, after seeing the new patchnotes and the new spellhaste gems, how will those stack up against Veiled Noble Topaz?
Dawnstones (pure haste rating) , Talasite(haste + stam), and noble Topaz (haste + spelldmg). Or versus the 9spelldmg gem ?
depends what the numbers are, i haven't seen the actual stats on them anywhere yet. personally i'd only replace my gems if the haste is greater than or equal to the equivalent +dmg gem.
#2537SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akuman
Sorry for not having an exact reference, but I believe it was discussed that 1 haste rating is worth slightly more than +1dmg.

So for that reason, it would seem that +4 haste +5dmg gems would be worth more than +9 spell dmg gems. (assuming they come out with something like that)

However, 1 hit rating is still more valuable than 1 haste rating, till the cap.
#2538SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Leonina
Quick Dawnstone - +8 Spell Haste Rating
Reckless Noble Topaz - +4 Spell Haste Rating and +5 Spell Damage
Forceful Talasite - +4 Spell Haste Rating and +6 Stamina

@ Spellhit, yeah, ofc, I know this, feel silly now, I meant the 9spelldmg.
#2539SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Did anyone notice the ominous "intellect now increases the amount of mana regenerated via spirit"?

Could this herald a significant enough MP5 upgrade to the arcane that 80%+ AB can be sustained?

Could it mean, combined with the haste buff, that TLC/AToL AB spam will see another day?

Hold your breath folks, more to come! (TM)
#2540SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Well, let's see if we can reach the magic ignite rolling values without cooldowns...
Back: Highborne, 32
Chest: Departed Spirits, 35
Boots: Madness, 25
Rings: Highbornex2, 62
Gloves: Studious, 20
Pants: Arcane An, 45
Neck: Nature's Mercy, 33
Shoulder: Nimble Thought, 38
Waist: Angelista's, 37
Bracers: Nimble, 28
Weapon: Zhardoom, 55
Wand: Carved, 10

Brings it down to 2.31 second fireballs assuming there's +10 spell haste gems, still off the mark :/

Maybe Sunwell will bring the gear required to breach the last 200 haste.
#2541SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Akuman View Post
Sorry for not having an exact reference, but I believe it was discussed that 1 haste rating is worth slightly more than +1dmg.

So for that reason, it would seem that +4 haste +5dmg gems would be worth more than +9 spell dmg gems. (assuming they come out with something like that)

However, 1 hit rating is still more valuable than 1 haste rating, till the cap.
The value of damage vs. haste directly depends on your current spell damage. Haste beats damage in endgame gear, but you'd use +12 dmg gems by that. An epic equivalent (that hasn't been announced or datamined, so I assume it does not exist) would be +10 haste, and I'd prefer the 12 damage I think. Similar benefit and I don't increase consumption, and scale better with haste from other sources.

At +950 damage unbuffed, spell damage and haste give the same benefit point for point in vontre's sheet.
So, dmg/haste or haste are not better than pure dmg gems at lower gear levels. They would be better than dmg/crit gems, but if you don't have access to BT gems, you're likely not hit capped from gear alone and dmg/hit gems would be better.


Maybe for a trash/pvp set, or haste/stamina for blue slots if your guild is low on shadowsong amethysts (an longer wait list than for spinels for us).
They are not "power gems" that you'd want to spam in every slot, but are nice to experiment and to fill niches. Or gem your alt/off-set/temporarily when living rubies cost 3 times as much as dawnstones/noble topazes. Or gem for AoE when your damage is capped.
#2542SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Habanero
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
The value of damage vs. haste directly depends on your current spell damage. Haste beats damage in endgame gear, but you'd use +12 dmg gems by that. An epic equivalent (that hasn't been announced or datamined, so I assume it does not exist) would be +10 haste, and I'd prefer the 12 damage I think. Similar benefit and I don't increase consumption, and scale better with haste from other sources.

At +950 damage unbuffed, spell damage and haste give the same benefit point for point in vontre's sheet.
So, dmg/haste or haste are not better than pure dmg gems at lower gear levels. They would be better than dmg/crit gems, but if you don't have access to BT gems, you're likely not hit capped from gear alone and dmg/hit gems would be better.


Maybe for a trash/pvp set, or haste/stamina for blue slots if your guild is low on shadowsong amethysts (an longer wait list than for spinels for us).
They are not "power gems" that you'd want to spam in every slot, but are nice to experiment and to fill niches. Or gem your alt/off-set/temporarily when living rubies cost 3 times as much as dawnstones/noble topazes. Or gem for AoE when your damage is capped.
Healers will be the ones that see the major benefit from Spell Haste gems, and in their case you can't really quantify it in numbers -- it's trading potential sheer healing power for effective reaction time/latency mitigation.
#2543SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3inphared
Hey guys read the forums a lot and finally signed up for an account. I know 2.4 just came out on the PTR yesterday but has anyone had a chance to test if the ghost hit from EP is still there on frostbolt?
#2544SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
RNG is a big reason why I prefer to rely on theorycraft over "testing".
I've always been a fan of "theory first, test after". And then always use statistical tools to figure out wether your test falls within the theory or not, considering if you can theorycraft your DPS you can just as well theorycraft the deviation of your DPS and the chance your theory is correct given certain results in the "testing".

"testing" and then ignoring the deviations due to the RNG is just silly, though.
#2545SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ulthwithian
Yes, hypothesis testing is the crux of everything, but then you need a hypothesis first.

Since I haven't seen it discussed yet (probably waiting for some data), as far as Mages are concerned, how big would the mana regen buff have to be to make Arcane anywhere near comparable? I am curious because I am a diehard Arcane fan, and (from the Mage's standpoint) Arcane mages are the big winners from this change, given their talents.
#2546SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Well, let's see if we can reach the magic ignite rolling values without cooldowns...
Back: Highborne, 32
Chest: Departed Spirits, 35
Boots: Madness, 25
Rings: Highbornex2, 62
Gloves: Studious, 20
Pants: Arcane An, 45
Neck: Nature's Mercy, 33
Shoulder: Nimble Thought, 38
Waist: Angelista's, 37
Bracers: Nimble, 28
Weapon: Zhardoom, 55
Wand: Carved, 10

Brings it down to 2.31 second fireballs assuming there's +10 spell haste gems, still off the mark :/

Maybe Sunwell will bring the gear required to breach the last 200 haste.
permanent [Drums of Battle] rotation and [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would do the trick.

Last edited by manly : 02/09/08 at 3:20 PM.
#2547SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3LiquidHAL
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
An epic equivalent (that hasn't been announced or datamined, so I assume it does not exist) would be +10 haste, and I'd prefer the 12 damage I think.
I'd probably also prefer the +12dmg under ideal circumstances, but for socket bonuses it might be worth it to go with the haste gems. Not to mention how much easier it is to get your hands on lionseyes.
#2548SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
Originally Posted by LiquidHAL View Post
I'd probably also prefer the +12dmg under ideal circumstances, but for socket bonuses it might be worth it to go with the haste gems. Not to mention how much easier it is to get your hands on lionseyes.
Would probably also be a 6dmg/5haste pyrestone, which would be marginally less dps than 12 dmg but would be better to fill yellow socket bonus with.
#2549SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Vulkaire View Post
Would probably also be a 6dmg/5haste pyrestone, which would be marginally less dps than 12 dmg but would be better to fill yellow socket bonus with.
It would be marginally MORE dps than a spinel for an end game gear set.
#2550SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Vulkaire
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
It would be marginally MORE dps than a spinel for an end game gear set.
That would depend how much weight you give haste vs. dmg. Most theorycraft I have seen has put it around 1.1 haste:1 dmg. That would make 6dmg/5haste=11.5 dmg. A 1.2:1 ratio would make it equal and anything higher would put it ahead.

edit- This is mainly due to the rounding up of the 12 dmg involved with the spinels. On the blue gem level 5dmg/4haste is clearly better than 9 dmg.

Last edited by Vulkaire : 02/09/08 at 6:22 PM.
#2551SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Originally Posted by manly View Post
permanent [Drums of Battle] rotation and [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would do the trick.
Interestingly enough i figure you can get down to 2.155 in the current patch if those 2 are up. Wonder if it rolls down there.
#2552SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
http://www.worldofraids.com/2008/ptr.../mage/mage.jpg

These new mage T6 set pieces are looking really good. A nice boost to haste without sacrificing crit, except on bracers which are just a flat upgrade of Nimble Thought. Single yellow sockets to put in dmg/haste gems assuming they add epic versions.
#2553SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
I'm a bit annoyed that the new T6 pieces still have spirit. Despite the Evocation change it still seems to be considered a primary Mage stat.
#2554SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3LiquidHAL
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
I'm a bit annoyed that the new T6 pieces still have spirit. Despite the Evocation change it still seems to be considered a primary Mage stat.
I'm not sure what exactly "Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit." means from the patch notes. perhaps it'll make spirit not so useless.
#2555SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Acustar
Originally Posted by LiquidHAL View Post
I'm not sure what exactly "Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit." means from the patch notes. perhaps it'll make spirit not so useless.
Currently I use my spirit exactly twice in T6 content. Once for innervates after the AoE packs before RoS. And the other indirectly because I use Mage Armor as a part of my SR gear for Mother.

It would have to be a pretty incredible change for mages to drop Molten Armor vs Mage Armor.
#2556SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kaboomafoo
If they're doing it the way I'm thinking they are, then Blizzard is justifying their laziness (Not removing spirit after constantly being berated by raid mages with its uselessness) by increasing the amount of mana regen mages recieve from their abnormally (I guess) low spirit values due to their usually high intellect levels.

I'm more excited for the badge loot they're releasing! More spell haste and the gear it's on is amazing. Post-T6 loot. I'm curious about the tokens and badges they're using. If only the PTR character copy wasn't full :c
#2557SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
The new tailoring items look pretty good. Although, with all this new gear lacking +hit, it may become an issue. Especially for those of us who are lacking on Skull drops =(

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../newtailor.jpg
#2558SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kaboomafoo
Oh wow, new tailoring stuff. Those look amazing. I'm definately replacing my Spellfire Robe with that one and my t5 gloves may be tossed for those gloves. The lack of +hit will definately be a problem for me, I'm already using a ton of hit rating gems. And to be honest I'd rather not put on Karazhan gear for BT/Hyjal and eventually Sunwell :/
#2559SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Koosha
Originally Posted by Vulkaire View Post
The new tailoring items look pretty good. Although, with all this new gear lacking +hit, it may become an issue. Especially for those of us who are lacking on Skull drops =(

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../newtailor.jpg
Emphasis on all of it lacking hit, I don't think I have seen an item with hit on it yet :l
#2560SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Carnivean
Grandmaster Staff has 50 (!) Hit on it, it looks as it is needed
#2561SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3goodolarchie
I've suggested this numerous times, but arcane meditation needs to be moved down to 1st or 2nd tier talent to make spirit viable for mages, even if that means swapping it with clearcasting. Or they could just not nerf heavy arcane when it actually shows some viability (MSD nerf).

As far as the new hit itemization, I guess this just puts more emphasis on items like chronical, captured storms, spellthread, SoGD. I see a lot of potential in the new crafted rings also: http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...elringneck.jpg
#2562SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3MetallicaRulez0
I'm really pleased with the stuff from Sunwell I've seen so far, other than the obvious flaws. Mostly the lack of Hit and the over-abundance of useless Spirit.

The thing I like most is there's FINALLY some red sockets on cloth gear. Hopefully I can muster up enough Hit to not use Pyrestones in them
#2563SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3aliengrey
I don't know why mages keep complaining about spirit on their gear. If you have a priest that buffs you with divine spirit then hey what do ya know? more spell damage.
#2564SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by aliengrey View Post
I don't know why mages keep complaining about spirit on their gear. If you have a priest that buffs you with divine spirit then hey what do ya know? more spell damage.
The reason why mages complain about spirit is because it's too expensive. If 10 spirit = 1 spell damage for itemization cost, no mage would complain. However, 1 spirit > 1 spell damage in itemization cost, so the benefits would not outweigh the cost associated with it.
#2565SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
The added spell damage gained from Divine Spirit from a mage with ~300 spirit unbuffed vs a warlock with (looking at their armories) ~150 spirit unbuffed is 15 damage, maybe scaling out to ~20 damage with DS/BoK. Assuming 1500+ raid buffed spell damage, that's about a 1% differential in spell damage, and in exchange, they have at least 2000, if not 3000-4000 more hitpoints and a larger mana pool to boot.

I realize warlocks are an exception because they use stamina differently, but I'd trade all the +spirit on my gear for larger amounts of stam/int without even blinking.
#2566SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3IcedTeaIsGood
Originally Posted by aliengrey View Post
I don't know why mages keep complaining about spirit on their gear. If you have a priest that buffs you with divine spirit then hey what do ya know? more spell damage.
Do you really need us to explain why this is not good?
#2567SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3goodolarchie
The spirit/int change greatly helps druids and priests, who will probably need it with upcoming healing haste itemization. It doesn't do sh@t for mages aside from take away out itemization points. Unless arcane meditation is moved, mage armor isn't going to replace a shadowpriest.
#2568SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
As Koosha pointed out, I did made an immediate notice that the core problem of all new gear is that they are all particularly devoid of hit rating, which has rather deep implications. I fear this means we will be required in doing the unthinkable -- hit gems, which I have always been strongly against. Almost everything has haste rating, which is good news for fire mages, but not as much for the other specs. On the other hand, fire spec, with those items we currently know of, will not have enough hit rating to support the spec. So we will have to make serious sacrifices like hit gems, or severely rethink the way gearing up works.

I'll wait and see the full loot tables and go from there. But so far, no hit rating anywhere is shaping up to be a major roadblock.
#2569SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I fear this means we will be required in doing the unthinkable -- hit gems, which I have always been strongly against.
I'm curious as to the reasons behind this. My thinking has been hit gems are 'ok' because: a socket is only as valuable as the gem placed in it, and +hit gems compare favorably with equivalent red gems if under hit cap, and mostly: we're out of spinels. Just with the caveat that gemming for hit makes it costly to re-gem it at a later point. I suspect I'm missing something obvious here?
#2570SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Unleash
Im really curious about how the hit rating will work out also. Looks to me like you will want the 50 hit staff, using skull, using the new jc haste ring, and mana attuned band all together. That should help make up for some of the hit, but your still going to find yourself short. Plus you have to keep 1 item of ur current t6 with the 3 new ones, which im assume you will be keeping the current t6 gloves giving you 20 hit there, plus possibly enchanting them for 15 spell hit.

Cant wait to get on PTR..
#2571SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BrTarolg
Wow all the new mage loot is pretty overwhelming - first thing off the new tailored robe is *insane* - mats not seeming to require any BoP stuff, and beats everything else in the game by miles

New "sunmote" loot seems pretty good too, and so do the new t6 badges - but oh hot damn why all that spirit

If a little bit QQ, this interesting image I found from someone on the WoW forums (blasphemy, I know) pretty much sums up how I feel about spirit atm


I think its pretty obvious why the new tailored stuff is so good - no wasted spirit again!
#2572SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Originally Posted by spiderella View Post
I'm curious as to the reasons behind this. My thinking has been hit gems are 'ok' because: a socket is only as valuable as the gem placed in it, and +hit gems compare favorably with equivalent red gems if under hit cap, and mostly: we're out of spinels. Just with the caveat that gemming for hit makes it costly to re-gem it at a later point. I suspect I'm missing something obvious here?
Gemming for hit gear means youre constantly swapping gems around to pad up for low hit rating. But moreover -- hit gem has no impact on trash or bosses with adds that arent lvl+3. I would much rather gear myself in a way that I assume I have an elemental shaman alive than put hit gems when I can avoid it.

Don't get me wrong -- theres nothing wrong per-se in doing this, its more like a philosophy thing. I much prefer avoiding putting hit gems whenever possible.

Last edited by manly : 02/10/08 at 5:50 AM.
#2573SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3epiphenom
Taking a quick look at the Sunwell loot so far determined, if we keep the T6 gloves, use the staff, wear Mana-Attuned Band and the Loop of Forged Power, and have a Skull of Gul'dan, we can probably just throw hit gems in every yellow socket with +2 spelldamage bonus and cap out. Using Lionseyes, that's 162 hit rating.

I'm more concerned about the seeming lack of spell haste cuts for epic gems. Hopefully that's just an oversight.
#2574SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vonwen
Well, that would explain why the staff has 50 hit rating on it... This huge amount is not that ridiculous if you get that kind of gear.
#2575SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
With what we have so far, I would instinctively guess the best path would be to keep T6 gloves/shoulder/boots/bracers, use the sunwell staff with 3x hit gems in it (+5dmg for YYY). Illidan crown, sunfire robes, pantaloons of growing strife, JC stuff if possible. The t6 belt would be used if youre hitcap otherwise, but if not, you would still be using belt of blasting. I think, although I have not done the math, that doing that very simple gearing should give hitcap.
#2576SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kirion
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I'll wait and see the full loot tables and go from there. But so far, no hit rating anywhere is shaping up to be a major roadblock.

This adds a bit more value to elemental shaman in raid though.
#2577SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Northerner
It does but the issue becomes having an elemental shaman with 100% attendance. Yeah, being 3% off hit won't kill you but it's nice to have options. Min-maxing in T5 I ran with a couple of gearset options based on if I had our elemental or not. Swapping gems (or gemming an alternative set) is less convenient shall we say.

Oh yeah... and that spirit thing again.

Oh well, perhaps they are trying to move hit to a weapon/offhand/trinket stat to differentiate PvP/PvE gear. At least we aren't seeing spell pen all over the place. Hah!
#2578SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3frosty
Originally Posted by manly View Post
As Koosha pointed out, I did made an immediate notice that the core problem of all new gear is that they are all particularly devoid of hit rating, which has rather deep implications. I fear this means we will be required in doing the unthinkable -- hit gems, which I have always been strongly against. Almost everything has haste rating, which is good news for fire mages, but not as much for the other specs. On the other hand, fire spec, with those items we currently know of, will not have enough hit rating to support the spec. So we will have to make serious sacrifices like hit gems, or severely rethink the way gearing up works.

I'll wait and see the full loot tables and go from there. But so far, no hit rating anywhere is shaping up to be a major roadblock.
The missing hitrating should also reduce the gap between fire and arcane specs, which can get 7% more hitrating through talents. No idea if it will be enough to get both specs on an equal level, but any future TC should consider the different socketing to find out, i.e. add an amount of +dmg to the arcane spec that represents the missing stats of a fire build using hit-gems.
#2579SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BrTarolg
Tbh, i don't think hit will be a problem at all. Simply put - just value items as spelldamage=spellhaste=2critrating=0.5hitrating and gear up that way, and then only start worrying once you smack into the hitcap, and just gear up in a way where you get the optimal numbers possible.
#2580SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Prom
I had a look at these items on the PTR just as they were being released to the internet last night. It made a big impression on me that I couldn't find any item with hit rating.
I thought maybe that wasn't the whole lot.

My only assumption is that other items dropped in Sunwell will have hit rating on them, and we will just have to make the best combination out of a wide variety.
It would seem pretty odd to release all new gear with No spell hit rating !!!
#2581SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by manly View Post
With what we have so far, I would instinctively guess the best path would be to keep T6 gloves/shoulder/boots/bracers, use the sunwell staff with 3x hit gems in it (+5dmg for YYY). Illidan crown, sunfire robes, pantaloons of growing strife, JC stuff if possible. The t6 belt would be used if youre hitcap otherwise, but if not, you would still be using belt of blasting. I think, although I have not done the math, that doing that very simple gearing should give hitcap.
Okay, plugged the items into the sheet as they are now.
Upgrades listed as 30/40 means +30 damage without hit, +40 damage upgrade with hit (roughly).
Assuming spinel spam for sockets for those values.
That means that socketed items will be "better" since you can gem them for some more +hit.


Hat - T6 is good. Illidari is +15/+30, new hat is +20/-2; Engi T2 are +12/-10
Shoulders - T6 is good, new shoulders are +15/+15. No penetration is good, but just dmg/crit stinks.
Robes - T6 is "nice", ghostly hatred is +35/+12. Tailoring BoP is +70/+45
Bracers - new T6 are nimble +16/+16
Gloves - T6 is nice, new drop is +35/+0, tailored BoE is +45/+10.
Belt - new T6 is noose +17/+17, or blasting +25/-16 (lack of hit)
Leggings - new ones are T6 +55/+20, or Channeled (Kazrogal) +40/+7
Boots - new T6 are seacaller +20/+20

Rings - new JC BoE unique-equipped is Mana-attuned +3/+5 (plus stamina)
Neck - new JC BoP neck is Hellfire +24/24 (break even with enchanting) or Translucent +35/+9


=> New maximised gearing:
T6 boots/Bracers are no-brainers.
T6 belt - beats blasting if you can reach the hit cap via gemming (quite sure you can reach that), and you get 1 item for T6 bonus.
Use T6 shoulders + Illidari hat to maximise. T6 hat are a decent second choice (0 illidan hats in our guild).
Use whichever you have and need to keep your set bonuses.

The new tailored BoP robe is plain nuts.
New leggings and gloves are very good upgrades.
The ring will drain a lot of Sunmotes (best in slot so far, and has stats).


I think hit-itemisation killed Zhar'doom.

Edit:
Also, bear in mind that stacking this much haste on gear will skew the value of haste on gear.
The more you stack haste, the better dmg/crit/hit become, and the relative value of haste compared to them will go down.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/10/08 at 8:00 AM.
#2582SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3f1reburn
shadowpriest.com :: View topic - 2.4 and SP itemization: They still don't get it

Apparently MSD has been changed to 320 haste for 6 seconds, 15% proc chance.

Could someone less mathematically challenged than me provide the implications of this change?
#2583SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by f1reburn View Post
shadowpriest.com :: View topic - 2.4 and SP itemization: They still don't get it

Apparently MSD has been changed to 320 haste for 6 seconds, 15% proc chance.

Could someone less mathematically challenged than me provide the implications of this change?
Assuming the same internal CD, and the same mechanics (what procs it), and the same 15% proc chance.
Also, assuming that it's NOT consumed by a cast, as listed.

Current MSD:
100% haste for 1.5 seconds (cast time of one hasted fireball) per proc. 100*1.5 = 150

New MSD:
320 ~ 20% haste for 6 seconds per proc. Assume a 7s average effective proc duration (if the procs fades while a spell is cast, it still gets hasted). 20*7 = 140


- So, roughly the same for fire as it's now. Bear in mind that the current MSD is worth less since you'll run into the GCD. The "more blue than yellow" will make it unusable though with current hit itemisation.

- AM spam - currently it's 100% haste for 1 cast. You would need 1k haste rating to get AM under 3sec to get 3 casts off in 6sec - not going to happen I think. So it will be 20% haste for 2 casts. Less than half as good as one cast at 100% haste.

- For frost, CSD beats MSD right now, and they'll be roughly the same in 2.4. Hit gems will probably kill it though, even if 6% frost hit stay in.


Edit: Old MSD was multiplicative haste, new one is additive haste rating. So, it gets a bit worse when you have loads of haste stacked, but not by much.
#2584SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nickolina
Looks like theres going to a lot of gem swapping.. You can get by with 6 +8 rare spell hits and later swap em if you get the ring and staff.. I don't think it's viable to swap epic gems for epic gems... I can just see my gm loving me when i ask for 9 pyrostones if and when I get that staff :P
#2585SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Notice that the listed items are the token-loot and profession items.

All token items have spirit on them, so I'd guess there is also loot without spirit and maybe with hit as direct drops.
Just a wild guess though, or it would be pretty dumb towards warlocks to drown them in useless spirit - not that it's any better for mages though *cough*

Another interpretataion would be that it's off-spec token loot for arcane mages and shadow-priests, or just leveling gear with the WotLK spirit change in mind (whatever they want to so with spirit, but they announced a "change to make it useful").
So, there may be "main spec loot" for cloth casters without spirit, and maybe with hit rating.


It's just speculation though, but I wanted to make clear that these items are most likely not everything there is. Hopefully


Edit. Of course it's too early to stitch together a new set. But it's never to early to start working with the things we have!

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/10/08 at 9:12 AM.
#2586SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3draxon0012
Isn't it a little premature to calculate new end game sets without seeing actual epics in Sunwell itself? I mean all due respect.
#2587SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tharia
MMO-Champion and other sites have quite a lot of screenshots laying around, dataminers have done a great job, as always ^^ Maybe one or two items are missing still, but these shouldn't change much. A bit of planning doesn't hurt, especially if you didn't farm BT for eternity and have every Item you could possibly use and swap around as you like :x

We, as a guild, are still missing zhar'doom, but seeing the new loot, I'm not that sad about it.
#2588SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Vhad
Only items unaccounted for are new necks, rings, cloaks and trinkets I think. Which means you can get a pretty nice list already, I made one for alliance mages not rolling with elemental shaman's to be capped @ 152 hit rating, I'd be interested in seeing other setup's maybe using Sunflare.

Head = Cowl of the Illidari Highlord@stam/dmg gem
Neck = Hellfire Encased Pendant
Shoulders = Mantle of the Tempest
Cloak = Shroud of the Highborne
Chest = Tailored Chest
Bracers = Bracers of the Tempest
Gloves = T6,5
Belt = Belt of the Tempest
Legs = T6,5
Boots = Boots of the Tempest

Ring = Mana Attuned Band
Ring = Loop of Forged Powers

Trinket = Hex Shrunken Head
Trinket = Skull of Gul'dan

Wand = Carved Witch Doctor's Stick@dmg/stam gem

Weapon = Staff of 50 hit rating

All gems are red 12 spell dmg unless otherwise listed.

For a total of:

147 hit rating
294 haste rating
1353 spell dmg
245 crit rating
Crit@0,77ESPD and Haste@1,29ESPD this totals: 1920,91 ESPD

Basically all of the current T6 is garbage compared to the new pieces, however you have to keep one piece. Depending on what you currently have that piece will be shoulders or helmet as the difference in upgrade is smallest on those pieces, if you have Illidari Cowl you want to keep shoulders, if not you want to keep the helmet.

Edit: did most of my numbercrunching with only slightly valuing hit, this means it's undervalued in the effective spell dmg calculations I've made to actually favor the 50 hit rating staff even more. But for all intends and purposes it's not going to make a big difference as once capped hit rating is essentially useless.

Last edited by Vhad : 02/10/08 at 10:46 AM.
#2589SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Aoife
Cowl of the Illidari Highlord (Chaotic Skyfire Diamond; Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst; Glyph of Power)
Translucent Spellthread Necklace
Mantle of Nimble Thought (Greater Inscription of Discipline)
Cloak of the Illidari Council (Subtlety)
Sunfire Robe (3xRuned Crimson Spinel; 6 stats)
Bracers of the Tempest (Runed Crimson Spinel; 15 damage)
Gloves of the Tempest (Runed Crimson Spinel; 20 damage)
Belt of the Tempest (Runed Crimson Spinel)
Leggings of Channelled Elementals (3xRuned Crimson Spinel; Runic Spellthread)
Boots of the Tempest (Veiled Pyrestone; Boar's Speed)
Mana Attuned Band (12 damage)
Ring of Ancient Knowledge (12 damage)
Hex-Shrunken Head
Skull of Guldan
Sunflare (Sunfire)
Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Wand of the Forgotten Star

Damage: 1366
Hit: 164
Crit: 308
Haste: 231

I haven't looked too closely at the new Badge type loot from Sunwell, so some of those might be a bit better for off set slots, but this seems to be the best I can get so far. I'll take a loot at it again later this week and try to see what else can be changed.
#2590SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
This setup doesn't satisfy the meta gem requirements, unless I'm missing something?
#2591SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Aoife
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
This setup doesn't satisfy the meta gem requirements, unless I'm missing something?
Damn, you're right. Would need to swap out a Spinel for another Shadowsong Amethyst somewhere.
#2592SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
I'm starting to curse Manly a bit for convincing me to drop Tailoring for Leatherworking in irc. Perhaps I'll start farming cloth again. I was stupid not to drop Alchemy anyhow.
#2593SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3rautrix
This is a conspiracy to keep us wearing Belt of Blasting until WLK.

So as a T6 mage, I can only swap out slots that don't have hit on them for Sunwell loot to keep my hit intact (or spec arcane): bracers, boots, shoulders, cloak, 2 rings, 1 trinket slot, and neck.

They could easily fix this by putting some hit on the T6 added pieces (bracers, boots, belt) because then you'd be encouraged to swap more slots for Sunwell loot and still keep the 4pc bonus.

I want to see what the dps caster wand's stats are.
#2594SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
I'm not feeling so bad about using Blue Suede Shoes and Ring of Captured Storms right now (hey, when you're regearing everything is an upgrade).
#2595SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
I'm starting to curse Manly a bit for convincing me to drop Tailoring for Leatherworking in irc. Perhaps I'll start farming cloth again. I was stupid not to drop Alchemy anyhow.
80 haste for 5 people for 30 seconds every 2 minutes blows the Sunfire Robe away. Yeah, Alchemy would have better to drop though.

Originally Posted by rautrix View Post
This is a conspiracy to keep us wearing Belt of Blasting until WLK.
New T6 beats blasting overall, since you can recover hit from gems.
#2596SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Aoife
Cowl of the Illidari Highlord (CSD; Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst; Glyph of Power)
Translucent Spellthread Necklace
Mantle of the Tempest (Veiled Pyrestone; Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst; Greater Inscription of Discipline) Note: 4 damage from socket bonus
Cloak of the Illidari Council (Subtlety)
Sunfire Robe (Runed Crimson Spinelx3; 6 stats) Note: 5 damage from socket bonus
Bracers of the Tempest (Veiled Pyrestone; 15 damage) Note: 2 damage from socket bonus
Sunfire Gloves (Runed Crimson Spinelx2; 20 damage)
Belt of the Tempest (Veiled Pyrestone) Note: 2 damage from socket bonus
Pantaloons of Growing Strife (Runed Crimson Spinelx3; Runic Spellthread)
Boots of the Tempest (Veiled Pyrestone; Boar's Speed)
Mana Attuned Band (12 damage)
Loop of Forged Powers (12 damage)
Hex-Shrunken Head
Skull of Guldan
Sunflare (40 damage)
Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Wand of the Forgotten Star

485 Intellect
265 Spirit
160 Hit Rating
276 Crit Rating
1398 Damage (1408 with Sunfire; 1412 with Soulfrost)
244 Haste Rating

Thoughts?
#2597SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
80 haste for 5 people for 30 seconds every 2 minutes blows the Sunfire Robe away. Yeah, Alchemy would have better to drop though.
Couldn't you make the Robe then drop tailoring?

Also, I haven't heard anything about a wand.....I pray that the TK wand will not remain the best in the game.
#2598SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
New T6 beats blasting overall, since you can recover hit from gems.
I'm not so sure this argument works. Wouldn't this be like saying that Blasting beats T6 overall cause you can make up the haste (or any other stat) from gems (or any other source). I haven't proven it to myself in the strictest sense of the word, but in the gearing algorithm I use for bosses I have assumed that the only thing that should change the decision to put runed living rubies/spinels in my sockets is a relevant socket bonus or meta requirement. I have a strong feeling that using sockets to cap hit is suboptimal. There is one exception to this that I have found, but it only applies to kara level gear. As I said however, I have no proof for this.
#2599SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Overall, as long as you have the ability to hit cap with gems, you're making better use of the itemization value if the gear lacks hit and forces gemming to cap it compared to having excessive hit on gear to the point where you look for every way to gain any small amount of spell damage at the cost of a lot of that excessive hit rating.

Right now the massive hit rating on T6 level gear gets to the point where some items are just a waste compared to what they could be if they used more itemization on dmg/haste (or even crit, although not as good and with that might as well get excessive hit rating - but even that is up to a point).

Fact is if you're needing to gem for hit you're probably making *better* use of the itemization value than if you're trying to get rid of excessive hit.
#2600SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
I'm not so sure this argument works. Wouldn't this be like saying that Blasting beats T6 overall cause you can make up the haste (or any other stat) from gems (or any other source). I haven't proven it to myself in the strictest sense of the word, but in the gearing algorithm I use for bosses I have assumed that the only thing that should change the decision to put runed living rubies/spinels in my sockets is a relevant socket bonus or meta requirement. I have a strong feeling that using sockets to cap hit is suboptimal. There is one exception to this that I have found, but it only applies to kara level gear. As I said however, I have no proof for this.
Capping hit with gems is not worth it if you can get +hit from other pieces and put damage gear on sockets.

So, at early levels, you should sockets hit (or dmg/hit) because there is not enough hit on the gear.
At T6 levels, you socket damage, since you have enough hit on your gear. Actually too much hit, you have to juggle your hit and non-hit gear to optimise.
At this T7 level, we're back at the start. No or very little +hit on gear, so you have gem for +hit, since the gear with +hit has less overall stats.

Belt of Blasting: 50 dmg, 30 crit, 23 hit; BY+4dmg
Belt of the Tempest: 30 sta, 29 int, 17 spi; 50 dmg, 29 haste, 20 crit; Y+2dmg

Same damage, same crit with intellect. Stands 23 hit + 2Sockets vs. 29 haste + 1 socket + a decent amount of stats + 1 piece towards the 4T6 set bonus.
Okay, the direct comparison is very debatable. A clear sidegrade I'd say, worth it for the stats and very worth it to retain 4T6.
#2601SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3diskape
We haven't seen dungeon loots so I think it's still too early to make any kinds of "Wish Lists" (i.e. the cool looking off-hand might have some decent hit on it, it already looks like an upgraded version of Chronicles on screenshots)
#2602SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Aoife
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Capping hit with gems is not worth it if you can get +hit from other pieces and put damage gear on sockets.

So, at early levels, you should sockets hit (or dmg/hit) because there is not enough hit on the gear.
At T6 levels, you socket damage, since you have enough hit on your gear. Actually too much hit, you have to juggle your hit and non-hit gear to optimise.
At this T7 level, we're back at the start. No or very little +hit on gear, so you have gem for +hit, since the gear with +hit has less overall stats.

Belt of Blasting: 50 dmg, 30 crit, 23 hit; BY+4dmg
Belt of the Tempest: 30 sta, 29 int, 17 spi; 50 dmg, 29 haste, 20 crit; Y+2dmg

Same damage, same crit with intellect. Stands 23 hit + 2Sockets vs. 29 haste + 1 socket + a decent amount of stats + 1 piece towards the 4T6 set bonus.
Okay, the direct comparison is very debatable. A clear sidegrade I'd say, worth it for the stats and very worth it to retain 4T6.
It can be worth it, it just depends on the juggling around of gear. If you've got an item with some hit and an item without hit, if by swapping some stuff around and tossing a few hit/damage gems in you get more damage/haste/crit with the same amount of hit, then of course you're going for the higher damage stuff. Everything's relative.
#2603SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
The wand question is answered:


Here's to hoping the offhand has +hit.
#2604SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulkaire
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
Couldn't you make the Robe then drop tailoring?

Also, I haven't heard anything about a wand.....I pray that the TK wand will not remain the best in the game.
That is my plan atm. Make the robe and then switch to LW.

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...edemonsoul.jpg

Drops off trash in Sunwell. It's a slight upgrade to forgotten star but of course lacks any crit besides what you could socket into it.
#2605SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3rautrix
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Okay, the direct comparison is very debatable. A clear sidegrade I'd say, worth it for the stats and very worth it to retain 4T6.
The problem is that you will have to put 3x hit gems to make up for the hit lost on one item that delivers the 2nd most amount of hit rating (first is Skull) -- Belt of Blasting.

A T6.5 set item should be better than a crafted T5 item, imho.
#2606SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mitaku
I haven't been able to check out much of the changes of 2.4, but based on the fact that they are adding 3 more pieces of t6 and you could have a 4 piece t6 and 2 piece t5...along with a lot of the items seeming to have haste rather than hit rating...has anyone checked the viability of an arcane build with the 4 piece t6 and 2 piece t5. (also thinking about the buff to spirit regen, mana would be even less of an issue)

Seems to me, just off the top of my head that it may be worth looking into.
#2607SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
We've only seen the first of most of the new T6+ loots, and given that many of them make T6 itself look very dated by comparision, I cannot fathom a situation in which 2pc T5 would still be desired. Assuming the new T6.5 or T7 (whatever you want to call them) will be even better than the things we've seen so far, it seems entirely possible to be running with 300 or more passive haste on your gear. I don't think anyone accurately forecasted the haste gain would be so substantial, and if anything this is even more of a nail in the coffin for Arcane. Those levels of passive haste would completely eliminate any potential for cooldown stacking using Arcane Blast.

With Fire though... is my math off that we could be looking at sub-2.6s (2.5?) unbuffed fireballs? What would that scale to with Skull/IV/Lust up? I may need to buy a new keyboard here shortly because I think I'm drooling on it right now.

Speaking practically though, I'm really, really interested right now to see if the haste gems have epic equivalents, if for no other reason than all this new gear is going to make spinels hilariously hard to come by. The demand for them is going to be high even if haste Pyrestones do exist, but the wait time on spinels could literally be weeks if that's all everyone will still be using. I'm not looking forward to that aspect of things, even though what I've seen so far certainly has me excited.
#2608SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Fact is if you're needing to gem for hit you're probably making *better* use of the itemization value than if you're trying to get rid of excessive hit.
At this T7 level, we're back at the start. No or very little +hit on gear, so you have gem for +hit, since the gear with +hit has less overall stats.
I'm fairly sure that having a surplus of gear such that you have the best item with hit rating and the best item without hit rating available for each gear slot puts you in the best position to get the full value out of the hit on your gear. "Trying to get rid of excessive hit" seems like a good position to be in rather than a bad one.

The other thing is that we arent actually back at the start. When we were in Kara, the hit gear just didn't exist. But at T7 content, you still have all the gear you have right now. I haven't crunched the numbers on the 2.4 gear yet, but I would be surprised if there weren't some T6 items with hit that are "better" than some of the T7 items that lack it.

The source of my disagreement might be the fact that I base my gearing decisions on a stat equivalence system, rather than the trial and error of changing my setup in vontre's spreadsheet (which is what I imagine a lot of EJ'ers do.) To be specific, I use Arawethion's [Mage] Relative Stat Scaling Mini-Spreadsheet to determine value of the stat points relative to +dmg, and use that to gear. I believe Manly said something about using stat equivalence methods are either not accurate or not optimal, but I don't remember which. Can anyone explain to me why this is the case?
#2609SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
Some preliminary analysis of impact of spirit change on arcane. It has much bigger impact than the lowered gcd. Based on fight characteristics it results in 4-12% damage increase (about 8% on typical 5 min raid boss).

Additionally it changes stat values considerably. Before int was almost as good as dmg, now int is the best scaling stat for arcane mages. For a 5 min fight the following equivalences hold for my gear (4t5): 1.014 int = 1.462 spi = 1.544 dmg = 1.922 crit rating = 1.679 mp5 = 2.393 haste.

Another change is which enchants are the best. 12 int bracers wins over 15 dmg, 15 spi wins over 6 all stats, 5 spi wins over vitality, sunfire is still the best weapon enchant, but 30 int is better than 40 dmg. For gems 4int/5spi is the best in blue socket, second best is 10 spi. For red 12 dmg still wins, but 10 int overtakes 12 dmg as the best single gem regardless of color.

Last edited by Kavan : 02/10/08 at 7:15 PM.
#2610SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Err, Kavan, Can explain how you arrive at such a high value to int such that 1 int equals 1.544dmg? I am an arcane mage myself, but I would be hard pressed to value int so much higher than +dmg.
#2611SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Err, Kavan, Can explain how you arrive at such a high value to int such that 1 int equals 1.544dmg? I am an arcane mage myself, but I would be hard pressed to value int so much higher than +dmg.
In case it wasn't obvious this is relating to 2.4 regen change. Look at Intellect -> Spirit Conversion on the PTR : Theorycrafting HQ for more details.

Just some ballpark numbers. Regemming and enchanting I would get the following stats raid buffed. 870 int, 485 spi, 1570 dmg (with averaged trinket). This is roughly 450 mp5 while casting with mage armor. Under 5 min fight with sh. priest this is enough for 2 min of ab spam used with AP, IV, Heroism, and rest on AB cycle.

Another relevant conclusion I found is with all this CSD is still better than the new 2% int meta.

Last edited by Kavan : 02/10/08 at 7:52 PM.
#2612SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
I've been trying to type out a coherent response for about 15 minutes now and I'm a total loss as to how you're deriving that +int is anywhere in the ballpark of being as good as +damage. Even for a full Arcane spec, intellect translates poorly into spell damage. Moreover, although I understand that more +int = more regen in 2.4, gemming for pure +int produces such a low spell damage total that mana regen becomes completely irrelevant in the face of abysmally low DPS.

If I'm understanding this correctly, this is the equivalent of saying that I should only cast Scorch because I'll be able to last longer with it than I would with Fireball.

Edit: just saw your current post, and I'm giving up because I'm completely clueless what you're talking about here.
#2613SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
If I'm understanding this correctly, this is the equivalent of saying that I should only cast Scorch because I'll be able to last longer with it than I would with Fireball.
You're forgetting one very important aspect of arcane. For arcane more mana equals more damage. This comes from relation of mana to AB spam vs AB cycle ratio. The higher regen you have the more time you can spend AB spamming.
#2614SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Be that as it may, we're getting into the same argument about Arcane vs Fire that's been going on for weeks. If you have such large mana problems that you have to gem for +int and regen, you shouldn't be Arcane to begin with.
#2615SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
Be that as it may, we're getting into the same argument about Arcane vs Fire that's been going on for weeks. If you have such large mana problems that you have to gem for +int and regen, you shouldn't be Arcane to begin with.
I think you are missing the whole reason int is valuable to an AB spamming arcane mage. Gearing for Int isn't about solving a "mana problem," its about amassing resources to focus on the spell rotation that makes the spec 'work' in the first place.
#2616SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Keyne View Post
The other thing is that we arent actually back at the start. When we were in Kara, the hit gear just didn't exist. But at T7 content, you still have all the gear you have right now. I haven't crunched the numbers on the 2.4 gear yet, but I would be surprised if there weren't some T6 items with hit that are "better" than some of the T7 items that lack it.
This is true for warlocks. Our t6 shoulders and helm are both superior to the Sunwell counterparts when the +hit is factored in, and the Illidari helm is quite a bit superior to the Sunwell one. Compare that to our t6 gloves, which are vastly inferior even if you need the +hit.

Items like the Ring of Captured Storms and the Mana Attuned Band can be used as well.
#2617SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
Our t6 shoulders and helm are both superior to the Sunwell counterparts when the +hit is factored in, and the Illidari helm is quite a bit superior to the Sunwell one.
To reinforce what I was trying to say in my post, clearly if all thise new and insane 2.4 gear lacks hit, then obviously the +hit on t6 shoulders and helm SHOULD be factored in...
#2618SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Kavan's numbers are amazing. And I hope he will test out some parses and let us know the results. For myself, I would be seriously tempted to gem for int if by that, I can already achieve close to 1500 damage raid buffed and yet, have such a great mana pool and mana regen. Pity I am not a gnome. >_<
#2619SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3rautrix
There isn't any hit on the T6 shoulders. There is hit on T6 pants, helm, chest, gloves.
#2620SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
Be that as it may, we're getting into the same argument about Arcane vs Fire that's been going on for weeks. If you have such large mana problems that you have to gem for +int and regen, you shouldn't be Arcane to begin with.
No, we are not. Kavan showed up with what he considers to be calculations on how the regen change affects arcane mages. You may see this as a arcane/fire argument but I see pure theorycrafting here. As soon as he posts proof of how he derived this 1int->1.5dmg theory I'm willing to back it.

I agree the spi-int change is monumental for arcane and with so little hit gear on Sunwell I'm sorely tempted to try making it work myself with a stupidly large manapool. If Kavan is right (and at 870int while maintaining acceptably high spellpower, I don't see why he shouldn't. Remember AB scales moderately with +spell and it might just be a superior choice to have more mana for more, smaller ABs than to have 550int and 1450spell.) we might be onto something rather interesting. 2m of sustained AB spam is monumentally big and you can't deny that before this spi-int change this was utterly impossible.

450mp5 while casting is approximately 7 times what I'm making now as arcane if I hit mage armor and I'm intrigued as to whether we can, at last, make arcane stand on it's own feet.
#2621SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3graver
Originally Posted by rautrix View Post
There isn't any hit on the T6 shoulders. There is hit on T6 pants, helm, chest, gloves.
they were talking about warlocks.. in a mage thread
#2622SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3rautrix
That is what I get for not reading. ><

Take a look at this... Timbal's Focusing Crystal - Items - WOWDB

Timbal's Focusing Crystal
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 70
Equip: Each time one of your spells deals periodic damage, there is a chance 285 to 475 additional damage will be dealt.
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 44.
#2623SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Acustar
Interesting but the "one of your spells deals periodic damage" makes it sound like a pretty good spriest/aff lock trink.
#2624SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akston
Originally Posted by Acustar View Post
Interesting but the "one of your spells deals periodic damage" makes it sound like a pretty good spriest/aff lock trink.
Be interesting to find out if it procs off of the fireball dot or ignite. Still doubt it would actually be worth using over a clicky because of molten fury and cooldown stacking.
#2625SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ulthwithian
<Cpt. Obvious> Does the Focusing Crystal work with AM? </Cpt. Obvious>
#2626SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akron
Originally Posted by Ulthwithian View Post
<Cpt. Obvious> Does the Focusing Crystal work with AM? </Cpt. Obvious>
Doubt AM ticks are classified as periodic damage. The fireball DoT is though, although I've never seen it proc anything.
#2627SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
I personally was not talking about warlocks specifcally. I was trying to speak generally about the way that casters (people that use spell hit, crit, dmg, and haste) gear themselves for a boss encounter. I am unsure that many people know how to properly do this, if any at all (myself included). It just so happens that locks value the same things we do...
#2628SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3epiphenom
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
In case it wasn't obvious this is relating to 2.4 regen change. Look at Intellect -> Spirit Conversion on the PTR : Theorycrafting HQ for more details.

Just some ballpark numbers. Regemming and enchanting I would get the following stats raid buffed. 870 int, 485 spi, 1570 dmg (with averaged trinket). This is roughly 450 mp5 while casting with mage armor. Under 5 min fight with sh. priest this is enough for 2 min of ab spam used with AP, IV, Heroism, and rest on AB cycle.

Another relevant conclusion I found is with all this CSD is still better than the new 2% int meta.
Hmm. Kavan, using your formula from the int/spirit thread, I don't see how you're getting 450 mp5 while casting. Unless I'm applying the formula wrongly, it looks like you're going to have 667 mp5 OO5SR, and Mage Armor plus Arcane Meditation is 60% of that number, or about 400 mp5.

Obviously, it's still a huge increase from what we're getting now, but I'd still like to see what I'm missing.
#2629SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Anatomy of Intellect

I'll try to explain how I got to the numbers for Intellect posted before. I mostly do numerical analysis, but I'll try my best to backtrack those and break down where the value comes from. All the evaluations here are based on my gear and a typical 5 min boss encounter. The numbers will change in different situations, but the basic idea is the same.

Intellect has the following values: base mana pool, evocation mana regen, spirit mana regen, crit, spell damage. Base point of Intellect has the following multipliers: 15% from Arcane Mind, 10% from Blessing of Kings, 5% from Gnome racial, together 1 Int stat results in 1.32825 Intellect. This means 1 Int gives 19.92375 base mana and 11.95425 mana from evocation. (Note that the value of evocation is already included in the base mana evaluation)

For spirit mana regen we have mps = k*spi*sqrt(int). Assuming 870 int, 485 spi base, we get a partial derivative of k*spi/(2*sqrt(int)). So a base 1 Int results in 1.32825*k*485/(2*sqrt(870)) = 0.10185 mps. How much mana exactly this is depends on how much time you spend in 5SR which depends on fight characteristics and spell selection.

Crit is simpy 1.32825/80=0.016603125%=0.366597 crit rating, and damage is 0.25*1.32825=0.3320625. For non-gnome mages all values are simply 5% less.

What remains needed to compare all these values is equivalence between mana, mps, dmg and crit. At the core is dps/mps for AB spam and AB cycle, the ratio of which is determined by equating starting mana pool with mana consumption, mana regen and external mana regen. One could write dps as a function of these factors, do derivatives on the variables and compute actual gradients. It becomes impossible to handle once you add in all the cooldowns, that's why I'll just use the numerical evaluations I have.

So here's the values for different stats. 1 mana = 0.0157 dps, 1 mps spi regen = 2.0183 dps , 1 dmg = 0.6589 dps, 1 crit = 0.5731 dps. Using the breakdown of int contribution we get the following values for 1 point of int: 0.31 dps from base mana pool (and evocation), 0.2 dps from spirit regen, 0.21 dps from crit and 0.22 dps from dmg. Total this is 0.94 dps per point of int or 27% increase over its previous value. A direct numerical evaluation of int comes to 0.96 dps, which is close enough to be explained by rounding errors and synergistic effects of stats. Compare this to 0.6589 dps for 1 point of damage and the difference is quite significant.
#2630SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by epiphenom View Post
Hmm. Kavan, using your formula from the int/spirit thread, I don't see how you're getting 450 mp5 while casting. Unless I'm applying the formula wrongly, it looks like you're going to have 667 mp5 OO5SR, and Mage Armor plus Arcane Meditation is 60% of that number, or about 400 mp5.

Obviously, it's still a huge increase from what we're getting now, but I'd still like to see what I'm missing.
You're right. The 450 mp5 figure includes mp5 from my gear and buffs.
#2631SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Kavan, you're assuming mana always limits DPS, which it doesn't.
#2632SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
So I plugged in the new formula from the thread for my spreadsheet, and it looks like spirit based regen is about twice as effective as previously. I'll be putting up an updated version soon.
#2633SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
Kavan, you're assuming mana always limits DPS, which it doesn't.
I'm not. I'm just not close to that point. I'm using 175 mp5 sh priest and el shaman in my calculations. Obviously with better sh priest it would come much closer to that limit. Right now for 2.4 AB spam is roughly -260 mps after all regen. If we can close this gap it only means it is no longer needed to use AB cycles, but I don't think we're close to that point yet or that we will be anytime soon.
#2634SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
I'm not. I'm just not close to that point. I'm using 175 mp5 sh priest and el shaman in my calculations. Obviously with better sh priest it would come much closer to that limit. Right now for 2.4 AB spam is roughly -260 mps after all regen. If we can close this gap it only means it is no longer needed to use AB cycles, but I don't think we're close to that point yet or that we will be anytime soon.
But by using an AB spam model, you may end up correctly pointing out that int is the most valuable stat for AB spam...while ignoring that AB spam may produce less than maximum DPS precisely because you are limited by mana, even in this 5 minute scenario.

In other words, you may be saying something useful about a rotation that is, at present, useless.
#2635SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
I guess the question then would be rather. Does AB scale as well as fire if you consider it as an average of 1.5 second cast in DPS terms.

Another question I don't know whether has been theorycrafted, is whether at high enough levels of haste, and assuming the mana to sustain it, would AM spam also become competitive. There wasn't enough haste gear previously, but with more being added in sunwell, it may be possible. The new T6 and gear allows stacking of both stats, +dmg, haste all at one go, with more options of where the 4 slots of T6 will be (to get the 5% bonus to AM).
#2636SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
I guess the question then would be rather. Does AB scale as well as fire if you consider it as an average of 1.5 second cast in DPS terms.

Another question I don't know whether has been theorycrafted, is whether at high enough levels of haste, and assuming the mana to sustain it, would AM spam also become competitive. There wasn't enough haste gear previously, but with more being added in sunwell, it may be possible. The new T6 and gear allows stacking of both stats, +dmg, haste all at one go, with more options of where the 4 slots of T6 will be (to get the 5% bonus to AM).
Haste scales with fireball and AM at the same rate up till 200% where fireball reaches the 1s gcd (and 50% for scorch of course). So, it won't change am spam scaling.
#2637SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Searix
Wow, it just occured to me we can yet again use 2 peice t5.

Someone theorycraft this, using 4 peice t6 and best 2 peice t5

Edit: Vontre's doesn't model the new global cooldown and assumes haste doesn't help ab spam :/

Last edited by Searix : 02/11/08 at 2:59 AM.
#2638SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
My comments were slightly off-base before, largely due to the fact that I had only been loosely following the Int->Spi thread. I had grossly underestimated the amount of regen provided by the 2.4 changes, and the math I had been doing was quite wrong because of it.

However, I still believe this discussion does ultimately boil back down to Fire vs. Arcane. Our mana regen will be significantly boosted in 2.4 and this does shift the "balance of power", so to speak, slightly back in Arcane's favor - this is indisputable now. But I think there's a fundamental flaw in this argument, in that more mana does not directly correlate to more damage. This assumption is true only if the encounter is of sufficient length to warrant the added mana, and that there are no other extraneous factors affecting mana consumption (Kaz'rogal marks, Shaz mana drains, RoS P2, et al). A more accurate assumption, I believe, is that more mana is more potential DPS.

It's common knowledge that AB spam was, is, and will still be viable over the short term, and that because a lot of encounters in T6 content are comparatively short, Arcane compares favorably to Fire/Frost through large chunks of Hyjal and a decent bit of BT. But as fight length increases, Arcane becomes less and less competitve. Everyone knows this. My point is this: it is unlikely that we will ever reach a point where pure AB spam is possible. TC says this is likely the case, but speaking practically, were we ever to be in that situation, the factors making endless AB spam possible would almost certainly be nerfed.

So given that to be generally true, 2.4 changes nothing in regards to whether Arcane is viable. The new regen effects will make the max DPS cycle of Arcane sustainable for a longer period of time, perhaps even substantially longer. But sooner or later, the constraints placed on your DPS by the incredible mana consumption of AB will become too great, and Arcane becomes an inferior spec to Fire. Which brings me back to my original point - unless you absolutely, positively know that you will be able to do maximum DPS as Arcane for the entire duration of the fight, then you shouldn't be speccing Arcane.
#2639SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
I am not good with math as you guys. But I did get some math models downloaded from this forum. Vontre's excel spreadsheet (mage_dps). I took some liberties with the numbers.

I input 700 into INT (Karan showed it can be done if you gear, enchant and gem for it). I then raised spirit to 600 to approximate the new regen rate. (I don't know if this is being too off base or not). The rest were stats of my current gear (not the best possible), with some reduction taking into account regemming and enchants.

stats inputted as follows:

Intellect (unbuffed)*: 700
Spirit: 600
Spell damage (all schools): 0
Crit Rating: 329
Hit Rating: 133
Mana/5 sec. 28
Fire Damage: 1000
Frost Damage: 950
Arcane Damage: 1000
Haste Increase (rating): 0

I then created a cycle called AB spam. (I put in AB 3 to simulate AB spam throughout).

Based on vontre's spreadsheet, AB spam gave me 2055 dps. Yes, it only lasts for 1 min 50 seconds. BUT here's the interesting thing. During that time, I would have outputted 372,930 damage

I don't know about the rest of you guys. But most wws I come across, the average total dmg down over the course of a boss would be around there (300,000 to 400,000). Here's the thing. If AB spam can be kept up for 2 minutes, it will output that amount of damage, in just 2 minutes flat! Seems amazing to me.

Of course, maybe I set the spirit too high. But as I said, I am just using some approximations to gauge some ball park numbers. Not trying to be so exact. If someone can come out with exact numbers, all the better of course. It is possible, because Karan stated that those levels of gear (for int) can be achieved. And he said in his post it would allow him to spam AB for 2 minutes.

AB spam has been limited by three things. GCD on haste, mana and spell pushback.

This upcoming patch solves two of those problems. haste and mana. Think its worth some exploring on whether arcane can now be competitive with the changes, especially on bosses with no spellpushback.
#2640SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Wow, it just occured to me we can yet again use 2 peice t5.

Someone theorycraft this, using 4 peice t6 and best 2 peice t5

Edit: Vontre's doesn't model the new global cooldown and assumes haste doesn't help ab spam :/

Spell Haste will now help AB spam right? Cos it can go down to as low as 1 second? Why won't it help AB spam?
#2641SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
I am not good with math as you guys. But I did get some math models downloaded from this forum. Vontre's excel spreadsheet (mage_dps). I took some liberties with the numbers.

I input 700 into INT (Karan showed it can be done if you gear, enchant and gem for it). I then raised spirit to 600 to approximate the new regen rate. (I don't know if this is being too off base or not). The rest were stats of my current gear (not the best possible), with some reduction taking into account regemming and enchants.
I think this 600 value is what needs scrutiny. Until the tools can catch up with the new change, it's useful to know that...

s_{eq} = 8 (k s \sqrt{i} - 6.25)

...where s_eq is the total spirit in 2.3 required to provide the same regen as s spirit and i intellect in 2.4, and k = 9.327E-3.

We can flip this around and see that for s_eq = 600 and i = 700, s = 329 or so. Is this consistent with the gear setup you were trying to use?
#2642SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BrTarolg
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Spell Haste will now help AB spam right? Cos it can go down to as low as 1 second? Why won't it help AB spam?
He just means vontre's model doesn't account for it yet.

But christ, this is some odd TC. I also suppose it depends on the practicality of the encounter you are facing - will all the new sunwell encounters be a lot of tank and spank gear checks? Or will they be long, complicated fights?

Also, you have to consider what you're going to do when *not* AB spamming. Since you can dump your mana pool *so* fast, for a more practical purpose you could consider going all out with AB at the very start, switch to fireballing (with a 40/21 spec or something similar) for max DPM, and then back to arcane when you think you can finish the boss off (assuming this is some kind of 4-5 minute fight which allows for that)

Probably the simplest way to calculate this - find how much MP5 you can bring in, and how much DPM you can get off arcane blast (1.5 seconds), work out the "prebuffer" you get from your origional mana pool (so thats how much of a headstart arcane gets in terms of damage over fire), and then add on the MP5*DPM (as DPS) from then on (probably relatively low)
Or you could do it in a graph so you can see the spikes you get (from mana pots and evocation and the like)

Another interesting thought is - a fight with LOADS of movement, but short periods of standing still, arcane will benefit very heavily from, simply because fire will not be able to do *anything* during those moving times (other than fireblast perhaps, or maynbe the odd fireball here and there, but more likely just keeping up scorch debuff), whereas arcane will be constantly regenning superhigh mana throughout.
#2643SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Based on vontre's spreadsheet, with the inputted numbers I mentioned, I can fireball infinitely. So, yeah, theoratically, if the fight allows for it, it may be possible to AB spam until you have like just 1k mana. Then just keep on scorching or fireballing indefinitely after that. Sure, your DPS after the second minute will be lower than pure fire spec. But its not like you are wanding. Plus you would have already dumped close to 400,000 dmg onto the boss in the first 2 minutes. So, you are already ahead.

Previously, pure AB spam never worked because it ran oom just way too fast, and didn't do enough damage in total even after it ran oom. If enough damage in total is done, its fine.

My current gear has slightly less spirit than 329. But its not a lot less. With T6 or sunwell gear (that has tons of spirit too), it could probably approach that.
#2644SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Alvira
Originally Posted by BrTarolg View Post
He just means vontre's model doesn't account for it yet.
Another interesting thought is - a fight with LOADS of movement, but short periods of standing still, arcane will benefit very heavily from, simply because fire will not be able to do *anything* during those moving times (other than fireblast perhaps, or maynbe the odd fireball here and there, but more likely just keeping up scorch debuff), whereas arcane will be constantly regenning superhigh mana throughout.
Not really. Too much movement is not good for AB spam, its good only for AM spam. You need a bit of time to build up to a 1.5 second AB. So, if you only get to cast a few ABs before you have to move again, then your DPS won't be as high.

But a fight where you stand still and spam AB without interruption for quite some time, then you stop for a lull, then again you can start again would probably be good. My guild fights Anetheron by asking all mages to stand out of range of his carrion swarm. We only DPS the infernals. Arcane is quite good in that situation. No spell push back. Intense period of DPS followed by a lull before the next infernal drops.

Fire actually builds up to a faster maximum DPS mode than arcane if you have 2 or 3 fire mages. Cos, each fire mages cast sorch once or twice, and they are in full DPS mode. Arcane needs to cast arcane blast 3 times before getting into full DPS mode.

Last edited by Alvira : 02/11/08 at 5:01 AM. Reason: spelling error
#2645SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Alvira, in a number of your posts now you point out non-numerical facts which are not TC. "Arcane needs to cast arcane blast 3 times before getting into full DPS mode." . How can you compare scorch ramp-up to AB ramp-up? They're two utterly different things. The fact that they're both preambles to the main nuke is irrelevant and the way they work is so radically different that comparing them is totaly chalk and cheese. Two firemages will make scorch ramp a lot less duration than AB ramp and scorch will need 1 cast refresh every 21-27 sec while AB will need a full-ramp whenever it falls off, which will be very often for certain high-mobility fights.

"Then just keep on scorching or fireballing indefinitely after that. Sure, your DPS after the second minute will be lower than pure fire spec. But its not like you are wanding.". How can you say this? Arcane spec scorching is pathetic, and unless you're planning on going 40/10/11 fireballing isn't particularly better than wanding either. The goal is not to "do 300k" within 1:50 and then not wand, the goal is over a given amount of time to do the most possible, as fast as possible. Yes 2055DPS is great but what we're trying to understand is "Is the mix of AB as-much-as-possible and AB-AM rotation the rest of the time better or at lease competitive with Fire-IV Cooldown stacking?"

Kavan: You seem to have neglected to add BoW to your overall raid regen. Also, do your calculations assume JoW on boss to resolve value of int?
#2646SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Kavan: You seem to have neglected to add BoW to your overall raid regen. Also, do your calculations assume JoW on boss to resolve value of int?
I do include BoW in the calculations. For the numbers I posted I'm not using JoW, but the values do not change that much. JoW on a 10 min fight would increase AB spam uptime by about 40 seconds. For the values I have (175 mp5 sh priest) ABAMx3+Sc rotation is +3 mps without JoW and +34 mps with JoW, in both cases you're gaining mana when you're not AB spamming.
#2647SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Selun
As I see it Kavan posted the value that int will gain in 2.4 and since BoW (a flat mp5 increase) and JoW (on spellhit proc chance for mana gains) doesn't affect intellect they shouldn't be taken into consideration.
#2648SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
A fireball cast from an arcane mage will do a lot higher damage than just wanding. Based on what I entered previously into vontre's spreadsheet, its 1230 dps for fireball spam. Scorch spam does 1073 dps, not fantastic, but definitely a lot higher than wanding too.
#2649SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alihandras
I want to pose an entirely new rotation to the table I'm still toying with the Haste numbers but I have an idea. Last night I took out all my ZA haste gear got my spell haste to around 230ish, specced a werid as hell 46/0/14(+1). Put the rotation together of ABx3 AMx1 Frostboltx1. With the haste at 230 I was able to get in a 2.6 fireball instead of the frostbolt, however due to the coefficients of damage isn't it wiser to throw a frostbolt as I will not have Ignite in order to get IV, plus specced for 100% critical dmg from frost increases the off hit that much more. From the haste set I was able to maintain a 4.45 AM with a 2.23 base AB, and a 2.17 frostbolt.

It's a bat out of hell I know, but with this now I'm at a 1200 solid dmg base, with 20% crit, mind you this in mostly ZA gear with 2/5 T5 and off T6 pieces. The question I want to pose as I'm going to test the dmg viability in a raid enviroment this week in BT, is that with Sunwell coming out and the massive amounts of spell haste that are attainable now, can Arcan become viable again? I'm also going off a ruling out of mana pool, Still not sure on that equat as far as the SP durability in some fights for us.

What I'm trying to do is get to the point where instead of scorch we have a huge nuke in place. At the same time with IV up stacking beyond 2 AB's is wasted as the 2nd cast is under the GCD your at 1.61 sec cast after 1 stack with it up so the rotation I was playing with while under the affect of heroism or IV was AB AB AM Fbolt Fbolt repeat. With IV/Hero Stacked, It was viable to AB AB AM AM AB Fbolt repeat, The only conern to a point becomes the GCD however with 2.4 that will be reduced as well with our haste.

I know its a longshot but my image without putting it all together, is attaining the Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents and gemming 3 +10 Spell Hit. With that one piece of gear you are given 80 spell hit (arcane cap met). Your pieces can now focus souly on Spell DMG, Crit, and Haste entirely. With the arcane spec you'll be able to stack a very large amount of spell haste and crit vs. deep fire being limited to stacking hit, and most likely passing the staff for the MH/OH (+100dmg). It's something to think about that I haven't seen conversed yet anywhere and would like to recieve any feedback on. Thank for your time.
#2650SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
I'm interested to see some data of how much haste exactly is the max one can wear before the AM+Fbolt become too close to causing the subsequent AB to finish casting -without- the debuff having worn out. Some analysis of 150-200-250ms latency fluctuation would also be nice.

Then we can possibly look into AB*3/AM/Fbolt rotations which will perform the same accepted function as the good'ol AB*3/AM/Sc rotations used to: To capitalize on 1st AB with 3x debuff but cost only 0x debuff. It is also arguable that a 13-talented frostbolt is much more useful than a ignite-only scorch, and a 47/0/14 is much more eye-pleasing than a rather ineffective 40/10/11 or 42/8/11 or whatever malarkey.
#2651SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3hypetech
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
Based on vontre's spreadsheet, with the inputted numbers I mentioned, I can fireball infinitely.
To me, that would be a red flag that the numbers aren't right somewhere.
#2652SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
galzohar
With a very good shadow priest, super mana pots, mana gems and evocation you would have a very long time before you go oom spamming fireballs. Wether it can get to infinite or not doesn't matter - as long as you can't use all your mana in a fight more mana is useless. Of course if you're using all those mana regen elements having more mana could mean you can drop some of those (not evocate, use flame caps, use destruction potions (generally in that order)).

For arcane, it's very hard to tell if the regen increases would warrant an arcane spec, at least for a T6 mage. I'd wait to see copmlete 2.4 numbers with finalized patch notes before I say anything deeper about arcane and/or intelect scaling.

For arcane and haste, haste will still suck for arcane becuase it means you will spend less time ABing and more time doing your backup rotation, so while haste will increase your dps it'll be a much smaller increase than other stats would increase your dps. Remember haste is only an effective DPS stat if mana is a non-issue, which is not the case for arcane. If mana is an issue haste will still increase dps, but to a quite lower effect, depending how big of an issue the mana is.

I'd like seeing haste evaluated in future spreadsheets to take into account the extra mana consumption/regeneration in the form of less destruction potions / flame caps / more time spent evocating.


hit rating
Stat equivalence points (which can be derived from vontre's spreadsheet, btw) are a very very good approximation (to the point where its inaccuracy is quite meaningless if the spreadsheet is good) for stats that are not hit rating. Hit is so extremely better than any other stat when you're not capped that you will always be capped. Once capped, additional hit would be useless, except you could use the fact you have higher hit to swap items/gems to increase spell damage. Therefore additional hit is as good as the other stats you can gain in its place. That makes hit evaluation very flexible, but overall the more excessive hit your items have the less you will gain from additional hit.
A gear setup that is gemming for hit will generally benefit the most from additional hit as it will gain the most spell damage per additional hit by swapping gems back to spell damage. A full T6/best in game gear setup would be making huge hit sacrifices just to gain marginal amounts of spell damage, which makes LESS of a use of the itemization value.
Only reason people are gearing with such excessive hit now is that the best gear in the game simply has it, and swapping it out for non-hit gear is in most cases not an option because that gear simply has a much lower item level. Having the additional T6 pieces with no hit on them means you could make full use of their itemization instead of the waste of itemization we have in current high-end gear.
I have to agree swapping gems all the time would be very anoying now.

In addition, from WotLK point of view, you really don't want hit rating gear anyway, as it'll be useless for leveling. But yeah gemming for hit is very anoying and gives a major headache, but at least it gives results if your non-hit gear is actually good like (at least some of) the new sunwell loot is.

Last edited by galzohar : 02/11/08 at 1:32 PM.
#2653SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3tedv
Perhaps the question of whether Arcane is damage competitive could be tackled from a different angle. First, I'm assuming Arcane Blast spam is still better DPS than anything else, right? And lets assume the theory that you should stack int is correct, so you have maybe 800 int while raid buffed. The question is:

How much mana regeneration would you need to sustain 5 minutes of spam? 7 minutes? 10 minutes?

Once we have target values for the regen needed, we can work out whether it's even possible to reach these values. We need an estimate for spirit, and I assume mage armor would be used over molten armor. We have reasonably good estimates for shadow priests, judgement of wisdom, potions, and so on. Just add up the numbers and see if they match. You can think of this argument as assuming time outside of the Arcane Blast cycle is worth 0 DPS.

One possibility is that the viability depends on how good (and geared) you shadow priest is. There's a big difference between 250 m/5 (1000 priest DPS) and 350 m/5 (1400 priest DPS), so it might be that arcane is viable in some guilds and not in others.
#2654SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
andastra
That's the problem. The last spreadsheet I looked at, complete AB spam is around the same dps as a fire mage's base rotation. Sacrificing spell damage for int will push fire even higher.

Interestingly, the int --> spi change made the evo change even more of a nerf.

Last edited by andastra : 02/11/08 at 4:02 PM.
#2655SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3tedv
Originally Posted by andastra View Post
That's the problem. The last spreadsheet I looked at, compete AB spam is around the same dps as a fire mage's base rotation. Sacrificing spell damage for int will push fire even higher.

Interestingly, the int --> spi change made the evo change even more of a nerf.
Wow, I find that shocking, although not too surprising. Even swapping in two pieces of T5 doesn't change make Arcane Blast spam the winner in an infinite mana competition?
#2656SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Tabaggins
Assuming the 4th level of AB spam for the entire fight, we see mana usage of 1043 mana every 1.5s or 3476 mp5 used. assuming a 11k mana pool with a 250 mp5 shadow priest, 150 mp5 base regen, 100 mp5 super mana pots, 25 mp5 flask, 100 mp5 mana gem and an evocation worth around 70 mp5 we see a net mana usage of 2781 mp5.

You are oom after 19.7s. You need 2700~ mp5 to sustain this any longer.

edit: I forgot we have 3 more spots in the group. Lets assume 4 SPs, 1 mage: 2031 mp5 spent, oom at 27.0s.

Last edited by Tabaggins : 02/11/08 at 2:32 PM. Reason: adding more data
#2657SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3hypetech
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
Wow, I find that shocking, although not too surprising. Even swapping in two pieces of T5 doesn't change make Arcane Blast spam the winner in an infinite mana competition?
If I had to guess I'd say he was spreadsheeting AB spam in his fire gear and so 164 hit or something.
#2658SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Tabaggins View Post
Assuming the 4th level of AB spam for the entire fight, we see mana usage of 1043 mana every 1.5s or 3476 mp5 used. assuming a 11k mana pool with a 250 mp5 shadow priest, 150 mp5 base regen, 100 mp5 super mana pots, 25 mp5 flask, 100 mp5 mana gem and an evocation worth around 70 mp5 we see a net mana usage of 2781 mp5.

You are oom after 19.7s. You need 2700~ mp5 to sustain this any longer.

edit: I forgot we have 3 more spots in the group. Lets assume 4 SPs, 1 mage: 2031 mp5 spent, oom at 27.0s.
I understand you did TC to come up with 1043 mana for AB, however in reality the increased AB cost only applies to the base mana cost of AB, so it is a lot less.

In fact, from my old notes, 1.5s AB spam with 2pct5 costs 672 mana per cast, and 731 mana when used with AP.
#2659SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3tedv
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I understand you did TC to come up with 1043 mana for AB, however in reality the increased AB cost only applies to the base mana cost of AB, so it is a lot less.

In fact, from my old notes, 1.5s AB spam with 2pct5 costs 672 mana per cast, and 731 mana when used with AP.
This sounds familiar, because it works out to a gross mana loss of -2240 m/5. If you need to last for 5 minutes (134,440 mana) and start with a 15k mana pool, you need to make up another 119400, which requires 1990 m/5. Assume a good priest with 350 m/5 and 150 m/5 from blessings and potions. That's 1490 to go from mana gems, evocation, and 45% spirit mana regen. Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. Realistically you're looking at 3 minutes of longevity, followed by 1 minute of thumb twiddling.
#2660SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
Perhaps the question of whether Arcane is damage competitive could be tackled from a different angle. First, I'm assuming Arcane Blast spam is still better DPS than anything else, right? And lets assume the theory that you should stack int is correct, so you have maybe 800 int while raid buffed. The question is:

How much mana regeneration would you need to sustain 5 minutes of spam? 7 minutes? 10 minutes?
It is, if you assume 2T5, AB spam is the highest DPS.

Currently, it beats firespec fireball spam by ~5-10% depending on what gear you can pick. With haste gear affecting it, according to Vontre's, it's ~15-20% more DPS with some best-in-slot haste gear as of now.

Assuming a 40/0/21 spec (since AM is so much worse than the other two nukes, and assuming Winter's Chill in the raid), frostbolts is about 10-15% less DPS than fire.

With a very generous estimate of the spirit change, arcane can beat fire until the 3 minute mark. The sheet suggests a AB*7/FrB*3 rotation for a 3 minute fight length.
This splits as (AB4, 6sec) and (AB3/FB3, 1.5+1.83+2.17+7.5=13s), so roughly 1/3 of the time AB spam, 2/3 of the time AB3/FrB3 rotations.

As to the mana cost of AB spam, it's 195 (base) * ( 1 + 3*75% + 20% ) = 672.5 mana. Or ~2250 mp5.
Get 300 from a really good SP, 50 BoW, 50 Totem, 350 mp5 from spirit (generous). -1500 mp5 left, 300/sec.
Assuming 14k base mana, 10.6k from evo, 3k gem, 2.4k potion => 30k mana to burn, that's about 1 minute.

These figures fit the sheet, since it estimates the equivalent of 1min AB spam (untill out of mana) and 2 more minutes "efficient" AB3/FrB3 on the rest mana and regen.

With 2 shadowpriests (a waste, honestly) and an innervate or three and digging up everything you have, you could possibly extend it to 1.5 minutes. 2 minutes being maaaayybe on the horizon, if you go all out on every resource under the sun, drum rotations. Not likely though.


Everything above 3 minutes of AB spam is just wishful thinking. Not going to happen.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/11/08 at 3:25 PM.
#2661SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
There is, however, the point that AB spam may be so much more DPS that even having a fraction of the time able to cast can allow for greater net damage dealt. Sadly this makes the litmus test of regen needed to be sustainable a lot less telling, however.
#2662SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Alihandras
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
I'm interested to see some data of how much haste exactly is the max one can wear before the AM+Fbolt become too close to causing the subsequent AB to finish casting -without- the debuff having worn out. Some analysis of 150-200-250ms latency fluctuation would also be nice.

Then we can possibly look into AB*3/AM/Fbolt rotations which will perform the same accepted function as the good'ol AB*3/AM/Sc rotations used to: To capitalize on 1st AB with 3x debuff but cost only 0x debuff. It is also arguable that a 13-talented frostbolt is much more useful than a ignite-only scorch, and a 47/0/14 is much more eye-pleasing than a rather ineffective 40/10/11 or 42/8/11 or whatever malarkey.
Well my stand on it is trying to get a AB*3 AM Fbolt repeat, with as close of a cut as possible to the debuff finishing wearing off. Why try to cast the 2.1 frosbolt with 1.8 sec on the debuff timer? Waste of time when you could fit in a scorch or something ya know?

I want to try to get my rotation to the point of where you have an 8 sec debuff then AM/Fbolt followed by either the closest cut time ie 5.5 fbolt cast 5.7 ab debuff wears off you know what im saying? OR we try to get to a point where we stack even more haste and get it to the point of AB*3 AM Fbolt*2 repeat. With the one fbolt you can stack alot more spell dmg/crit behind the haste gap. Or with the 2 frostbolt you lose dmg/crit but gain an extra cast.

Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
For arcane and haste, haste will still suck for arcane becuase it means you will spend less time ABing and more time doing your backup rotation, so while haste will increase your dps it'll be a much smaller increase than other stats would increase your dps. Remember haste is only an effective DPS stat if mana is a non-issue, which is not the case for arcane. If mana is an issue haste will still increase dps, but to a quite lower effect, depending how big of an issue the mana is.
My fight is in 2.4 when the haste rating will also reduce our GCD. With a reduced GCD at 1 sec, my 1.13 AB 3 stack still hasn't lost DPS time at the net 230 haste rating or so. The mana issue will be of concern yes, but in this theory I'm working off that just theory. Need be I say test it on a Teron night and take a resto shammy/SP in the group with you and chain pot etc. Still having problems look to maybe a second SP in the group, most of us farm it anyways so it's not a huge net loss to the guild to try to shatter a new concept in the mage community.

Last edited by Alihandras : 02/11/08 at 3:30 PM.
#2663SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ulthwithian
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
There is, however, the point that AB spam may be so much more DPS that even having a fraction of the time able to cast can allow for greater net damage dealt. Sadly this makes the litmus test of regen needed to be sustainable a lot less telling, however.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. It should be fairly easy to determine how much damage a Fireball spam deals in the average boss fight (5min). With that, you should be able to determine how fast AB spam can deal the same amount of damage, and then calculate from there how much mana is needed for that amount of damage. I mean, if a mage spamming AB can do the same amount of damage in the first 4min of a boss fight that a mage spamming FB can do in the entire boss fight, does it really matter if the AB mage does significantly lower dps after he runs out of mana? I guess I'm sort of confused as to what's going on.
#2664SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Ulthwithian View Post
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. It should be fairly easy to determine how much damage a Fireball spam deals in the average boss fight (5min). With that, you should be able to determine how fast AB spam can deal the same amount of damage, and then calculate from there how much mana is needed for that amount of damage. I mean, if a mage spamming AB can do the same amount of damage in the first 4min of a boss fight that a mage spamming FB can do in the entire boss fight, does it really matter if the AB mage does significantly lower dps after he runs out of mana? I guess I'm sort of confused as to what's going on.
Actually that's a good way to look at it. The question then only becomes whether the Arcane mage can sustain his DPS long enough just to reach break-even with a fire mage by the end of the fight.
#2665SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3hypetech
Spamming yourself to OOM and then wanding for the rest of the fight doesn't seem very efficient even if you do output the same damage.
#2666SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
Originally Posted by Akron View Post
Doubt AM ticks are classified as periodic damage. The fireball DoT is though, although I've never seen it proc anything.
Arcane Missiles are technically periodic damage. All channeling direct-damage involve putting a DoT on the target. AM's DoT is just invisible. It can be noticed when the target becomes friendly or all debuffs are cleared, such as with the hounds in Heroic Shattered Halls. I sent the mage who has one a PM to ask for AM testing.

The trinket procs off of Fireball's DoT. It might have an internal cooldown. The person who was testing it reported no procs within 25 seconds of each other, but serious testing hasn't been done for it yet. The proc can also crit.

Wait and see, I guess, for more accurate testing.
#2667SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ulthwithian
Hypetech: If by the time you run OOM, you have done the same damage that a Fireball spam would do _in the entire fight_, what is the issue? It's a more efficient use of the most valuable resource that a raid deals with: time.

Ironically, a logical extension of this concept would lead to more Arcane Mages displacing others. Say the average length of a boss fight is 5min with no Arcane mages. Say also that an Arcane mage can deal 5min worth of 'Fire spec damage' in 4min. Considering that his dps won't drop to zero (just lower), that means that the average length of the boss encounter would decrease. Since it decreases, the Arcane mage's 'AB spam uptime' would increase slightly. If you put more Arcane mages doing this, the effect can snowball. This seems quite interesting to me.
#2668SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3andastra
Originally Posted by Ulthwithian View Post
Hypetech: If by the time you run OOM, you have done the same damage that a Fireball spam would do _in the entire fight_, what is the issue? It's a more efficient use of the most valuable resource that a raid deals with: time.

Because if you run oom before the fight ends, that means you could've output more damage by switching to a less mana intensive rotation for some time.

I'm still skeptical about the haste changes. It seems haste is still way better for the more mana efficient nukes (fire/frost) as it doesn't increase dpm at all.
#2669SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ulthwithian
Andastra: There are two assumptions working here, which I'll explicitly state.

1) AB spam (with 2t5) is the highest dps you can do with a Mage.
2) AB spam of duration X (X<total time of boss fight) = Fireball spam for total time of boss fight

It's possible that these assumptions are mutually exclusive, but the second point is the important one here.

T = total time of boss fight
X < T
AB(X) = FB(T)

If this is true, then we are looking for the amount of mana needed to sustain AB for at least X. If so, then Arcane should do more damage than Fire. Now, you could be quite correct that if this can be sustained, then some less-mana intensive cycle, kept up for longer, will result in even more dps (which invalidate the 1st assumption, but that's okay). The point would remain that AB would do better than Fire.
#2670SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3andastra
I'm working on the following assumption and it's a pretty established assumption here. Assume 2 dps cycles:

1. AB spam
2. ABx3/Something else to drop AB debuff


My assumption is that for any fight, mixing both cycles to go oom at the exact time the boss dies is the best dps cycle. For short fights, that could be 100% AB spam. If you're going oom before the fight ends, however, mixing in the second cycle would be better.

Of course, external buffs/debuffs could put a wrench to that. If you get heroism/bloodlust, it could easily throw off the mixing. And the further we get better gear, the worse the other stats of 2pc T5 are.
#2671SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Unless i'm mistaken, the highest dps rotation should be enough haste to make arcane missiles x2/ab x3 a viable rotation wearing both set bonuses and getting AB ramped up before ap then popping ab spam during AP and veins. This gives the advantage over frost of using a lot less hit, and 13% CoS. Btw, if you do weave arcane missiles into your rotations 50/0/11 should be a bit more dps than 40/0/21 due to the large dps loss desyncing icy veins from ap gives you.
#2672SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krellian
Originally Posted by Alvira View Post
I am not good with math as you guys. But I did get some math models downloaded from this forum. Vontre's excel spreadsheet (mage_dps). I took some liberties with the numbers.

I input 700 into INT (Karan showed it can be done if you gear, enchant and gem for it). I then raised spirit to 600 to approximate the new regen rate. (I don't know if this is being too off base or not). The rest were stats of my current gear (not the best possible), with some reduction taking into account regemming and enchants.

stats inputted as follows:

Intellect (unbuffed)*: 700
Spirit: 600
Spell damage (all schools): 0
Crit Rating: 329
Hit Rating: 133
Mana/5 sec. 28
Fire Damage: 1000
Frost Damage: 950
Arcane Damage: 1000
Haste Increase (rating): 0

I then created a cycle called AB spam. (I put in AB 3 to simulate AB spam throughout).

Based on vontre's spreadsheet, AB spam gave me 2055 dps. Yes, it only lasts for 1 min 50 seconds. BUT here's the interesting thing. During that time, I would have outputted 372,930 damage

I don't know about the rest of you guys. But most wws I come across, the average total dmg down over the course of a boss would be around there (300,000 to 400,000). Here's the thing. If AB spam can be kept up for 2 minutes, it will output that amount of damage, in just 2 minutes flat! Seems amazing to me.

Of course, maybe I set the spirit too high. But as I said, I am just using some approximations to gauge some ball park numbers. Not trying to be so exact. If someone can come out with exact numbers, all the better of course. It is possible, because Karan stated that those levels of gear (for int) can be achieved. And he said in his post it would allow him to spam AB for 2 minutes.

AB spam has been limited by three things. GCD on haste, mana and spell pushback.

This upcoming patch solves two of those problems. haste and mana. Think its worth some exploring on whether arcane can now be competitive with the changes, especially on bosses with no spellpushback.
If true, the question is, can a tank hold aggro over that level of rapid damage. If it is not possible to hold aggro over that damage, then its usefullness is significantly reduced, though interesting.
#2673SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 zeidrich
2055 arcane dps is only 863 TPS (with salv). In order to pull aggro from a tank at range, he would have to be doing 663 TPS. I don't think threat is much of an issue.
#2674SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Bendelat
Originally Posted by Krellian View Post
If true, the question is, can a tank hold aggro over that level of rapid damage. If it is not possible to hold aggro over that damage, then its usefulness is significantly reduced, though interesting.
The arcane benefit of -40% on threat comes nicely into play here. If there are 3 paladins on the raid then you can also get BoW, BoK and Salv which should help quite a bit.
#2675SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Not only that, you can start almost literally when the fight starts, giving you a decent advantage
#2676SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Koosha
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Not only that, you can start almost literally when the fight starts, giving you a decent advantage
This point is irrelevant. You can already do this no matter what spec you are. Pending its a t6 tank.
#2677SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Bendelat
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Not only that, you can start almost literally when the fight starts, giving you a decent advantage
That is an excellent point, especially on the shorter boss fights. Also a 50/0/11 build will be nice for clearing trash in Hyjal as Arcane is back on top of AOE clearing again. Also a guild clearing Hyjal trash should have mages with 2T5 set bonuses.

I hope the numbers work out for Arcane having value as I think it would be a nice potential spec to add to the pile. It has serious drawbacks in mana consumption, range and pushback. But it would be nice to see it adjusted so that for fights of N length Arcane was better than Fire where fights of >N Fire won out. It would avoid the 2.2 event where all mages went AM spam as it was superior in too many ways to Fire at that point. It seems like Blizzard is trying to make the various major trees for mages closer together as far as dps potential.
#2678SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3graver
Originally Posted by Bendelat View Post
Also a guild clearing Hyjal trash should have mages with 2T5 set bonuses.
Why so?
#2679SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
BrTarolg
Originally Posted by graver View Post
Why so?
Because everyone has been wiping on kael so long whilst having everything else on farm you should have tons of t5 pieces by then :P

But on a more serious note about arcane (even though i feel it really isn't going to happen) - why is everyone trying to fit AM into the rotation?
You only need 2 spell cycles - and two specs - either 40/21 or 40/0/21 (i have no idea which is higher DPS, you guys work it out)
First cycle is obv ABx(infinity)
edit: just realised how confusing this might be. I meant frostbolt, not fireball. But similarly, you can do 3x AB 2x Fireball 1x scorch rotation
From there surely with a bit of haste you can do 3x AB 3xFB rotations or similar (with 0 lag you already got 0.5 sec leeway, and remember with the new(old) changes to the way casts works its feasibly you can stick 3 FB's in)
I can't see why anyone would want to touch AM anymore, both bad DPS AND bad DPM.

Optimally, fight only lasts 2-3 minuts and you can go AB spam whole thing, but the real question is -

Is it possible in a 5 minute fight to AB spam 2 minutes, Rotation 2 minutes (gain mana back with some insane MP5) and then AB spam again after (probably in conjunction with some pot cooldowns or something).

Also, don't forget serpent coil braid might gain a lot of value here.

Last edited by BrTarolg : 02/11/08 at 7:12 PM.
#2680SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
I see talk of ABx3/FrBx3 rotations as the one being investigated currently. If you spec to disinclude AM talents, what is your plan for bloodlust/heroism? Wearing the amount of passive haste that the new gear allows for in addition to the BL wouldn't be clipping a frostbolt?
#2681SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
One assumes bloodlust would be smoked with as much AB as possible. It only makes sense to stack the best DPS with the best DPS enhancer.
#2682SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
If passive haste and bloodlust potentially clip a frostbolt, then they certainly clip AB spam... I would think that a spell with a sufficiently long cast time to not get clipped under these conditions would outdps a 1sec AB.
#2683SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
If you look at stat equivalences I posted before you'll see that haste doesn't scale well with arcane exactly because of all clipping issues, also having more haste just means you'll have to lower AB spam uptime. For arcane specs I'd probably avoid any more than about 60 haste rating, or basically avoid it all unless it's on a obviously superior item.
#2684SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
I understand most of this community has Illidan on farm. But at least for where I am at progression wise, the 2.4 tailoring gear definitely fits the description of superior item. I suppose most of my questions and concerns will be addressed if I sit back and wait for the TC to be completed, however, so I suppose I will do just that.
#2685SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
I just realized what this means for Innervate. At those stats one would have 3335 mp5 spi regen. If you AB spam all the way to OOM and then get Innervate you can get a chunk of mana back while continuing AB spam.

Last edited by Kavan : 02/11/08 at 9:25 PM.
#2686SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Selun
Even being oom with an arcane spec looking at the heavy spirit you'll have, "wanding" would regen your mana really fast if you really want to wand and forget the mage armor, but you'll be casting the rotations that do inferior dps than AB spam but do regen mana, not to mention CC on AM while the boss has JoW up.

You can also assume windows of high dps doing AB spam, like if you're going oom in 2min of AB spam do 1:30 min AB spam, 25-30 sec of rotations and do another 1min of AB spam, depending on the fight length, it's all about mana management and how you want, when you want or when you can put the high dps AB spam offers at the price of the high mana consumption.
#2687SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Koosha
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
I just realized what this means for Innervate. At those stats one would have 3335 mp5 spi regen. If you AB spam all the way to OOM and then get Innervate you can get a chunk of mana back while continuing AB spam.
Don't you think wasting innervate on a mage to validate AB spam more is a little bit much? :P
#2688SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3hec
On a different note:

Has anybody been able to establish whether Elemental Precision still grants an extra 3% "ghosthit" for frost spells on the PTR?

*edited to clarify*
#2689SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Koosha View Post
Don't you think wasting innervate on a mage to validate AB spam more is a little bit much? :P
You say "wasting" but (1) tree druids don't need it, and neither do ferals and (2) priests who to my understanding were the principle recipients of Innervate Love will need it a lot less because under raid conditions they will go up by anything from 50 to 200mp5 from the change themselves. Given we're looking at a 15k+ mana gain from 1 innervate and this spec is specifically designed to be able to convert every single bit of excess mana into 2k+DPS we're valid recipients I should think.

As a side note to inferior dps cycles on arcane, Kavan pointed out something I hadn't thought of before: AB*3/AM/Sc suffers from the fact that while the 1st AB does get the haste but not the cost, server latency often means the next cast starts casting at default 2.5 cast and not 1st debuff cast. This nullifies what we thought was the whole point of 3AB/other cycles. Instead, when not ABing, rotate (AM/AB)*3/Sc. The succession of AM/AB causes a lot of OO5SR regen and the Sc every 3 cycles ensures it drops off.

Arcane is looking to be particularly complex and exciting to model and simulate; it's not at all clear how mana-management, cooldown-management, item value and rotation should be optimized, unlike, frost or fire.

As for the gentlemen inquiring about Ele. Pre.: It is particularly difficult to establish this. Back when it was discovered some lovely chap copied a 65 mage and made a 500+ parsing to prove it at Dr. Boom. It's barely the 2nd day of 2.4 and I'm sure all the theorycrafters on PTR with a working copy of a mage are busy doing other immensely more interesting things and are probably not too keen to go hunting for lvl 73 mobs to shoot a few hundred frosbolts at to establish a bug or not.

Be patient, I assure you I want to know as much as anyone else. The knowledge will arise with time as long-standing frostmages notice missrate change on PTR Bosses.
#2690SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Selun
It's the same when asking for a bloodlust given there are only 3 players in your group that will benefit from it over a melee group composed of rogues, warrior, feral druid... If you have 1 feral dps and 1 tank druid and given the fights in MH/BT are short this matter is not as trivial.

And as Pintofbrew said "It only makes sense to stack the best DPS with the best DPS enhancer", here the best dps enhancer for arcane being mana and innervate being usable for only 1 player, so it's not the case like stacking 2 SP in the arcane mage group just for the sake of mana and his dps.
#2691SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Bloodlust is slightly unique in that for Direct Damage casters, it'll affect 100% of their output. Ele Sham, Mages, D-locks all gain a clean 30% from Bloodlust. Melee, while they scale well with haste, do not gain 100% from it. Rather, they gain only a30%*X where X is the % of their total damage which comes from white attacks. Unless my understanding of melee is faulty, this is never over 60%, so even under ideal circumstances a bloodlust can not be more than 18% benefit to a melee. This is saying nothing of massive fire-spec CD stacking.

Many of you see innervating a mage as heressy, but I maintain: you're looking at 2.4 from a 2.3 perspective. Firstly, Innerv will be less needed because the healing classes all will gain from small to signifficant amounts in mp5 from the change to start with. Secondly, unlike fire/frost "if you have mana you do dps, the end" where mana is an "if-gate", for arcane mana is turning into a way to maximize AB/AM ratio which in turn maximizes DPS.

Kavan already demonstrated that stacking Int is superior in these cases to stacking spell power, showing that in this case smaller spells in much higher abundance are superior to less-apparent bigger spells. I'm sure he could make an extra 80-90 spell damage re-gemming, but dumping 70 int would make the arcane-spec not work due to bad AB/AM ratio.
#2692SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
I must try this out on PTR before I do anything rash. The thought of re-gemming and re-enchanting all my gear for int just to see if this works scares me. (The cost above all else - I am poor) Arcane spec is shaping out to be such a different spec from frost or fire than it requires a totally different mindset and different gear setup to play well. Gearing for int ... who would have thought we would come to this day. lol
#2693SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Honestly theres not much to say at this point. Whichever spec is best suited at sunwell bosses will be the favored spec, and that is going to be it. Looking at it so far it seem fire is the winner for brutallicus, unless you enjoy 6min AB spam.
#2694SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3epiphenom
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ofcalamity.jpg

Is it too early to infer from this the existence of an entire set of spirit-free caster gear?

If there is such a set, it clearly classes the stuff we've seen on the vendors so far as shadow priest loot, since only they regularly access spirit-regen-while-casting (Meditation). It still seems like there's no hit, but I think our loot calculations may have proved slightly premature.
#2695SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kaboomafoo
Hey, here's a question. With new t6 pieces, it's now possible to have 4-piece bonuses from 2 different tier sets. I'm curious if it's actually worth it to keep 4/5 t5 and 4/8 t6. Any thoughts? It could ppobably (I'm pretty sure, definately) be a very stupid idea since 70 spell damage on crits is stupid compared to some of the new gear.

I'm just curious is all, don't kill me ;-;
#2696SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Raistin
Originally Posted by Kaboomafoo View Post
Hey, here's a question. With new t6 pieces, it's now possible to have 4-piece bonuses from 2 different tier sets. I'm curious if it's actually worth it to keep 4/5 t5 and 4/8 t6. Any thoughts? It could ppobably (I'm pretty sure, definately) be a very stupid idea since 70 spell damage on crits is stupid compared to some of the new gear.

I'm just curious is all, don't kill me ;-;
I wouldn't really see keeping 4pc T5 being incredibly useful, as you'll be sacrificing a lot of better gear with those two slots. However, 2pc T5 and a hybrid spec of 40/18/3 may be worthwhile, as so far on my guild's 25-man attempts it seems there are an awful lot of threat sensitive fights.

Edit: Fixed some typos.

Last edited by Raistin : 02/12/08 at 4:38 AM.
#2697SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by epiphenom View Post
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ofcalamity.jpg

Is it too early to infer from this the existence of an entire set of spirit-free caster gear?

If there is such a set, it clearly classes the stuff we've seen on the vendors so far as shadow priest loot, since only they regularly access spirit-regen-while-casting (Meditation). It still seems like there's no hit, but I think our loot calculations may have proved slightly premature.
There we go! That was exactly my thought when I only saw the gear tradable on vendors.

They put feral loot on vendors - since it is kind of off-spec and annoying if it drops for the tenth time and it's only useful for one person in your guild. So, an option to trade main-spec loot for off-spec loot and vice-versa ensure that offspecs can get their stuff without having the "10 RoS kills, 8 Moonkin Bracers" effects. Or Tome of the Lightbringer, our guild's favourite. I'm sure everyone has their item that always drops and no one wants.

Cloth damage gear with spirit and no +hit is pretty good for shadow priests and arcane mages. Hit from talents, regen from spirit, shadow priests often get innervates for maximum group benefit in endurance fights.
So, that's the off-spec gear, tradable from healing gear with spell haste. Which may be kind of off-spec too, our healers at least don't like haste too much, not over regen. But that's debatable, just a thought, not the base of an argument.

However, none of your warlocks or non-arcane mages want spirit.
So, since the leggings already appeared, I'm sure that there is more "main-spec" loot. Without spirit, and maybe with hit even.


Originally Posted by Kaboomafoo View Post
Hey, here's a question. With new t6 pieces, it's now possible to have 4-piece bonuses from 2 different tier sets. I'm curious if it's actually worth it to keep 4/5 t5 and 4/8 t6. Any thoughts? It could ppobably (I'm pretty sure, definately) be a very stupid idea since 70 spell damage on crits is stupid compared to some of the new gear.
T5 gear has no hit on 4 pieces, just damage and crit and stats. The set bonus averages at most ~40 damage for fire/frost specs, at the cost of 4 pieces of shit gear. Honestly, even if you can upgrade one of those T5 items for Sunwell gear, it's most likely worth breaking the set bonus.

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Instead, when not ABing, rotate (AM/AB)*3/Sc. The succession of AM/AB causes a lot of OO5SR regen and the Sc every 3 cycles ensures it drops off.
That's not going helpful I think. Just look as a full (AM/AB)3/Sc cycle, and fix the ABs and its cast times.

Now, if you rearrange that on paper (*you cannot rearrange that while casting because the debuffs timer wouldn't work, but we can do it as a mind experiment if we make sure every AB has the correct mana/time cost from the above rotation), we would get:
(AB*3)/AM*3/Sc
AB*3 as medium to high DPS (at or near fire level), but AM and Sc way lower. My estimates from the last numbers in Vontre's would make that rotation too low DPS to be competitive.
Sure, it gives more O5SR ticks, but arcane already has 60% I5SR ticks, so going out of 5SR won't change it much.

Also, I don't get why people want to stick with AM as filler spell. It's shit damage and shit DPM.
Even without WC on the target, Frostbolt is 5-10% more DPS than AM, 15-20% with WC on.
And AM burns 40% more mana per second without Jow, 25% more with JoW. 2FB=1AM for whatever timing your rotation requires.

Even if frost drops below the hit cap, they'd break even, and AM still has the vastly higher mana cost.
I just can't see FB being a better filler than AM. 40/0/21 gets you all you need for AB spam/rotations, AM just has the bonus of no interrupts over FB.
And honestly, if interrupts are an issue, AB spam suffers enough to make fire surpass it.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/12/08 at 6:18 AM.
#2698SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
I just realized what this means for Innervate. At those stats one would have 3335 mp5 spi regen. If you AB spam all the way to OOM and then get Innervate you can get a chunk of mana back while continuing AB spam.
Yes, the new regen formula is awsome for Innervate.
The sarcastic thing is, that it would be really awsome for the old Evocation too.
With the new formula, the old Evoc., 600 int and 350 spirit that would regen 10875 mana.
Anyone else want the old Evocation back?
#2699SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nakawe
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Also, I don't get why people want to stick with AM as filler spell. It's shit damage and shit DPM.
Even without WC on the target, Frostbolt is 5-10% more DPS than AM, 15-20% with WC on.
And AM burns 40% more mana per second without Jow, 25% more with JoW. 2FB=1AM for whatever timing your rotation requires.
Brilliant observation and I couldnt agree more.

I have run the math as well, with my current gear the arcane/frosbolt rotation totally owns ab/am rotation. I honestly dont understand why the 40/0/21 build isnt accepted more as a viable spec to fire. I believe we have two groups here. Some people when they hear the word arcane they say cant be done AM does horrible damage.

There is the other group like myself who believes that arcane blast spam filled in with frosbolts allows us to maximize dps because we can control our mana better. I mainly use ab/spam unless my mana gets low the I switch to a abx3/fbx3 rotation till a mana gem and pot is ready. Then I start all over again. At 50% of bosses health I evocate. As boss gets close to death, I look at current mana and when I can arcane blast spam him to his death, I do just that. Arcane blast spam has higher burst dps when wear 2pct5 then fireball does when boss is below 20% health.

That why I like arcane/frost Its has massive burst dps with arcane blast and wicked mana effeciency with frost bolt. My numbers in a raid are compareable with fire and depending on boss fight mechanics sometime fire is better and some times 40/0/21 is

Last edited by Nakawe : 02/12/08 at 9:28 AM.
#2700SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3helldrunk
The main thing about using AM instead of Fire or Frostbolt is that it gets you out of the 5 second rule for mana regain. By using the AM on clearcast followed by a firebolt you have 3 seconds full mana regain time. When you combine it with clearcast you get 8-9 seconds depending on how quick you are to switch to AM...

I haven't done the maths on it but I believe that you get more mana using that rotation and the clearcasted AM gives nice dps for 5 seconds without costing any mana.
#2701SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Unless you're an imp, it's unlikely you cast firebolt. I'll assume you're refering to fireball in which case I'm curious as to how you plan to get IV and enough fire talents (ie. at least 10) to make fireball a better choice than 21pt frostbolt while retaining emp. AM.

As for the age-old "AM on CC" theory it's been proven since way back when in 2.2 that the CC indication will occur way way too late for you to successfully act on it. If you cancel whatever you were casting when CC shows up, you'll net a grand 1.5sec GCD worth of wasted time all in order to capitalize on a CC-AM which is questionable at best. This is not considered effective or efficient. Neither is it particularly impressive DPS-wise as dropping 1.5sec to gain a (very) roughly (30%*0.75) benefit on a 5sec spell isn't particularly impressive.
#2702SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
As for the age-old "AM on CC" theory it's been proven since way back when in 2.2 that the CC indication will occur way way too late for you to successfully act on it. If you cancel whatever you were casting when CC shows up, you'll net a grand 1.5sec GCD worth of wasted time all in order to capitalize on a CC-AM which is questionable at best. This is not considered effective or efficient. Neither is it particularly impressive DPS-wise as dropping 1.5sec to gain a (very) roughly (30%*0.75) benefit on a 5sec spell isn't particularly impressive.
Well this depends on the rotation and was the reason for some ratations like AB AM AB AM AB² AM AM or AB AB AB AM SC AB AM SC³ AB ...
Some rotations based on casting AM always after AB so when AB procs CC, AM always gets the proc. And when AM procs CC, you see the proc at the beginning of the cast and have 4,x sec. left to notice the CC and plan to cast another AM afterwards. This way AM always gets the CC proc no matter where it comes from and without the need to cancel spell casting.
(² ABs stack until 3 then AM AM resets it, ³ AB stacks never reset, the scorch can proc CC which is then wasted for AB)

The reason why AM was used as filler was also because of the little tricks with MSD, TLC, a CC AM has the crit bonus for all "ticks" guaranteing a TLC bolt and so on.
However, these arcane times are really age-old. The advantage of less need for spell hit is gone bacause of all the hit on T6 items, although this could become interesting again when you see the total lack of spell hit on 2.4 items, but we'll have to wait for the total 2.4 itemizaton there.
#2703SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3helldrunk
Yeah, meant Fireball. Imo both fireball and frostbolts are usable in a rotation which you choose is probably dependant if you got improved scorch and/or winters chill on the target.

The plan was to not get IV. The purpose of the build I'm toying about with is to have as much time as possible for AB spam and clearcasted AM. In my experience total dps as Arcane in a long fight is more dependent on mana than casting speed.

I know it was rejected before but with the changes in mana-regain in 2.4 it might be a usable strategy soon. As I said I haven't done the math on it yet but if you look at the raw numbers for me 1 tic of OOC regain is worth 73 mana now and 121 in 2.4. Using AM in the rotation gives me 1-2 tics on each rotation while Fireball/Frostbolt gives 0.

1,5 sec GCD? AB hits instantly and you should be able to react faster than that. But I'm also a bit doubtful of it's really worth it. Getting clearcast on an AM is very nice when it happens though.

It's also very dependant on the encounter. Fireball/Frostbolt gives higher aggro than AM and with longer time AB spaming and less rotation you might be able to make better use of vulnerable phases.
#2704SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
AB hits Instantly? Either I'm an idiot and don't get what you're saying or you're hell-drunk as your name suggests. AB is not an instant and it never was, except in the case of POM-AB perhaps. Every time you actuate a spell, irrespective of cast time, it instigates a GCD. You should try it some time, press scorch and before it lands try to use a /stopcasting /cast counterspell macro. You will interrupt the scorch but clearly not cast the counter because, lo and behold, all spell casting initiations, irrespective of channeled, cast or instant have a GCD built in.

"React faster than that"? If upon AB completion, you see the damage register on target and STILL have time to REACT, which has been proven that in the realm of sub-fighter-pilot reflexes (which should cover 99.95% of us) of faster than 0.15sec are impossible to have, then you're not casting fast enough. If this was 6 months ago, I'd point you in the direction of Quartz and Stopcasting macros alas nowadays all you need to do is mash a button and the game will do it for you.

So no, you can not force AM on clearcast unless you're in one of the following three scenaria:
1) You alternate AB and AM in an [(AB-AM)*n]Sc rotation, in which case as has been said, if the AM procs it there's plenty of time to cast a further AM after it, and in case an AB procs it, an AM is after it anyway
2) You spam AM only.
3) You leave at least 0.2sec after each AB cast ends to alow for server delay in relaying "you procced CC" and brain lag in processing it, and muscular coordination in selecing correct spell given proc.

All of these are abysmal.
#2705SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
To me...people are getting a little too excited about AB spam a little too early.

If you're going straight by Vontre's spreadsheet, I think people are a little confused by the amount of total damage done. I modified it to adjust the GCD based off of the haste you have on. For AB spam, haste is very powerful. Stacking haste seems to give the greatest benefit over pure damage. Now with the 2t5 bonus, It's showing that it's possible to sustain around 2875dps for 65 seconds. During this 65 seconds, around 28k mana is used. But at that point you're wanding. So you've done 186875 total damage. This does not take into account the new spirit/int change as i haven't bothered to look up the new formula.

In the same 65 seconds for deep fire...you've done 151125 damage...but you're not even close to being oom.

Also, you still do not see the same sort of benefits from IV or bloodlust for AB spam as you do for fireball. With the new items, the sheet I configured for AB spam has a passive 364 haste. Bloodlust & IV both put you to the 1s GCD before their entire cast time reduction is applied. This means that cooldown stacking will be less benefitial to arcane than it is to fire.

Also, AB spam has 0 pushback protection and the damage is sub-par to deep fire when used in any sort of rotation. We will need to wait to see the rest of the items out of the sunwell before we can really get a feel if AB is going to be viable at all.
#2706SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
I am going to be a little more specific about which spells I cast to maximize dps in a 40/0/21 build.

Arcane blast is primary nuke, This is spammed until I hit 40% mana or icy veins is up and have pots, mana gems on cooldown .

Frostbolt until timer is back up on pots and mana gems

Evocation when boss is at 50% normally am close to full after evocating because I switched to frostbolts at 40% mana

Frost bolts crits are higher then arcane blast crits with my build gear so I do this:

Icy veins is used whenever its up and I cast frostbolts why active

If bloddlusted I cast frostbolts (I never stack Icy veins with bloodlust)

If I use arcane power I cast frostbolts.

Last % of bosses health I evaluate my mana and go into an arcane blast spam so I am close to zero mana when boss dies.

With a shadow priest and ele shammy in my grp I can almost maintin frostbolt spam, after 2.4 I totally expect this scenario to totally rock and am impatiently looking to see if it can way out dps fire. I am particualry interested is what would happen if I stack int. I am maxed in hit already for both ice/frost using the frost oveersight. if I can do what I am doing in 2.4 and totally cast arcane blast except when icy veing or bloodlust is up on a boss fight, this spec will kick ass. It is not dependant on stacking haste.

If anyone has a better rotation to maximize dps casting these spells I would gladly like to hear it. Currently I far exceed the mathematical dps of 3arcaneblast/3frostbolt rotation, This is of course dependant on the boss fight. If there is alot of moving around this spec is very difficult to keep high dps. That is its weakness. This equates to 30 yard range vs 41 for fire, no dots ticking why your moving. So be forewarned it is not an easy spec to play, but it is by far much more fun then spamming fireball and is definately comparable in dps. Lhivera mage calculator with my current gear will verify this, and that is based on sticking to set rotations.

I will be first to admit that if I drop some of my crit for damage then according to the mage calculator I can get even more dps out of fire if I stick to traditional rotations, which I dont. it will not be substantinally more though.
#2707SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Well, heres what you need to keep in mind:
  • 1.5 GCD -> 1.0 GCD
  • int/spi changes boosted ridiculously mana regen
  • Sunwell allows 2pct5 + 4pct6
  • Sunwell gear is notably devoid of hit rating
  • Elemental Precision is still, as far as I know, 6% to hit for frost spells

In short, everything so far is slanted (poised?) for a 40/0/21 'comeback' come Sunwell. Personally I am not very pleased at the thought of having to maintain AB rotations, but one can't ignore the DPS benefits from the GCD and int/spi change which radically changes numbers.

So far its looking like this: (gearing for 40/0/21)
  • sunfire robes
  • leggings of calamity
  • 4pct6 - boots + belt + bracers + (hat or gloves)
  • 2pct5 - shoulder + (hat or gloves)

for short fights you want as few hit as possible, as your frostbolt should be low. In that case, you might want to go towards t5 gloves + t6 hat. In long fights you plan on many frostbolts, in which case you want a bit more hit, so you would be more heading towards t5 hat + t6 gloves. I won't lie that I haven't been really looking deep at the numbers, but that would be my first order guess. Mage armor assumed of course.

Last edited by manly : 02/12/08 at 11:58 AM.
#2708SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
From what i've looked at, I'm not sure it's even worth getting 4t6 if your primary focus is on AB.
#2709SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Castia
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
From what i've looked at, I'm not sure it's even worth getting 4t6 if your primary focus is on AB.
Belt, Boots, and Bracers are already best in slot though, better than Anetheron's Noose, Slippers of the Seacaller, and Cuffs of Devastation.. so with already having 3, might as well get another piece for the bonus.
#2710SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
They're best in slot after knowing some of the drops of 3 bosses. But items like the Leggings of Calamity crush T6 and even the vendor items...and i'm sure we have more items like this to come.
#2711SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3helldrunk
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
AB hits Instantly? Either I'm an idiot and don't get what you're saying or you're hell-drunk as your name suggests. AB is not an instant and it never was, except in the case of POM-AB perhaps. Every time you actuate a spell, irrespective of cast time, it instigates a GCD. You should try it some time, press scorch and before it lands try to use a /stopcasting /cast counterspell macro. You will interrupt the scorch but clearly not cast the counter because, lo and behold, all spell casting initiations, irrespective of channeled, cast or instant have a GCD built in.
From wowwiki:
A global or universal cooldown, frequently shortened to "GCD", is the cooldown which starts every time you start to cast a spell, and it affects all of your class spells. There are exceptions to this, however, as noted below. The basic rule of thumb is that if the spell affects the casting of the next spell, it will not activate the global cooldown.

If the spell has a casting time less than the global cooldown (or instant cast), you generally have to wait the remainder of the global cooldown. If a spell with casting time is interrupted before it has finished casting, the global cooldown will be canceled, meaning you can start casting a new one immediately.


I tested it a bit and it seems like doing scorch + macro (/stopcasting /cast icelance) would give me spell not ready. However doing scorch +strafe + macro worked most of the time. Maybe server-lag made the strafe come after the macro some times. In any case I think strafe works as an interrupt and thus cancel GCD while /stopcasting doesn't.

Or maybe I'm just drunk ;-) Ne1 got the tools to try it out or know the answer?
#2712SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andersnordic
I wouldn't get my hopes up regarding the viability of Arcane in Sunwell.

An average fight will probably be around 5 min +. Keeping up AB spam for a long enough period will be impossible.


However, I do plan on going arcane for Sunwell (40/0/21). We only go with 2 locks so CoE isn't an option.


Arcane will be superior in a non CoE setup only.
#2713SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Queuetip
You're correct that moving will stop the global cooldown. However, you are still setting yourself back half a second or so to stop your current cast and throw a CC'ed AM. It would be worse than casting without a stopcast macro before the mechanics were changed.

Regarding the intterupting cast bug, has anyone heard of it being fixed? It was said earlier that the addition of Mob ID should fix this, but I read nothing on the notes about this issue. I haven't made it on the PTR yet to test, but it would be quite a shame if this bug still persisted on 2.4.
#2714SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Why do people always forget that Arcane Missiles is terrible? Seriously, there's no reason to touch that spell anymore, use frostbolts or fireballs.

Here, let me show you something about what arcane spec can really do. I have a graph.

http://www.magegraf.com/

I just finished an afternoon's worth of work adding some more advanced logic to mana control for arcane specs. This is modeled with 2.4 in mind. Whoa. So why is arcane suddenly awesome, on paper at least?

Well the elephant in the room was actually the global cooldown. Thanks to the hard cap of 1.5 seconds speed on Arcane Blast, arcane was pretty much completely unable to utilize haste, which meant that bloodlust and IV was wasted, which is of course bad stuff. Oh, and the ability to wear 2 T5 without losing 4 T6 is also a big plus.

Ok, so now that we can actually get some dps out of arcane, where's the mana? The new regen formula of course... only moderately impressive with our normal stats, but add in raid buffs like divine spirit and blessing of kings, and you are looking at twistedly high mana regen.

I hate to say it though but you guys are doing it all wrong. I'm sad because I don't get to use harsh words like "terrible" when comparing intellect anymore, intellect and haste are merely "pretty good". Point for point intellect has the best returns, but there's a couple reasons you don't want to stack it. Firstly, while intellect wins out by a slight margin, that only happens if the fight reaches a certain duration. Intellect is still primarily concerned with longevity, and that means it doesn't necessarily come into play 100% of the time, whereas spell damage is always boosting your dps no matter what. Secondly, intellect is actually more costly than spell damage. A 10 int gem is the same as a 12 damage spinel.

Now, for haste, why would you even consider stacking haste at all? It doesn't increase dpm like damage or int, so you're not getting as much benefit, and you still run the risk of dipping under the 1 second global cooldown and losing the full benefit. Don't stack haste, that's dumb.

So spell damage is still your primary stat. Intellect is now a close secondary stat, which is cool because now we can use it to match socket bonuses and get free item points. Haste is still pretty good to come by incidentally, similiar to crit, so don't worry about having some haste on your gear. Just don't stack it or gem it.

Check my calculations on the site and post any questions you may have here.
#2715SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nakawe
Vontre with your calculator with my gear

Fire 2/48/11: 1801 dps

Arcane 40/18/3: 1903 dps

Arcane/Ice 40/0/21: 2008 dps

Fire: 0/40/21: 1803 dps


If this is accurate I am very excited because I am 40/0/21

adjusting forgot wrath totem, btw these are full raid buffs

Do you realize this is over a 500 points dps upgrade for me? This cant be accurate

Last edited by Nakawe : 02/12/08 at 4:28 PM.
#2716SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
What's the length of time you got on that calculator?

Sunwell fight DPS might need to aim for slightly over five minutes.
#2717SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Toabo
Bleh. I never did like AB rotations, so I eagerly switched to deep Fire last patch. But if Vontre's site is accurate, I'm looking at a sizable (50+) DPS increase from switching from 2/48/11 to 40/0/21. *sigh* Glad I haven't sharded any of my T5 set yet.
#2718SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
the simulator assumes full 2.4 buffs, so sub gcd casts as well as the new int/spi changes.
#2719SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
What's the length of time you got on that calculator?

Sunwell fight DPS might need to aim for slightly over five minutes.

5 minutes

I played with it a bit more and found that haste tremendously boost fire/ice damage and only slight increase to arcane specs. Its hard to tell what total end game gear would do to numbers, because my guild has just gotten into mt hyjal and bt. I would be very interested in seeing the numbers from a t6 geared mage.
#2720SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
5 minutes

I played with it a bit more and found that haste tremendously boost fire/ice damage and only slight increase to arcane specs. Its hard to tell what total end game gear would do to numbers, because my guild has just gotten into mt hyjal and bt. I would be very interested in seeing the numbers from a t6 geared mage.
Below both assume full raid buffs

My gear
Fire - 2418
Arcane/Frost (if i were to somehow currently have both 2t5 & 2t6) - 2612

Gear for fire with Sunwell items so far.
Fire - 2784
Arcane/Frost - 2660

I see that haste is scaling poorly with this model for AB/frostbolt. One problem is...nearly everything that comes out of the sunwell has Haste on it.

I'll try to put together an arcane set and test it out.
#2721SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pitbuller
Best arcane mage comsuables after 2.4 is [Adept's Elixir] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] according Vontre's Simulator.
#2722SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tompin
Does the simulator take the "AB bug" into account? I mean the fact that during the AB ramp up, the debuff is slightly delayed, while casting is not. This means that often (read always), you won't get the lowered cast time, but will still have to pay the increased mana cost. You can easily test this if you have a cast bar that shows the cast time of your current spell. Happens every time for me after 2.3 and the new casting mechanics. Essentially, the debuff is delayed once, meaning you have to do 4 casts to get a fully stacked cast. I could be wrong, but this was my experience on PTR.
#2723SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3taciturn
I set it up with no pushbacks, and my current gear (except i fudged it to have 2p t5 w/o changing my stats)

it gave 2401 for fire, and 2708 for 40/0/21 over a 300 second fight. I was about to post that seems a bit high, considering my gear isnt really perfect. Then i saw it only had me cast scorch 3x at the start. Any way to get it to have you keep the scorch debuff up instead of assuming somebody else will?
#2724SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by taciturn View Post
I set it up with no pushbacks, and my current gear (except i fudged it to have 2p t5 w/o changing my stats)

it gave 2401 for fire, and 2708 for 40/0/21 over a 300 second fight. I was about to post that seems a bit high, considering my gear isnt really perfect. Then i saw it only had me cast scorch 3x at the start. Any way to get it to have you keep the scorch debuff up instead of assuming somebody else will?

40/0/21 is arcane/ice your confusing me here, nevermind reread your post......
#2725SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Why do people always forget that Arcane Missiles is terrible? Seriously, there's no reason to touch that spell anymore, use frostbolts or fireballs.
I know there is much hatred for AM, but please amuse me and add a proper 48+/0/11 arcane build if you get a chance with ABAMx3+Sc cycle. From what analysis I've done using my gear (assuming frostbolt hit capped) I get reasonably similar numbers for AM and Frostbolt if you restrict Frost to max 21 points. It depends on what curses are available and whether you have someone to leech winter's chill from. You'll say that Frostbolt has better dpm characteristics, but my findings suggest that 5SR interaction and CC double dipping closes the gap between the two significantly. I actually think the arcane/frost hybrid will end up slightly ahead because of cold snap, but I'd like to see how well founded this AM hatred is.
#2726SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3alvinrod
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Bloodlust is slightly unique in that for Direct Damage casters, it'll affect 100% of their output. Ele Sham, Mages, D-locks all gain a clean 30% from Bloodlust. Melee, while they scale well with haste, do not gain 100% from it. Rather, they gain only a30%*X where X is the % of their total damage which comes from white attacks. Unless my understanding of melee is faulty, this is never over 60%, so even under ideal circumstances a bloodlust can not be more than 18% benefit to a melee. This is saying nothing of massive fire-spec CD stacking.

Many of you see innervating a mage as heressy, but I maintain: you're looking at 2.4 from a 2.3 perspective. Firstly, Innerv will be less needed because the healing classes all will gain from small to signifficant amounts in mp5 from the change to start with. Secondly, unlike fire/frost "if you have mana you do dps, the end" where mana is an "if-gate", for arcane mana is turning into a way to maximize AB/AM ratio which in turn maximizes DPS.

Kavan already demonstrated that stacking Int is superior in these cases to stacking spell power, showing that in this case smaller spells in much higher abundance are superior to less-apparent bigger spells. I'm sure he could make an extra 80-90 spell damage re-gemming, but dumping 70 int would make the arcane-spec not work due to bad AB/AM ratio.
Melee probably don't get 100%, but warriors hitting more often results in more rage to burn on abilities which generates more yellow damage as well. Rogues also have a talent that grants energy on some successful offhand attacks, which results in being able to spam Sinister Strike more often and therefore more yellow damage.

There might be a model in the warrior/rogue TC threads.
#2727SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
I can't remember whether mana ticks every 1 seconds or two seconds now, however let's assume you have 600 intellect and 400 spirit with raid buffs. By the new formula, you would regenerate 91.385 OOFSR every second, or 182 every 2 seconds. Let's be generous and assume AM->Scorch gets you a full two-second tick. Normally you would get 60% of that value. AM->Scorch let's you reap the full value, which is a net gain of 73 mana each cycle. This is less than the mana you spent dumping into an arcane missiles followed by a scorch instead of 3 frostbolts. Furthermore, both arcane missiles and scorch do a fair bit less dps, with their respective talents, than a 40/0/21 frostbolt. So using AM instead of frostbolt causes you to lose both mana and dps. The only thing you gain is pushback resist, which may or may not help you avoid a cycle interruption which costs 1 second of dps time. In other word you MIGHT cause your 13.3 second cycle to take 14.3 seconds instead (value reduced accordingly with haste).
#2728SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. In the TC I've done when there's both COS and COE and no winter's chill then ABx3+FrBx3 with 40/0/21 is almost the same as ABAMx3+Sc with 48+/0/11. When there is only COS the AM cycle is better. If there is winter's chill then FrB cycle is better.
#2729SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Kasi
Originally Posted by alvinrod View Post
Melee probably don't get 100%, but warriors hitting more often results in more rage to burn on abilities which generates more yellow damage as well. Rogues also have a talent that grants energy on some successful offhand attacks, which results in being able to spam Sinister Strike more often and therefore more yellow damage.

There might be a model in the warrior/rogue TC threads.
A warrior under heroism will already be generating enough rage to use every GCD available to him on damage. The only way its going to increase his dps is if he is executing, and executing is the best use of rage when at low rage and scales worse the higher in rage you go. Same with a rogue. They are pretty much filling every gcd as well. Combat potency under haste is not going to make the number of yellow attacks go up any large degree.
#2730SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
I think we have to consider spellpush back also.

40 arcane / 21 frost is good DPS, but has absolutely zero talents preventing spell pushback. It will do a lot worse for those fights. So, the variability of the DPS of this build will be higher.

>48 arcane where talents are put into AM, means that for such spell pushback fights, you have a nuke you can spam that will be totally unaffected by spell pushback. That's pretty big.

A compromise would be to have Deep arcane/fire. With points into burning soul. So, you can fall back on fireball as a good DPM spell. And its dps is relatively high too, and it has 70% immunity from pushback. Then when mana permit,s just spam Arcane blast the rest of the way.

I always wonder why people say Teron is a good or fair DPS measure when arcane has such disadvantages in that fight because of the frequent spellpushback. In that kind of fight, or say like bloodboil, maybe just spamming AM might be better than using AB.
#2731SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Alvira
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Why do people always forget that Arcane Missiles is terrible? Seriously, there's no reason to touch that spell anymore, use frostbolts or fireballs.

Here, let me show you something about what arcane spec can really do. I have a graph.

http://www.magegraf.com/

I just finished an afternoon's worth of work adding some more advanced logic to mana control for arcane specs. This is modeled with 2.4 in mind. Whoa. So why is arcane suddenly awesome, on paper at least?

Well the elephant in the room was actually the global cooldown. Thanks to the hard cap of 1.5 seconds speed on Arcane Blast, arcane was pretty much completely unable to utilize haste, which meant that bloodlust and IV was wasted, which is of course bad stuff. Oh, and the ability to wear 2 T5 without losing 4 T6 is also a big plus.

Ok, so now that we can actually get some dps out of arcane, where's the mana? The new regen formula of course... only moderately impressive with our normal stats, but add in raid buffs like divine spirit and blessing of kings, and you are looking at twistedly high mana regen.

...

Check my calculations on the site and post any questions you may have here.
Vontre, I looked at your mana consumption. And I think you don't theorycraft a fully well played arcane spec while for fire and frost, it is truely nearly at 100% play already.

The key thing lies in mana consumption. A well played arcane mage tries to end the fight at zero mana. Any fight where you end up with tons of mana, half mana, or more means you could have done far more damage but you didn't. When I input my charecter's numbers into your simulator and check mana consumption. For the arcane specs, I alaways end up with lots of mana left.

One arcane spec variant had me standing at over 9000 mana at the end of the fight, another had me at over 6000 mana.

For fire or frost specs its probably no issue, because they cannot convert any excess mana further anyway. But for arcane, it really is a big issue.

I would like to suggest one variant spell rotation that turns everything on its head. For theorycrafting, how about we assume that arcane will intentionally try and AP, AB, and AB spam all the way until it is nearly oom (like left 1000 mana). eat gems, potions, evoc all as early as possible, then just keep ABing until nearly oom. THEN, it just sticks to fireballing or frost bolting, or some combination of AB rotations till the end of the fight.

This ensures that it will be casting throughout the fight, plus it would have used up most of its mana as well.

One of your mana consumption routines for arcane spec had it evocating near the end of the 5 minute fight, resulting in nearly 9k mana left.

Also, about the stacking int part. Its controversy. But you were saying stacking int is less useful because its wasted on short fights. But what's the definition of a short fight to arcane spec? Even with goodly high int like 700 or 800 int, AB spam can only be kept up for at most around 2 minutes. Going by that. We have a long way to go before stacking int causes us to "waste" int because few raid boss fights will be less than 2 minutes.

Please don't get me wrong. I deeply respect what you have done. But I think its a lot harder to simulate a well played arcane mage than it is to simulate a well played fire spec or frost spec because of the ability of arcane mages to convert excess mana into damage.

Last edited by Alvira : 02/12/08 at 10:22 PM. Reason: spelling
#2732SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Alvira
Another interesting thing about arcane spec intentionally trying to go oom. A lot of specs like deep fire gain a lot more at the end from molten fury and when bloodlust, and all manner of haste effects are stacked at the "last burst of fire" on the last part of the boss fight.

But as Vontre rightly pointed out, while arcane benefits from haste now, its still less than frost and fire. So, why not cater to arcane strengths. Spam AP, AB etc at the start and middle of the fight, when arcane can haste itself but others can't or won't. Just do it as much as you can until you are almost bone dry on mana.

Then at the last part, when bloodlust is up and everyone else is using their drums, you will be using a high DPM spell like frostbolt or fireball which can benefit from the full effects of haste. (You can't use AB spam by then because you would have already blown most of your mana earlier on). Nor do you need to insist on having AB spam on the last burst phase on a boss since it doesn't get as much benefit as frostbolt or fireball.

Last edited by Alvira : 02/13/08 at 1:49 AM. Reason: added comments
#2733SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
What's the point of cold snap AP? Icy Veins AP is such a beautiful thing to stack, and keep paired, especially if you AB spam every second for its duration.
#2734SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Xenophon
We have a chance to test if heroism/bloodlust are considered haste in their effects on the GCD for spell casting yet? I'm operating on the assumption they will not, but I have yet to see anything definitive.
#2735SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nyoghta
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Here, let me show you something about what arcane spec can really do. I have a graph.

http://www.magegraf.com/
You simulation seems to be consuming mana potions and mana gems at the rate of one of each per minute, and use more than 3 charges of the highest rank of mana gems, which makes the arcane specs able to spam more arcane blasts than they can in reality.

Also, the destro lock never uses mana potions, and uses life tap to stay at full mana. In reality, the warlock would be better off ending as close to 0 mana as possible instead, he would spend mana until hitting 0, and only start life tapping then. The simulation uses 21 life taps on a 5 minute fight with the parameters I used, it should be possible to get by with far less than that.
#2736SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
The entire change would be nearly pointless if they did not.

The reason the simulator leaves excess mana is because it was difficult to predict how much mana I would to have left to spam AB for the full bloodlust duration. However, I left it as is for two reasons. One, arcane spec was already handily beating out fire in the tests, and two I believe it would more accurately represent human play, as trying to balance mana consumption around 45 seconds of ~3500mp5 burn is likely to result in a heavy margin of error. I like the idea of a simple burn it to the ground and spam frostbolt for the rest of the fight idea, actually, because it significantly reduces human error, so I may give that a try tomorrow.
#2737SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Alvira
One other spanner to throw in for more optimised arcane DPS routines in a 5 min fight. You can only use arcane power twice. You can only use potions and gems twice. So, the first one near the start of the fight is easy when you have more than enough mana to burn.

But the second gem and potion should not be used once the cooldown is up. This is because full AB spam would leave arcane spec with near zero mana and going into high DPM mode casting(casting frostbolt or fireball) after just 2 minutes. So, the best thing to do, is to intentionally wait until the 3 minute plus mark, when 3 things have all happend.

a) AP cooldown is up.
b) gem cooldown also up
c) potion cooldown also up.

Then, arcane spec can activate everything all together and go into a brief Arcane powered burn mode for another 15 to 20 seconds before going back into high DPM mode once mana has been burned down to a low again. It ensures maximum bang for buck because AP powered Arcane blasts are good.

So, graphs of arcane should see 3 humps instead of two. One hump at the start, powered by arcane power AB spam. Another one sometime after the 3 minute mark powered again by AP. Then one final one at the end, powered by blood lust/haste/drums, etc etc.

There should also be a plataeu. A first 2 minute where average DPS is significantly higher, followed by a drop off to a lower average DPS phase as it goes into high DPM mode. (But still with the three humps I mentioned).

The beauty of such a rountine is that it ensures that arcane spec wold have used all of the mana it had at its disposal as much as it could. It would always end any fight over 3.5 minutes with nearly zero mana. And most of that mana would have been used on AB spam to maximise DPS.

Last edited by Alvira : 02/13/08 at 2:13 AM.
#2738SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Keyne
Although this may be a little out of place on the mage forums, but from my understanding, raiding warlocks DO chug manapots, as every lifetap is 3/5ths of a shadow bolt lost...
#2739SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Genocidal
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. In the TC I've done when there's both COS and COE and no winter's chill then ABx3+FrBx3 with 40/0/21 is almost the same as ABAMx3+Sc with 48+/0/11. When there is only COS the AM cycle is better. If there is winter's chill then FrB cycle is better.
As good as a CD management system that will entice 3 peaks sounds, I am more interested in hearing Kavan in a more detailed explanation of his last post.

You support that ABx3 AMx3 SCx1 is an upgrade from the ABx3 and FBx3 as long as you don’t get a CoE and this of course implicitly states that it will also do much better on pushback fights… Which, overall, also implies it is a better damage spec since the 40/0/21 would at best deal the same amount of damage … I would love to see some numbers on that.

I also don't understand why bother with scorch if you're going to channel 3 missile anyway...
Maybe I misunderstood your post though.

[EDIT] Unless you plan to use AB AM AB AM AB AM scorch as a mana regenerative tool when you're not ramping up AB.

Last edited by Genocidal : 02/13/08 at 6:15 AM.
#2740SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by taciturn View Post
I set it up with no pushbacks, and my current gear (except i fudged it to have 2p t5 w/o changing my stats)

it gave 2401 for fire, and 2708 for 40/0/21 over a 300 second fight. I was about to post that seems a bit high, considering my gear isnt really perfect. Then i saw it only had me cast scorch 3x at the start. Any way to get it to have you keep the scorch debuff up instead of assuming somebody else will?
Is there a point? The difference of one less fireball and two more scorches over 300m is so nominal it's rather inconsequential don't you think? It's hardly going to fluctuate more than 5dps. Accuracy is great and all, but no need to go so overboard, particularly when we're looking at two specs of 200+dps difference.

Edit: On the argument of AB*3/Fbolt*3 vs. (AM/AB)*3/Sc I ran some numbers and came up with them costing 78.9mana/sec and 61.3mana/sec given (a) kavan's stats with only self-buff and DivSpi+BoK and (b)no resists on any spells.

As for the DPS difference, YMMV because it's too dependent on too many factors, not least of which is whether you gear int or spell and COE or not. The mana difference however, is non trivial. The latter also ensures you manage to effectively CC-AM while the former simply adds 3%crit.

I have not tried yet to examine the mana drain of 3*AB/3*Fball in 40/18/3 given 3/3 Master of Elements, though irrespectively I expect the FBall rotation to be higher due to imp. Scorch which is most likely to be present from fellow firemages.

Also bear in mind, as has been said before, any non-steady-state AB rotation (ie: only cast one, or chain-cast at max debuff) suffers from that the server delays the incoming confirmation of "you have AB debuff" so if you're successfully casting as fast as possible you will pay for the debuffed spell but cast at the previous debuff speed making for a distinct time loss.

Edit II: Genocidal: The rotation is AB AM AB AM AB AM Sc. The point behind it is (a) maximizing OO5SR, (b) Capitalizing on Clearcasting AM: If it procs off an AM, there's plenty of time to skip the next AB and AM instead, and if it procs off a AB or Sc there's an AM after it anyway. Secondly, as I said above, AB*3 does not in fact give the correct ABs although it costs the correct ones. Careful analysis will in fact show, that due to new casting changes you'll start casting the lower AB by the time you get the confirmation of the faster one so 3*AB isn't in fact as fast as it should be on paper.

Clearly (AB/AM)*3/Sc has a much lower AB-to-other ratio than either AB*3/AM/Sc or AB*3/Fball*3 or Ab*3/Fbolt*3 but whether or not this is as bad as it seems is still under examination.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 02/13/08 at 6:38 AM.
#2741SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Selun
I just plugged in the gear from 2.4 that is available so far in a spreadsheet just to see the stats and how would a mage be with all the new stuff. The results are Here without taking any 2xT5 bonus or 4xT6 bonus, just for an overview here.

Plugged this in Vontre's simulator and got some really weird stuff... someone has an idea from where that comes?
#2742SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Selun View Post
I just plugged in the gear from 2.4 that is available so far in a spreadsheet just to see the stats and how would a mage be with all the new stuff. The results are Here without taking any 2xT5 bonus or 4xT6 bonus, just for an overview here.

Plugged this in Vontre's simulator and got some really weird stuff... someone has an idea from where that comes?
The simulator tries to stack cooldowns correctly...which will increase your dps.
#2743SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Selun
Look at mana consumption... and also only AM spam used... why does it calculates that AM spam is better than AB spam? even though with AM spam it won't use any mana if a shadowpriest is added with that kind of mp5 while casting...

The thing I wanted to see is how would be ignoring the 2xT5 and 4xT6 for Arcane in 2.4 and if it would be viable having a boost on mp5 and int by about 50% with the new items. But simply at 529 mp5 while casting and a mana pool over 18k AB spam during AP is better dps than AM given that it will get the benefits of haste in 2.4, but in the simulator AB is nowhere to be seen...

Last edited by Selun : 02/13/08 at 11:14 AM.
#2744SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3inphared
So has anyone checked out the "ghost hit" on the PTR yet? I havent seen any replies here nor on the WoW forums.
#2745SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kycan
During a (AB/AM)x3/Sc rotation, isn't the AB still going to be a 4th stage AB, assuming you are coming down off AB spam? Unless I'm missing something, wouldn't this defeat the whole point of a rotation?
#2746SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Considering the problems with AB cycles not timing correctly according to some posters, I used the alternative arcane method of blast spamming until you're almost oom and then frostbolting or missiling the rest of the way down. Keep in mind for every comparison I've assumed 1 pushback for every 45 seconds. I made considerable improvements to the simulation logic.

For instance, I discovered that a glitch was causing evocation to have a cooldown of 4 minutes instead of 8. Whoops (I'm surprised none of you caught the two evocates in the mana regen log =p).

Ok, so that changes things considerably and we're looking at a more reasonable picture here. Basically long story short, arcane is a reasonable alternative to fire if you're lacking CoE, and can almost keep up with fire + CoE, however deep fire spec + CoE is still the best possible damage. If you have malediction on your CoS, and CoE normal, it's pretty much a wash between the two.

If you trade hit rating for spell damage successfully such that you are gaining about 100 spell damage in place of superfluous hit rating, AND you are not getting CoE, arcane/arcane is your best bet. Considering you should really be using this build to make up for a lack of CoE anyway, I'd have to say 48/0/11+2 is a good candidate for best arcane spec. However my comparisons weren't terribly in depth, I was basing the stat choices off the item formula rather than actual items. Your results may vary.

Additionally, I noticed trading spell damage for int and as such raising int to 700 increased damage slightly, however further increasing by another 200 intellect caused a sharper decline in overall damage. Looks like there's a sweet spot for intellect/spell damage ratio using this build.

If the updated calculations are correct, and blizz doesn't change them, I think they about hit the money on arcane spec.
#2747SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
I'm glad for things:
1) I was a spriest in tier 5 so I have no tier 5 2pc on Nuru
2) For some reason the Warlocks have been putting up CoE lately over CoR. I can't make sense of it, but the melee haven't said anything.

It's not that I'm against Arcane, it just seems like a significant amount of extra effort for the gains described thus far, even with the 2.4 changes.
#2748SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by kycan View Post
During a (AB/AM)x3/Sc rotation, isn't the AB still going to be a 4th stage AB, assuming you are coming down off AB spam? Unless I'm missing something, wouldn't this defeat the whole point of a rotation?
No, that's why the Sc is in there. It dropsthe ramped AB.
#2749SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Considering the problems with AB cycles not timing correctly according to some posters, I used the alternative arcane method of blast spamming until you're almost oom and then frostbolting or missiling the rest of the way down. Keep in mind for every comparison I've assumed 1 pushback for every 45 seconds. I made considerable improvements to the simulation logic.

Ok, so that changes things considerably and we're looking at a more reasonable picture here. Basically long story short, arcane is a reasonable alternative to fire if you're lacking CoE, and can almost keep up with fire + CoE, however deep fire spec + CoE is still the best possible damage. If you have malediction on your CoS, and CoE normal, it's pretty much a wash between the two.

If you trade hit rating for spell damage successfully such that you are gaining about 100 spell damage in place of superfluous hit rating, AND you are not getting CoE, arcane/arcane is your best bet. Considering you should really be using this build to make up for a lack of CoE anyway, I'd have to say 48/0/11+2 is a good candidate for best arcane spec. However my comparisons weren't terribly in depth, I was basing the stat choices off the item formula rather than actual items. Your results may vary.

If the updated calculations are correct, and blizz doesn't change them, I think they about hit the money on arcane spec.
well with new calculator fully raid buffed with my current gear. this includes coe and cos, ele shammy and sp. We always run with 1 deep ice mage for wc as well.

40/0/21 1919 dps (+1371 mana)
2/48/11 1741 dps (+7172 mana)

I also use serpant coil braid. When I start my dps cycle I eat a mana gem for the damage bonus after I get down just a little, 2 to 3 cast into the fight. I also start with arcane power. I never use icy veins when casting arcane blast beacause of being against the wall of gcd. I know gcd wont be an issue in 2.4 but, my frost bolt just does more damage , especially when I crit, which is alot. I use all my cooldowns when they are up, 5 seconds into a cool down is either wasted dps or mana. Evocation is used based on mana situation, fight progression and how I look on damage meter :P, If i need a boost on dps meters, I go into full blown arcane blast mode.

I been trying to fine tune my rotation last couple of days. I look at my situation all the time and constantly observing my mana pool, cooldowns, boss health and change it all the time, so trying to stick to a rotation is almost impossible. The 40/0/21 spec is probably the most interactive spec I have played.
#2750SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Additionally, I noticed trading spell damage for int and as such raising int to 700 increased damage slightly, however further increasing by another 200 intellect caused a sharper decline in overall damage. Looks like there's a sweet spot for intellect/spell damage ratio using this build.
Hm, I plugged my T6 (currently frost) profile in to see how things work and scale. 300s fight, standard options.

Numbers are CSIVFire spec, and Arcane/Frost (40-0-21)

Baseline: 2166, 2387
+20 int: 2170, 2433; +4, +46
+20 haste: 2190, 2389; +24, +2
+24 dmg: 2189, 2408; +23; +21

I'm very surprised about the excessive scaling of intellect. I remember int beating crit and competing with dmg, but not that far ahead.

What I don't get though is the non-scaling with haste.
Yes, AB spam works by burning mana, which haste has no influence on. But increasing the DPS of the DPM rotation should have a very noticable impact on the overall DPS.
AB spam is inefficient burn. Haste rating is efficient burn.

I don't have the numbers right now, but might check them tomorrow.
From what I roughly remember, frostbolt spam has a DPM of 6-10. Replacing those by AB spam gives a conversion of 1-2, maybe 3 additional damage for every point of mana burnt. The math takes damage/time/mana differences, so it's pretty volatile to errors.

The point is that haste allows some more mana to be burnt with your DPM rotation. Yes, this does leave a bit less mana at the end, but because AB is such a bad mana converter, haste should have some significant impact. More than the 2 DPS listed.
I guess those 2 DPS come from a faster evocation


I know that I don't have the numbers for mana at hand, but I'm at a loss trying to explain those results.
#2751SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mojache
If you guys think AM is such a bad spell you might want to relook how much haste gear is being put in Sunwell. I haven't decided if I plan to build for a 2P T5 with 4P T6 but is something that looks like a very possible combination. Need to also note that currently you can't use a flask of light and sunfire enchant with arcane and frost damage, small difference but it's things like that make the difference.

I really hope they put the 2P T5 into the arcane talent tree to better make the spec. It is quiet fun to play managing your mana and added a different element to the spec back in the day. Either way I'll be most likely Fire or Frost for learning sunwell so I can save my pot/stone timers for Hp consumables while we work on progression. Kalecgos is a bad mofo.
#2752SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
How much haste is in Sunwell is irrelevant mojache. The fact remains AM scales badly with... Everything. There are reasons we're arguing AM rotations vs Fbolt or Fball rotations in arcane, but the loot in sunwell is not one of them.

I assure you, we all have seen the loot list in sunwell.

Vontre: Could you elaborate on this int "sweetspot"? I'm more intrigued with why it drops sharply than with where it is. It clearly isn't a case of "too much mana, AB spam >100% impossible" so I'm wondering if there's some strange limit where the ratio of damage from base spell to damage from spell power becomes such that dropping more spell is distinctly inefficient.

Perhaps it's even due to diminishing returns if you will from Int in terms of mp5.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 02/13/08 at 8:38 PM.
#2753SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
I am curious why there would be a sweet spot also. Everything scales (pretty much). So if Int was the better stat earlier on, it should stay good even pst 700 int. And as Pintofbrew said, there isn't any cap that is being reached at 700 Int like too much mana or something. So, theoratically, there shouldn't be a drop off.

Mind mastery, increase in crit ratings, more mana for AB spam, further increase in MP5 from spirit. All these doesn't cap or stop as you stack Int past 700. If big sacrifices had to be made such like sacrificing a ton of +dmg, crit just to raise Int by a bit. Then I would understand. But if we are just increasing Int while keeping the other stats consistent, then all the benefits that it gave before 700 Int should still apply.

Its like how increasing +dmg is always good. There shouldn't be any kind fo drop off at all.
#2754SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Great job Vontre, I applaud your efforts in trying to get up a working model so quickly.

I am assuming the changes you mentioned and the change to the spell routine has been put in and all I have to do is refresh the site?

Based on vontre's changes, I checked the mana consumption again. It still seems a bit off. For example, since all 3 arcane specs are ABing until OOM in phase 1 with gems, potions and evoc. Their evoc should happen at nearly the same time. But based on my inputted numbers for my current gear.

The 40/18/3 spec has me evocating at the 298 second mark (nearly the end of the fight). This is amazing and quite impossible because it means I am spamming AB for 5 minutes? Hmmm.

The 48/0/13 spec has me evocating at 225 seconds. This is a lot later than the first arcane spec. But it also means essentially I could have AB the whole fight. And why would there be such a difference? Both specs have the same rotation in phase 1. Just AB all the way. There shouldnt be such a big difference in the time they run OOM and need to evocate. Possibly, icy veins came into play here. But Does icy veins have such a big impact that it causes this spec to run OOM and need to evocate a full minute earlier?

The last spec 40/0/21 is even odder. This spec runs OOM by the 60 second mark and needs to evocate. This is a massive difference between the first two specs for essentially the same routine. Just AB spam in phase 1. No doubt this spec has more icy veins it can use. But is the use of more icy veins so powerful that it runs this spec OOM and needing evocate a full 2 minutes faster than the first two specs?

Furthermore, it goes into negative mana later!!! Because it runs OOM by 100 second mark, and it then goes into negative mana territory. It should have switched to the high DPM mode by then, but it didn't and instead, when into negative 6000 mana which is impossible.

In conclusion, the first two arcane specs lasted so long till evocate that it seems like they can AB the entire 5 minute fight. Which shouldn't be possible at this stage even with the buff. The last spec actually goes into deep negative mana territory which seems off also.

My inputted stats called up from my current gear:

Int: 595 Spirit 321 fire dmg 1024 frost dmg 974 arcane dmg 1024 spell crit 293 spell hit 114 spell haste 0

Trinkets: eye of mag and serpant coil brand.


Another comment. Is it possible to add flask of distilled wisdom to the selectable buffs? If Int scales better for arcane spec, perhaps that flask (+65 int) is a better choice than the +dmg flasks.

Once again thanks Vontre for all your efforts, great job so far. And I am sorry that I am raising so many issues. As I said, its not easy to simulate a well played arcane spec.
#2755SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Actually the best consumables for arcane are Adept+Draenic, Brilliant Wizard Oil and dmg/spi food.
#2756SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Actually the best consumables for arcane are Adept+Draenic, Brilliant Wizard Oil and dmg/spi food.
True, and I use that for farm fights. But for progression fights where you expect to wipe a lot, flasks will still come in handy.
#2757SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
As far as I understand the formula for the regen from int is proportional to the square root of your intelect. That means the extra regen gained by additional int goes down the more int you have.

Basically going by first order for small changes of int:
regen increase =~ change in int * someconstant / int^0.5
That means the more int you have the less regen you gain from additional int, which means with enough int spell damage will start beating it out. This will happen faster than the linear stats obviously, as we all know that with enough spell damage crit becomes better but that amount of spell damage isn't realistically attainable. Since int regen isn't linear reaching the point where it drops off enough to be weaker than other stats is totally realistic, especially when with current itemization int levels int is worth getting.
#2758SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tharia
Might be those manarestore weapon oils everyone was complaining about might come in handy too, especially if they work with every AM hit and provided they don't have an internal cooldown. I know the text says on spellcast and not spellhit, but blizzard was never really good at coming up with consistent tooltips :x
Did anyone test these yet?
#2759SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Flinx
Different Items

I do really like the casting Simulator, however it would be great if one could pick different gear for different Talents.
It is easy to swap hit for spelldmg with 2.4 gear.

How would different Metagems affect Arcane

Insightful Earthstorm Diamond
+12 Intellect & Chance to restore mana on spellcast

Ember Skyfire Diamond
+14 Spell Damage & +2% Intellect

Chaotic Skyfire Diamond
+12 Spell Critical & 3% Increased Critical Damage
#2760SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Since the simulator is probably already doing an average of many results, can we have it calculate their deviation as well? Using the formula:

{[(x1-avg)^2 + (x2-avg)^2 + (x3-avg)^2 + ... + (xn-avg)^2]/(n^2-n)}^0.5

with avg = (x1+x2+x3+...+xn)/n

After all in order to verify the simulator is giving realistic results in a test (which people will most likely perform) you have to know the expected deviation. Say I do on a 3 min fight 1000 +-200 dps, if I get 800 dps I'll be calling the simulation faulty if I wouldn't know there's a +-200 deviation, since my results would be 20% off of the expected value, while in reality getting a 20% off result is quite likely without any flaws in the theory.
#2761SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Since the simulator is probably already doing an average of many results, can we have it calculate their deviation as well? Using the formula:

{[(x1-avg)^2 + (x2-avg)^2 + (x3-avg)^2 + ... + (xn-avg)^2]/(n^2-n)}^0.5

with avg = (x1+x2+x3+...+xn)/n

After all in order to verify the simulator is giving realistic results in a test (which people will most likely perform) you have to know the expected deviation. Say I do on a 3 min fight 1000 +-200 dps, if I get 800 dps I'll be calling the simulation faulty if I wouldn't know there's a +-200 deviation, since my results would be 20% off of the expected value, while in reality getting a 20% off result is quite likely without any flaws in the theory.
From my understanding this is not a simulator in a usual sense. It basically simulates imaginary average spells, so each fireball hits for the same given the same buffs, all the variations are averaged out. This way you'll get the same results every run.
#2762SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3eaglesrock
since i looked for this in a few of the mage threads and couldnt find the answer i have a few questions regarding the 40/0/21 spec.

1. What spell rotation do people use when they arcane power? 3x ab 3x fb or all ab or all fb?
2. What spell rotation do people use when they icy veins?
3. Do people use icy veins and arcane power together (which seems logical)? In my own testing it seems that i cant get the ab debuff to wear off using a 3x ab 3x fb rotation. do you just waste your mana and ab spam or do you frostbolt spam?
#2763SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BrTarolg
Due to the mechanics of arcane power, and even though earlier its been said haste is near useless, that doesn't mean you can abuse AP+IV+(bloodlust? Does it cap here?) So you can get as much out of the 30% extra DPS as possible (and ofc, dont forget that the mana cost is only 30% of base, not including debuff.)
#2764SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by BrTarolg View Post
Due to the mechanics of arcane power, and even though earlier its been said haste is near useless, that doesn't mean you can abuse AP+IV+(bloodlust? Does it cap here?) So you can get as much out of the 30% extra DPS as possible (and ofc, dont forget that the mana cost is only 30% of base, not including debuff.)
You should pair AP with trinkets and haste.
AP under bloodlust for 15 seconds means that you have the same effect as AP without bloodlust for 19.5 seconds.

Haste for AB spam caps at 50% (1s cast and GCD). 150%/130% = 115.4%. So if you have +15.4% haste (~240 haste rating), you'd cap with bloodlust.
With the haste on sunwell gear, it seems that you can reach that point without trying.

Bloodlust and Icy Veins is 130%*120%=156% haste. Above the cap for AB spam.
If you do BL and IV afterwards, you have 40s of 130% and 20s of 120s cast speed.
If you stack them, you have 20s of 150%, 20s of 130% and 20s of 100% speed.
So, stacking/delaying BL/IV breaks even at zero passive haste. If you have passive haste, you should split BL and IV, if you have curse of tongues on you, you should stack them.
#2765SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Haste for AB spam caps at 50% (1s cast and GCD). 150%/130% = 115.4%. So if you have +15.4% haste (~240 haste rating), you'd cap with bloodlust.
I'm not 100% sure but i averaged "must have" a passive haste of ~225 to make the following cycles:

without IV or Bloodlust : X AB - 3 frostbolt

with IV: X AB - 4 frostbolt

with BL : X AB - 4 fb


Because we cant substain an AB spam durring the whole IV and bloodlust, because loosing the "haste debuff" of AB is a waste...

What do you think about that?
#2766SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Docjowles
Am I reading the Cast Sequence correctly for arcane specs? It looks like Arcane Missile spam, with the occassional string of Arcane Blasts. Are you saying that AM actually is the optimal nuke in 2.4 for deep arcane? Or just that you haven't had time to model an AB rotation?

Last edited by Docjowles : 02/14/08 at 9:57 AM. Reason: Formatting
#2767SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Jog, the whole point of rotating AB with anything is to Drop the AB buff because it's unsustainable

If you do not want to drop it off but want to lower your mana consumption there are a million other ways other than getting 225 haste, which will cap you for AB and thus be wasted i-points. If for some bizzare reason you insist on not dropping AB debuff you can for example rotate FB/AB or FB*2/AB*2 or any other combo other than getting enough haste to cap one spell and only benefit the other.

For the life of me I can't think of any other reason to instigate rotations which drop AB (or indeed mix it) for anything but economy and not dropping it is the epitome of bad economy.


Edit: Doc: No, rotate AB/AM/AB/AM/AB/AM/Sc ( I shorten it to (AB/AM)*3/Sc )with AM on clearcast. This rotation is under examination as to whether it's superior to the old AB*3/AM/Sc and it definitely -can- consistently AM on clearcast. It's not clear yet if it's superior to 3*AB/3*Fball with 40/18/0 or 3*AB/3*Fbolt with 40/0/21. The goal however is to maximize AB spam time, the rotations are simply fillers.

Edit II: I just realized you might be refering to Vontre's simulation, in which case disregard what I typed.
#2768SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Docjowles
Yes, I was talking about the simulator. The cast sequence for deep arcane is literally just AM spam, which seems a little odd given Votre's undying hatred of the spell.
#2769SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Jog, the whole point of rotating AB with anything is to Drop the AB buff because it's unsustainable

If you do not want to drop it off but want to lower your mana consumption there are a million other ways other than getting 225 haste, which will cap you for AB and thus be wasted i-points. If for some bizzare reason you insist on not dropping AB debuff you can for example rotate FB/AB or FB*2/AB*2 or any other combo other than getting enough haste to cap one spell and only benefit the other.

For the life of me I can't think of any other reason to instigate rotations which drop AB (or indeed mix it) for anything but economy and not dropping it is the epitome of bad economy.


Edit: Doc: No, rotate AB/AM/AB/AM/AB/AM/Sc ( I shorten it to (AB/AM)*3/Sc )with AM on clearcast. This rotation is under examination as to whether it's superior to the old AB*3/AM/Sc and it definitely -can- consistently AM on clearcast. It's not clear yet if it's superior to 3*AB/3*Fball with 40/18/0 or 3*AB/3*Fbolt with 40/0/21. The goal however is to maximize AB spam time, the rotations are simply fillers.

Edit II: I just realized you might be refering to Vontre's simulation, in which case disregard what I typed.
I meant to partially drop it:

AB, AB(0), AB(1), fb*3, AB(3 - base cost), ab(1), ab(2), ab(3), ab(3), ab(3), ab(3), ab(3), ab(3), ab(3) ....
------------------------------------------------------------------------| IV, cold snap, trinket, AP*************|

, fb*4, AB(3 - base cost), ab(1), ab(2).....,fb*3, AB(3 - base cost), ab(1), ab(2), ...
|- IV ***************************....|----------------------------------------- ...
#2770SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3eaglesrock
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
You should pair AP with trinkets and haste.
AP under bloodlust for 15 seconds means that you have the same effect as AP without bloodlust for 19.5 seconds.

Haste for AB spam caps at 50% (1s cast and GCD). 150%/130% = 115.4%. So if you have +15.4% haste (~240 haste rating), you'd cap with bloodlust.
With the haste on sunwell gear, it seems that you can reach that point without trying.

Bloodlust and Icy Veins is 130%*120%=156% haste. Above the cap for AB spam.
If you do BL and IV afterwards, you have 40s of 130% and 20s of 120s cast speed.
If you stack them, you have 20s of 150%, 20s of 130% and 20s of 100% speed.
So, stacking/delaying BL/IV breaks even at zero passive haste. If you have passive haste, you should split BL and IV, if you have curse of tongues on you, you should stack them.
this is all under 2.4 assumptions.

What about 2.3?

and if i am interpreting you correctly you are saying to AP + IV + Arcane blast spam and just deal with all the mana consumption?
#2771SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hibbo
Hi Guys what do you think about my Spirit/Int Mage Build? (40/0/21)

chardev.org - Template 23084

The calculated MP5 Reg you can find here:


There i have 641 I5SR from Equip,Buffs,Elixir, for Mana Potion and Stone i add 2 times x 95,8 mp5
and a shadow priest i calculate with 300 mp5

This will give my Spirit/Int Mage

1132 mp/5 I5SR and
1502 mp/5 OO5SR

The Usage of pure AB Spam needs about 2240 mp/5

2240-1132 = 1108 when AB Spaming

This will give us 65 Seconds of AB Spamming till OOM

then our Spirit/Int Mage uses Evocation for 10 Seconds (T6 Bonus) restoring 75% of the Mana and 1 Time I5SR and 1 time OO5SR mp/5 Tick what will give us ~13500 Mana from 14501

next AB Spam till OOM

now we get 1 Innervate what will give us ~20K Mana and in my opinion also more than the 14501 Mana we have, because we try to burst our Mana out in the time of the Innervate ticking with AP and maybe IV when it will lower the GCD for our AB Spam.

so we get about 3 Minutes of only AB Spamming

For the Time beeing OOM we can use Frostbolt for lower DPS but restoring about 500-600 mp/5 for filling up the Mana Bar. Or even use Frostbolt earlier to have full Mana for the last 20%.

Doing 50 Seconds nothing is the same like Evocation with this Mage ............

I hope you have some ideas to enhance this Build, or an other opinion so please let me know.

Sorry for my bad english I´m still learning
#2772SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Haste is bad for arcane because it reduces effective dpm. Yes, reduces, you get less spirit regen per spell cast. Your efficiency cycle sucks anyway so improving it is not really effective. What you want is more AB spam.

Every stat scales against other stats, intellect and spell damage are no different. Since they are so closely the matched, the correct ratio is actually achievable. Also intellect mana regen has diminishing returns due to a square root formula.
#2773SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Docjowles View Post
Am I reading the Cast Sequence correctly for arcane specs? It looks like Arcane Missile spam, with the occassional string of Arcane Blasts. Are you saying that AM actually is the optimal nuke in 2.4 for deep arcane? Or just that you haven't had time to model an AB rotation?
It should be at very least an AB/AM mix. Post your stats so I can examine?
#2774SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
By the was the simulator hasn't been using a rotation since yesterday. I wrote a new logic method "arcane3" for the arcane specs. Basically it works like this. Pick a filler spell: fireball/scorch, frostbolt, or arcane missiles. If arcane power is on, spam AB. If you are low on mana, spam the filler spell. If the filler spell is arcane missiles, alternate between AB and AM instead of just spamming so you can pick up full spirit ticks. There isn't any logic for a switch on clearcast, however I imagine this would be smart if you are doing AM at any time. +1 for arcane missiles.

I would say the full arcane version (arcane/arcane lol) is preferred now. If you are consistently getting CoE fire is still better overall, but it's a close call and arcane does have more throughput control so I may think about speccing it... if I can ever get my hands on another T5 piece. -_-
#2775SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Docjowles
It would probably be easiest to just pull my info from the Armory, but i'll attach a pic with my settings.

Edit: It looks like it's partially because I set the encounter duration to 600 seconds, which is probably a little high even for T5 (with a few exceptions like Al'ar). If I set it down to 300 I get at least some AB's mixed in, though it is still mostly AM spam.

Edit II: Yeah it was a function of mana regen and encounter duration, things look more normal if I tweak those.
Attached Images
File Type: png Stats1.png (47.0 KB, 33 views)
File Type: png Stats2.png (37.9 KB, 46 views)

Last edited by Docjowles : 02/14/08 at 1:53 PM.
#2776SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Pretty sure the problem is your mana regen options are too light to support any length of AB spam. Try adding a shadow priest at least.
#2777SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tharia
Don't you have a shadowpriest regularly? Just curious because you've got VT unchecked :x
I don't think arcane can really work without the extra mana from the spriest.

//EDIT Beaten ^^
#2778SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Docjowles
Yeah it looks like I sucked at filling in that heading. Doh!

Another question about the spell sequence: It gives me long periods of AB/AM/AB/AM etc. Is this implying the AB debuff should never be allowed to reset to zero? Or am I chilling out and not casting at all to get a regen tick and let AB reset? There's no timestamps on the spell sequence like there are on the effect timings, so it is a little difficult to tell. This doesn't really matter for fire/frost but is obviously fairly critical for arcane.
#2779SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tharia
The point of arcane is to do as much full stack AB as possible. So you put a scorch after a AM once in a while to reset the stack, but not too often so you end the fight with 0 mana, took advantage of every clearcastprocc and do as much dmg as possible.
#2780SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tyrian
Can someone lock this thread and start a TC after 2.4 please

Theres more than enough significant changes: spirits big regen buffs / new abundance of (well itemised) haste gear / lowering of GCD - to warrant cleaning the slate and saying goodbye to this 100+ page thread.
#2781SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
You can assume everything is chain casted. So yeah you are riding the full stack of AB the entire time pretty much.
#2782SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Fireflash38
Originally Posted by Tyrian View Post
Can someone lock this thread and start a TC after 2.4 please

Theres more than enough significant changes: spirits big regen buffs / new abundance of (well itemised) haste gear / lowering of GCD - to warrant cleaning the slate and saying goodbye to this 100+ page thread.


I agree completely. Especially since it is somewhat difficult to find where people start to talk about 2.4.
#2783SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
edifus
Is there a thread about mages using two peice T5 and 4 piece T6 Arcane spec in 2.4?
Rumors that there was, can't locate post though.

or if its hidden within this post please direct if you've seen it.

WoW Forums -> T5 2 piece + 4 T6 bonus? 2.4 Arcane mage?
is post on wow forums about it, not fully developed though

Last edited by edifus : 02/14/08 at 3:51 PM.
#2784SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Duravi
In theory if you could keep up AB spam with 2pc T5 for a whole boss fight you would out dps any other spec with arcane. The problem comes when you actually try to do this. Even with 4 shadow priests or 3 SPs and an elemental shaman (not sure which would end up being the more mana regen) you will STILL go oom, and that is without even considering any passive haste, BL, drums, or IV in 2.4. In order to not go oom the fight would have to be incredibly short and your raid dps incredibly high, something you will only see when you are way overgeared for an easy boss essentially reducing it to a trash mob. This, along with having the strongest AoE, is why arcane is so great for trash.

The problem with 4pc t6 for arcane is that even with the set bonus and arcane talents, AM still sucks dps wise. Even with the ashtongue trinket and TLC it is far behind fireball. With a 3AB 1AM 1Scorch rotation the only good dps attacks you even do are going to be your first and third AB in the rotation, and that is assuming you time your first properly to begin well the AB debuff is still on. 2/3 of the time you are doing inferior dps.

Last edited by Duravi : 02/14/08 at 3:50 PM.
#2785SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Duravi View Post
In theory if you could keep up AB spam with 2pc T5 for a whole boss fight you would out dps any other spec with arcane. The problem comes when you actually try to do this. Even with 4 shadow priests or 3 SPs and an elemental shaman (not sure which would end up being the more mana regen) you will STILL go oom, and that is without even considering any passive haste, BL, drums, or IV in 2.4. In order to not go oom the fight would have to be incredibly short and your raid dps incredibly high, something you will only see when you are way overgeared for an easy boss essentially reducing it to a trash mob. This, along with having the strongest AoE, is why arcane is so great for trash,
Or you could avoid going oom by alternating between arcane blast spamming and a mana efficient dps method according to a fight's duration.
#2786SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3edifus
In case my post gets looked over
Is two piece t5 and 4 piece t6 a good spec using the following rotation?:

Abx3
AMx1
Frostboltx1
with the following spec:

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator


46/0/15
Frostbolts have 153% crit bonus with this spec, clearcasting usually procs on AM, then time for Frostbolt with a 30% crit chance factored in on top of your normal crit chance your frostbolts will usually crit. I'm seeing 6k frostbolts currently in my rotation.
so 20% to AB
5% to AM
5% to Frostbolt
Ab spam towards end of fight with the new Haste buff might be crazy burst damage


two piece t5 would be shoulders and gloves since they have smallest upgrades in +damage and crit.
might be stupid but figure I'd toss it out
#2787SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Icicles
Originally Posted by Hibbo View Post
Hi Guys what do you think about my Spirit/Int Mage Build? (40/0/21)

chardev.org - Template 23084

The calculated MP5 Reg you can find here:


There i have 641 I5SR from Equip,Buffs,Elixir, for Mana Potion and Stone i add 2 times x 95,8 mp5
and a shadow priest i calculate with 300 mp5

This will give my Spirit/Int Mage

1132 mp/5 I5SR and
1502 mp/5 OO5SR

The Usage of pure AB Spam needs about 2240 mp/5

2240-1132 = 1108 when AB Spaming
this is intriguing, if it is indeed possible to hit this level of regen (even sacrificing 100-150 damage), it'd be possible to spam AB for 50-75% of most fights, no?
#2788SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
46/0/15
Frostbolts have 153% crit bonus with this spec, clearcasting usually procs on AM, then time for Frostbolt with a 30% crit chance factored in on top of your normal crit chance your frostbolts will usually crit. I'm seeing 6k frostbolts currently in my rotation.
so 20% to AB
5% to AM
5% to Frostbolt
Ab spam towards end of fight with the new Haste buff might be crazy burst damage
With your level of gear 2/47/11 is going to out dps that spec for any BT/Hyjal fight, some of them by a mile. Not only is your average damage going to be worse, but you cannot stack cooldowns nearly as well as 2/47/11. You are only seeing 6k frostbolts with debuffs or c/ds. Even if I say your frostbolts avg non-crit for 2k, which looking at your spec is definitely an overestimate, your crits would be a little over 5000. Clearcast only procs 10% of the time, you are making it sound like it is always up, and if it was up you would definitely not want to use it on a frostbolt. Plug your stats and spec into Vontre's spreadsheet and use your cycle vs. 2/47/11 cycle of 8x fireball 1x scorch both over an equal period of time. By the time you get to the point where you can AB spam the last few % health of the boss you are going to be so far behind it is impossible to catch up.
#2789SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Stein
Wouldn't it be a good idea to:

- evocate with 1s left on IV?
- IV -> snap -> IV+AP+Trinkets? pro: 100% IV/AP sync...con: 20s wait on AP in 6:20 fight
- PoM to start AB ramp up?
- snap at 2.13s?
- hold off on early AB spam to ensure enough mana to AB spam for every IV/AP for say...the first 4min of the fight?

Last edited by Stein : 02/14/08 at 4:39 PM.
#2790SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I think we should hold off a bit on a 2.4 thread for the simple reason that things will change probably a lot. Creating a new 2.4 thread will only results in the first few pages being totally disconnected from the point where major changes are made.
#2791SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3edifus
Originally Posted by Duravi View Post
With your level of gear 2/47/11 is going to out dps that spec for any BT/Hyjal fight, some of them by a mile. Not only is your average damage going to be worse, but you cannot stack cooldowns nearly as well as 2/47/11. You are only seeing 6k frostbolts with debuffs or c/ds. Even if I say your frostbolts avg non-crit for 2k, which looking at your spec is definitely an overestimate, your crits would be a little over 5000. Clearcast only procs 10% of the time, you are making it sound like it is always up, and if it was up you would definitely not want to use it on a frostbolt. Plug your stats and spec into Vontre's spreadsheet and use your cycle vs. 2/47/11 cycle of 8x fireball 1x scorch both over an equal period of time. By the time you get to the point where you can AB spam the last few % health of the boss you are going to be so far behind it is impossible to catch up.
Not with my crap hit rating it won't
#2792SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by edifus View Post
Not with my crap hit rating it won't
Get more hit rating....
#2793SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by edifus View Post
Not with my crap hit rating it won't
There's a lot of things you can do to quickly bring up your hit. Regemming your T5 helm, robes of hateful echoes, and T5 shoulders with Veiled noble topazes alone will raise it by 24. Changing your gear set up will also help. You're exalted with scryer, so why not use the blood gem. It's not the best trinket in the world, but +32 hit is pretty good when you're low on hit. Swapping your bracers and neck for vindicator pieces will also improve your hit and DPS. Just take advantage of all the options available to you =).

EDIT: Plus, with two other fire mages in your guild, it will be easier to maintain scorch debuffs.
#2794SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
I've had many requests lately to describe more in detail the deep arcane IV playstyle, so I decided I might just post it here for everyone and it might also help for improving the simulator.

First the situation in 2.3 for anyone that wants to try it now. As I posted before, 2.4 on average gives 8% damage increase, so don't expect the same results as deep fire, but it's definitely workable. First regarding gear, in 2.3 spell damage is better than int unless you have good socket bonuses. While haste in 2.4 is bad, it is pointless for 2.3 arcane. Spirit also is relatively bad, no reason to get it if you can avoid it, but don't get rid of it because in 2.4 it's almost as good as spell damage.

First the reasoning behind the ABAMx3+Sc rotation. I've used ABx3+AM+Sc for a very long time. If you look through the EJ posts you'll see discussions about AB debuff - latency interaction and how it doesn't work right. Before /stopcasting change this was not so apparent, but with that change I did some testing and almost always when chaincasted the debuff does not apply on the immediate next chaincasted spell. I thought about trying intentionally delaying ABx3 chain to give enough time for debuff to properly register, but in practice I got even worse results than just chain casting it. So essentially there is 0.66 sec wasted time there. So taking this into account with my current gear in 2.3 I get 1441.17 dps/-47.7 mps.

Next thing I tried was inserting AM to get that 0.66 sec back, this gives ABAMx3+Sc without anything different on CC. So we are trading lower dps of AM to gain that 0.66 sec, but we also have lower dpm. Luckily this is countered by change in OO5SR which increases from about 13% to 26%. In the end we get 1441.08 dps/-46.03 mps. So nothing too impressive, end dps is about the same and we gain a bit short of 2 mps.

Next step is to add AM if AM procs CC. Calculations behind this are a bit more complex, but basically it comes down to probability distribution of different cycles. On one hand we're cutting cycle short, losing some of the high dps ABs, and also losing the 1.5 sec cheap AB. On the other hand we gain AM CC double dipping with the new AMs being free. End effect is a cycle with average characteristic of 1433.6 dps/-39.6 mps. A slight drop in dps, but huge win on mps side. When put next to AB spam this cycle was a clear advantage over ABx3+AM+Sc. Just for comparison if AB debuff worked correctly then ABx3+AM+Sc would give 1520.6 dps/-55.7 mps which wins over the ABAMx3+Sc.

For comparison in 2.4 (with slightly changed gear, a bit less spell dmg and more crit, favors AM TLC interaction) ABx3+AM+Sc gives 1441 dps/-4 mps and ABAMx3+Sc with AM CC gives 1437.8 dps/+5.4 mps.


For spell selection I rely somewhat on the solutions I get from LP solver, which gives distribution of spell cycles to use, but in practice one has to put them together in an order and deal with dynamics of changing environment so there is a lot of improvisation. While arcane has huge gains from external mana regen it's important to realize that you also have all the tools to operate in low mana regen environment. I've done Vashj with no sh priest and ended in top 5 dps, it all comes down to knowing your tools and reacting properly to the changes. Your sh priest will die occasionally, there is no way around it, and there are better things to do than start wanding. A cycle I use in such situation is AB-AM, with AB not being chaincasted. This cycle is cheaper than pot/gem regen so it's possible to mix it with the normal AB cycle. It's about 160 dps lower than the normal AB cycle, so yes you won't break any records, but it is a huge upgrade from wanding.

In 2.3 AP is exclusively used on AB spam, Heroism is IV+AM spam followed by AB cycle. Rest of IV is used with AB cycle. With 2.4 this changes and we get AP+IV+AB spam everytime, including Heroism. Exception to that would be if you have over about 70 passive haste, in that case clipping on AB is too big and you should only use AP+AB spam during heroism. As passive haste increases it's better to change the filler, but keep in mind that in deep arcane build all spells are lower dps than AB and AM so you're effectively losing dps. As was said before, if you can avoid passive haste then do.

As far as actual playstyle goes I usually do the following on a 5 min fight. A usual group for me is sh priest, el shaman, another arcane mage and either a frost mage or warlock. We don't do swaps for heroism and no execute advantage, so we usually get heroism at around 80% boss hp. I start with AB ramp and immediately AP+Trinkets+AB spam. I'm usually very high on threat, but I can still start the very second MT engages the boss. I continue with AB spam, using mana gem as soon as available, then mana pot. At this point it's about time for heroism and I use IV and AM spam. The rest 20 sec of heroism I chaincast AB-AM so that at about the end I exit with full AB debuff and continue with AB spam. With about 30% mana left I switch to AB cycle which can last me up to 2 min, so more than enough mana left not to OOM and below evo threshold. At around 50% boss hp I evocate. If done right pot timers just got up and AP is almost ready. I start ramping up AB again, then another chain of AP+AB spam, next batch of gem/pot. Again at around 30% mana I switch to AB cycle, use IV again, and try to OOM at end. This part is really improvisation, I'm inserting AMs, sometime not resetting AB debuff, depending on situation.
#2795SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vannik
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Or you could avoid going oom by alternating between arcane blast spamming and a mana efficient dps method according to a fight's duration.
Since AB spam is what would be the bulk of the DPS for this build, with this idea in mind there will be a length of time where fire spec would be superior. If you're doing this on a 10 minute fight I think it'd be hard to say that Arcane is a better raid spec than fire.

The other thing I've always been scared about is relying on other players. If a shadow priest manages to die for whatever reason, your DPS as arcane would drop far faster than your dps with fire would. Just a thought.
#2796SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
Well some of you have mentioned having to wear 2pc t5 as a detriment I don't think alot of people yet realize how detrimental that is going to be. Just looking at the current loot we know of for 2.4 there is an item with substantially more dps for each of those slots. Keep in mind as far as boss loot goes we havent seen the majority of it and I would hazard a guess most of those items are even more powerful. Arcane may be competetive when you are an SSC/TK guild and your lacking alot of hit, but with the removal of the damage tax fireball returned to being the best scaling nuke in the game, well if u dont figure in improved shadow bolt uptime at least heh.
#2797SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Well, I will have to disagree. No matter how you look at it, the 2pc set bonus is absurd when you use AB for a major part of your dps. You might lose, at the very very very worst of cases, 2-3% dps due to the item downgrading (more like 1-2%), to gain 20% on your main nuke?

That's not really an argument.

The DPS boost in 2.4 comes from the lowered GCD and the int/spi changes. This is your dps boost. Its got nothing to do with gear. If anything, deep fire will continue to be the spec that scales the best with every piece of gear that seems to be released, but it doesn't really gain anything from those 2 changes, except maybe faster scorch buildup on new targets, which is really minimal at best. So yeah, the DPS boost to arcane is 'exterior' to gear, which is why I'm saying that talks about gear making the spec not work is somewhat questionable.
#2798SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
I think he meant that wearing 2 T5 will incur stat loss compared to items of Sunwell qualtiy, whereas fire will incur no stat loss, and this further reduces the effectiveness of arcane.
#2799SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Yes, and what I'm saying is that fire gains absolutely nothing from the reduced GCD change and gain nothing from the int/spi changes.
#2800SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
For some reason I have a feeling the regen changes won't remain in their current form. It just seems completely overpowered with what I've seen reported from multiple classes and I doubt blizzard intended casters to have so much added mana in the patch (unless they want to competely remove shadow priests which is probably not the case).

The fact that most sunwell loot has haste may make fire scale much better with that gear than arcane, bringing it ahead (as now they seem rather equal, more or less depending on fight length and group support).

While it looks like arcane would be very viable with current gear and current patch changes, I wouldn't rush into partying about being able to play a new spec, not yet at least.


One thing I was wondering about the simulator was how does it handle mana consumeables VS dps consumeables? Seeing with the regen changes and a shadow priest fire will very possibly be able to not evocate and use no mana consumeables in even 5-6 minute fights.
#2801SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
Well technically that isn't true, scorch will benefit from it. I'm not saying you can't make arcane work somehow but it will not be 3xAB 1xAM 1xScorch/Frostbolt. In that rotation only your first and third AB are higher dps than fireball, you lose too much dps from the rest of the rotation. If you are going to outdps fire you will need to work in more fully debuffed ABs, maybe 4xAB before you use your filler spells, but even that may not be enough. You cannot play catchup at the very end, at 20% with molten fury and c/d stacking fire is going to outdps even your ab spam, even in 2.4 where you would both benefit from BL. Not to mention even in our current gear if BL and IV affected AB alot of mages would already be clipping the "one second rule". Lastly unlike arcane fire isnt blowing it's gem/pot c/ds on mana, it can use them to c/d stack destruction pots and flamecaps with the rest of it's c/ds.
#2802SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
For some reason I have a feeling the regen changes won't remain in their current form. It just seems completely overpowered with what I've seen reported from multiple classes and I doubt blizzard intended casters to have so much added mana in the patch (unless they want to competely remove shadow priests which is probably not the case).
But the changes don't do this - a lot of people seem to forget that some caster classes don't benefit AT ALL, not even a little bit, from improved 5SR regen. Shaman and Paladin have no way to gain anything significant from this change, so their healing doesn't change at all. Similarly, Fire Mages gain nothing, and if anything, this added regen is merely *sufficient* WITH a shadow priest to make Arcane somewhat viable.

So, we still have at least 4 specs/3 classes that benefit from a Shadow Priest. Druids don't need shadow priests as-is, so the only class this changes anything is for priests, really. So the argument that regen is "overpowered" and "makes shadow priests obsolete" is broken from the start, since the changes don't even affect most players.
#2803SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
I still think that hasting up your DPM part should give a noticable increase to Arc/X specs.

Yes, the aim is to boost your AB spam. By feeding mana and by feeding power (crit/dmg).
But AB spam isn't everything, you do need a good filler/DPM rotation. And since pure AB spam is very limited (1-2 minutes), having a more powerful filler is should make a difference.
But any argument is void without numbers, I'll try to setup a little model later.


As for 2T5, it still is required. Without it, AB spam at current best gear is on par with Fireball spam and that's it.
Maybe you can optimise your gear to surpass it by 3%, 5%, but that's it already. Fire scales better than non-T5 AB spam.
Since your filler spells (FrB, FiB, non-spammed AB) are worse than Firespec Fireball, you'll be left behind.

20% is huge, even if you have to sacrifice stats. Now, let's get to the stats part.
I valued the items with their common dmg-equivalence values (pawn-string like), valueing 1 hit as 1.2 damage.
( Reason: T7 is low on hit, you seem to have to gem at least some hit. 10 hit on an item gives you one less hit gem, allowing you to gem for 12 dmg in that gem. Seems fair from the gear we've seen so far. )

At T6 level top (Hyjal/BT), keeping 2T5 costs you ~10 + ~28 dmg (shoulders + robes, although robes/gloves/leggings are pretty similar losses), just under ~40 damage.
At Sunwell level, keeping 2T5 costs you ~25 + ~55 (shoulders + hat, gloves/leggings being close too), ~80 damage total.
To compare, keeping 4T6 in Sunwell costs you just under ~20 damage (shoulders+belt).


A loss of 80 damage is roughly a 4% loss. 3% more than keeping 4T6.
2T5 is still required, and good enough to justify worse item stats. But the stat loss becomes noticable, and it gets harder to keep up the high damage.
#2804SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
By the was the simulator hasn't been using a rotation since yesterday. I wrote a new logic method "arcane3" for the arcane specs. Basically it works like this. Pick a filler spell: fireball/scorch, frostbolt, or arcane missiles. If arcane power is on, spam AB. If you are low on mana, spam the filler spell. If the filler spell is arcane missiles, alternate between AB and AM instead of just spamming so you can pick up full spirit ticks. There isn't any logic for a switch on clearcast, however I imagine this would be smart if you are doing AM at any time. +1 for arcane missiles.

I would say the full arcane version (arcane/arcane lol) is preferred now. If you are consistently getting CoE fire is still better overall, but it's a close call and arcane does have more throughput control so I may think about speccing it... if I can ever get my hands on another T5 piece. -_-
Vontre, where is this change reflected? In your magegraf.com interface? Or the magedps.zip file? lol I went to the magegraf.com interface and it still shows the same mana consumption anamolies I noted previously.

Is it the magedps.zip file that you changed?
#2805SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
The thing is haste is already more or less on par with damage when you're getting the full effect. So when you add mana limitations it just drops in value and becomes far from a good stat to have. It increases dps, but by less (according to the simulator, by much less).
#2806SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Vontre, I think your arcane/frost spec logic is almost perfect. But it doesn't seem to be applied to the other arcane specs. For example, even when I reduce the fight time to 2 min. Then the arcane/frost spec will spam AB all the way until near the end, then switch to frostbolt.

But the other two arcane specs will try and mix in all manner of scorch, fireballs, AM even when they are far from out of mana. And then they end up evocating near the end of the fight and ending it with tons of mana left (because they did not full AB spam at the very start).

This is assuming the changes were made to the magegraf interface on your website.
#2807SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3draxon0012
So the new 40/0/21 rotation would be AB till oom Evoc AB till oom Frostbolt till full AB till oom?

Is that my understanding?

Or is it a 3 AB 2 frostbolt rotation?

Thank you.
#2808SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Originally Posted by draxon0012 View Post
So the new 40/0/21 rotation would be AB till oom Evoc AB till oom Frostbolt till full AB till oom?

Is that my understanding?

Or is it a 3 AB 2 frostbolt rotation?

Thank you.
Yes. something like that. With the new spirit changes. It is possible to use a high DPM spell like frostbolt indefinitley. So, you don't really need to have a complex AB rotation. You can still use it, maybe it might net more mana regened or higher dps, but it makes things more complex and the difference probably won't be huge. Any excess mana is gained is used for periods of AB spam.

So, for example, say you have a two and a half minute fight.

Start: AB ramp up, then AB spam with AP. Use gem, pot once able to. AB until oom. then evocate. then continue ABing until oom. Will probably run almost dry at near the 2 minute mark. Then frostbolt until your gem and pot cooldown is up. Then eat gem, pot, and immediately AB spam until nearly oom again. Then frostbolt spam again.

This ensures that you WILL be nearly oom at the end of the fight and you would have used as much of your mana as possible on AB spam.

The shorter the fight, the better the results because the more often you will be spamming AB. Until any fight that's slightly less than 2 minutes, you will probably be ABing the entire fight. Its easier to simulate on spreadsheets rather than trying to guess how much mana you need to save up for the last 20 % of the boss fight.

It doesn't matter if you are frostbolting at the last stage when bloodlust is up. Because frostbolt also benefits from bloodlust anyway. In fact, stacking icy veins and bloodlust while ABing at the end probably results in less DPS because you risk going under the 1 second global cooldown. So, its better to use icy veins and AB spam earlier.
#2809SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3draxon0012
What about ~6 minute fights? Will this be viable? or is fire still the way to go. Think sunwell.
#2810SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
I am not sure. But I personally think it will still apply. Last time, AB spam even with shadow priest support would probably only net you 1 minute of casting. So, the rest of the time, you have to rely on a high DPM, AB rotation. Thus, it was more beneficial to "time" your AB spam periods.

Now, with the new changes. Its possible to keep up AB spam for up to 2 minutes (depending on how much you stack Int). Its still not quite the full 5 minutes, but you will do a lot of damage over 2 minutes with AB spam. And a longer fight means more mana regened as well.

Vontre's interface and spreasheets assumed a 5 minute fight.

The thing is, Arcane can use the early 2 minutes of AB spam to get far far ahead in damage and DPS done. For the rest of the battle, other specs like full frost and fire will be playing catch up. Especially fire, who will be relying on the last 20% of the boss with molten fury to catch up.

Everytime arcne can gem and pot up every two minutes, it can again AB spam until nearly OOM so netting another surge in DPS and damage.

Plus, let's not forget. spamming frostbolts or fireball isn't exactly low DPS either. Its slightly lower than a pure frost or fire spec of course, but its not that much lower because arcane specs crits for as high as the pure specs (maybe even higher) with spellpower. So, if you get a string of lucky crits, even your "low dps" phase might result in dps that is relatively close to the pure specs. This is excluding stuff like molten fury and water elemental of course. (arcane has arcane power also, so its the same).
#2811SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
Whether arcane will be the highest DPS spec or other specs next patch is debatable at this point because the patch changes are not finalised. And different raid bosses have different mechanics which might favour different specs.

A boss with too much movement isn't that great for arcane. Similarly, a boss with a lot of spellpushback from aoe damage isn't good for AB spam also.

But a boss where you move around once every 45 seconds. And you can then DPS with no interruption for 45 seconds. That will be good for arcane.
#2812SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
What about ~6 minute fights? Will this be viable? or is fire still the way to go. Think sunwell.
This is something nobody can really know for sure atm, even the fights people have done up to this point may be tweaked alot. One thing that is controllable though and could work in favor of arcane is raid dps. That basically comes down to raid makeup and individual gear/knowledge. Arcane works very well with raids that tend to minimize their # of healers as much as humanly possible and maximize dps with the raid setup. The higher the raid dps the faster you can end the fight, and for arcane the higher % of time that can be spent in AB spam, and since you are part of raid dps this decreases the fight duration even more.
#2813SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
I don't mean to derail the thread, but am I right in thinking that the 2 best trinkets for + int as of 2.4 will be the new crimson serpent + pendant of the violet eye?

My mage currently stacks int on his arcane build and that crimson serpent looks like a solid upgrade over, say, xi'ris gift (the int + cooldown alone is nice, the stamina is an added bonus).

Would some more experienced arcane mages care to rate it against other trinkets? (I don't currently have access to the mage SSC trinket as i'm not raiding SSC currently :'( )

Edit: Link for the new trinkets - http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...weltrinket.jpg
#2814SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Requiring 2 crimson spinels you're not very likely to craft that trinket, especially since it doesn't look too incredible compared to the trinkets someone with access to spinels should have.

Are frostbolts really better fillers than fireballs? And is pom/pyro taken into account on AP for fire?
#2815SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Requiring 2 crimson spinels you're not very likely to craft that trinket, especially since it doesn't look too incredible compared to the trinkets someone with access to spinels should have.

Are frostbolts really better fillers than fireballs? And is pom/pyro taken into account on AP for fire?
thanks for the info re: spinels.

PoM pyro doesn't really compare to IV in arcane rotations. And the reason frost seems to excell is that frost gets -slightly- better scalling early in its tree for frostbolt than fire does for fireball (near identical crit bonus, better % scaling from improved frostbolt, +6% frost damage, supposedly +6% hit from elemental focus (confirmation?)). Furthermore, Frost is far, far more mana efficient, meaning that it becomes much easier to refill your mana on frostbolt spam and thus leaves more opportunity for AB spam between filler frostbolts (assuming an FBx3ABx1 rotation while regenerating mana, untill mana is high enough to go nuts with AB + cooldowns).

Also, frost channeling > master of elements in terms of single target mana conservation. Cold snap really is just the icing on the cake.
#2816SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I know full fire fireball is more mana efficient than full frost frostbolt but I suppose it needs to be checked for only 21 points. Improved frostbolt is about as good as improved fireball in terms of scaling - due to frostbolts 0.95 coefficient multiplier a 2.5s frostbolt gets about the same dps/spell damage as 3s fireball if no other talents are used.

But yeah I thought about icy veins as extra haste when in reality it also give a big increase to efficiency when paired with AP, as spamming AB during AP is a lot more efficient than spamming it without AP (+30% damage and small increase to mana cost since it's additive). That probably makes icy veins critical (same cooldown as AP as well) even though haste in general isn't useful. PoM pyro is actually pretty strong though and shouldn't be ignored, but I doubt it'll make the difference due to losing IV.
#2817SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
theres also the ability of icy viens to hit a channeled spell in the last 0.5seconds of the buff to effectively extend it beyond its 20second duration (saving valuable time on, for example, evocate).
#2818SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Jonny_Monroe View Post
supposedly +6% hit from elemental focus (confirmation?)).
yes, I'm 100% sure because I tested the spec with 119 hit and I missed 1.5% frostbolt in a 4h raid, a 40/0/21 is caped @ 129 and it's one of his quality.

We also forget the little arcane buff from 2.3 : "Arcane Meditation increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration"

Actually the spec is not bad for a BT/hyjial raider, I just tested winter, naj, supremus, archi but I was really surprised by all the advantages of the spec (I'm gonna cry in fights with mass pushbacks?), despite the fact that bloodlust and IV actually sux with that spec.
#2819SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
I know that with the 3 pieces of T6 that are opening up, we are now available to use some off the wall pieces (2p T4) so some outrageous efforts.

But what I ask of the community is to not build to much TC into these situations until we see the rest of the loot from Sunwell is released. For one we haven't seen the rings, necks, cloaks that will obviously make some of the effects discussed change.

What we know now is the mana regen changes, and beyond that, we know very little. There are still class changes to be introduced along the way, which could aversely affect how well AB spam works, but could boost Frost or Fire that much more.

Again, no confirmed ring, neck, cloak, trinkets are dropping yet, which could change everything, so working just with the mana regen mechanic for now, the different specs on regen not damage or dps roation, just the regen rotations.
#2820SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
We also haven't seen the haste items, depending on what we get we could start to reach that pinacle pre-BC rolling ignite outside of cooldowns
#2821SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Galzohar: Also consider in 40/18/3 that the 18 can potentially be Master of Elements rather than Imp. Scorch, raising fire's DPM considerably. My only negative feelings are down to the odd value of hit: From 85 to 126 hit it's a drop in value depending on the % of fire you're casting per boss. This surplus half-value hit would be a further 60-80 item points an arcane-arcane would have made into int or spell.

Admittedly however, I'd much prefer 40/18/3 to 40/0/21. I'm quite adamant that PoM-Pyro will be worth a decent amount of the IV loss combined with the clearly superior fireballs (Spellpower Ignite CSD anyone?). The added utility of 41y and 70% anti-pushback can't be underestimated either. Arc/arc at least can fall back on AM for pushback(remember, full fire may have 70% but on heavy consistent pushback it still will suffer -some- pushback which AM won't, thus partially mitigating the inferior DPS of AM) but 40/0/21 can't fall back on anything.
#2822SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
f1reburn
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
We also haven't seen the haste items, depending on what we get we could start to reach that pinacle pre-BC rolling ignite outside of cooldowns
Just for fun I tried to see how much spell haste rating is possible with the gear we know so far, putting [Quick Dawnstone] in every gemslot, the best I got is 571 passive spellhaste, resulting in about 2.11s Fireball cast time.

Last edited by f1reburn : 02/15/08 at 7:43 AM.
#2823SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andersnordic
The calculation that arcane is good for Sunwell is built upon the assumption that we will be able to use all CD`s on mana pots/gems.

If the Sunwell bosses turns out to be the biggest raid dmg bosses as of yet, it can kill all hopes of using arcane. In that scenario we will be forced to use several CD`s on HS/healing pots.

Kalecgos seems to do a AE each 20 sec or so. Anyone have info on other bosses raid dmg abilities?

Ill do some research and post my findings.

Last edited by Andersnordic : 02/15/08 at 8:00 AM.
#2824SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Irrespective of raid damage, with the exception of certain occasions where it's impossible to do otherwise (like Kazzak's bolts), using our CDs for health is not something that should be scripted into a boss's strategy. 2k health will hardly turn the tide of battle. I can see why a healthpot/HS could be popped once or maybe even twice in an emergency, given particularly unusual circumstances (even unavoidable ones like being the target of Solarian's arcane bomb and arcane missiles at once) but I strongly disapprove of changing a classes strategy to cover for another class's job.

In the rare occasion that health consumables are of absolutely irrefutably unavoidable nature, I'm happy to accept a one-off occasion where I'll need to gimp my output. Nobody whined about low damage gear on Mother, why should you mind there?

Besides, in the grand scheme of things, analyzing Kavan's WWS he uses up circa 45k mana in a 6m fight, and that's with 2.3 values. Mp5 will increase this value between 8.5k (assuming all I5SR) to 10k (assuming 20% OO5SR). Subtract three mana pots from that and you see the overall loss in resource isn't that devastating.
#2825SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3stewe
Elemental Precision

I was under the assumption that elemental precision effected for frost and fire mages as I counted that towards my spell hit as a fire mage. I only am asking this as reading the above threads, I keep hearing people talking about elemental precision and how it effects frost mages, making me want to double check that is also effects fire mages spell hit as well. Thanks in advance. I appreciate the order in which is important to have capped. I currrently run 157 spell hit not including my elemental precision which I figure adds another 3% equals to like 36 more spell hit roughly according to the math you provided. I currently have 1k spell damage, 191 spell hit (elemental prec included) 30% chance to crit. But looking at the order you provided, I will be trying to get some more spell haste items.
#2826SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Jonny_Monroe
I read a lot of people comparing Arcane/Arcane, Arcane/Fire and Arcane/Frost. I know the supporting arguments for each tree as a 'filler between AB' tree, but i've yet to find any solid maths that shows numbers for each.

these are the builds i'm comparing:

arcane/arcane:
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

This has the advantage of a lot of 'floating' points you can dump anywhere. its uses only arcane spells but with all those 'spare' points you can beef up some basic frost or fire to play with other rotations. For mages about to start T5 content, this build will save you a lot of money on respecs between a'lar/water dude (I honestly forgot his name O_O)

Arcane/Fire:
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

This build reaquirs 3 'filler' points in total. 1 in fire and 2 in arcane. they're early-tier floating points. What I dislike about this is the 'drop off' of usefulness for the hit stat. After arcane is at the hit cap you're now only using +hit for half of your spells. I put MoE in over imp. scorch because most raiding mages will have another mage in the raid keeping imp. scorch up.

edit:

Arcane/Frost:
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

This build has 2 floating fillers in early arcane too. The reason I don't take the extra 2 points in arcane focus is because you're gearing to hit the hit cap with frost anyway. Those 2 points in magic abs. can go anywhere, really. This same rule can be applied to a greater extent for arcane/fire.

Now, on all these builds there is a 'regenerative rotation' that is used to build up mana untill arcane blast spam can be done. Fire will give the best DPS DURING the regenerative stage, but will take longest to regenerate and misses 1 extra cooldown for the AB phase. My Curiosity lies in the comparison of Arcane's regenerative phase versus frost. Frost has a higher natural DPM and the lowest MPS cost but arcane has a distinct advantage of leaving the FSR for long periods on CC procs. I'm not sure if the difference from 60% regen to 100% on the occasional tick is enough to justify 800mana per AM, and even if it is would that make up for the lower overall DPS?

Last edited by Jonny_Monroe : 02/15/08 at 9:51 AM.
#2827SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3cbags
Originally Posted by stewe View Post
I was under the assumption that elemental precision effected for frost and fire mages as I counted that towards my spell hit as a fire mage. I only am asking this as reading the above threads, I keep hearing people talking about elemental precision and how it effects frost mages, making me want to double check that is also effects fire mages spell hit as well. Thanks in advance. I appreciate the order in which is important to have capped. I currrently run 157 spell hit not including my elemental precision which I figure adds another 3% equals to like 36 more spell hit roughly according to the math you provided. I currently have 1k spell damage, 191 spell hit (elemental prec included) 30% chance to crit. But looking at the order you provided, I will be trying to get some more spell haste items.
Other way around...with EP you need 164 hit for fire spells. EP appears to be bugged for FROST spells, adding an additional 3%, which means for frost spells you might need significantly less, on the order of mid 130's.
#2828SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zalath
Originally Posted by stewe View Post
I was under the assumption that elemental precision effected for frost and fire mages as I counted that towards my spell hit as a fire mage. I only am asking this as reading the above threads, I keep hearing people talking about elemental precision and how it effects frost mages, making me want to double check that is also effects fire mages spell hit as well. Thanks in advance. I appreciate the order in which is important to have capped. I currrently run 157 spell hit not including my elemental precision which I figure adds another 3% equals to like 36 more spell hit roughly according to the math you provided. I currently have 1k spell damage, 191 spell hit (elemental prec included) 30% chance to crit. But looking at the order you provided, I will be trying to get some more spell haste items.
It does, but EP is 6% for frost due to a bug, and 3% for fire. Seems to be like you're better of with +hit until you reach the cap instead. Note, the help me-thread might be more suitable for questions like this.
#2829SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
Dwelling further on the coice of supporting tree I've thought that perhaps its best to theorycraft on your in-raid MP5 from all sources and choose a spec that gets you closest to 100% mana after 3 minutes. That way you're ready for your AB spam just as the cooldowns free up.

From this perspective you would have lower geared mages starting out with arcane/frost and as their gear improved to support it they would eventually move to arcane/fire.

Working with this idea, i'll look at MPS consumption on rotations and calculate some 'benchmark' values for each spec in order to facilitate an ideal 3 minute rotation.

But that'll have to wait untill tonight. Must be off, toodles.
#2830SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Stewe, your sentences are long convoluted and confusing. You start saying you want to ask something but don't in fact ask anything. Elemental Precision does not add 36 hit rating, it adds 3%. You need 10% from gear for frost and 13% from gear for fire. Answers to what you seem to be wondering but don't word correctly can be found in [Mage] Help me please? and [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread .

The reason I insist on Ele Pre adding 3% and not 36Hrate is that it will add 3% irrespective of what level you are and hence how much hit rating 1% represents at that level.
#2831SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not seeing arcane frost putting out higher numbers than deep fire when you set the stats to what you would have should you have all the known sunwell gear. These stats are calculated by adding the new gear to the spreadsheet.

The best i could come up was 2450 for arcane/frost with having on 2t5, 4t6.

The best I could get for fire is 2661. I see some of the logic has changed since these numbers are different than they were a few days ago.
#2832SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not seeing arcane frost putting out higher numbers than deep fire when you set the stats to what you would have should you have all the known sunwell gear. These stats are calculated by adding the new gear to the spreadsheet.

The best i could come up was 2450 for arcane/frost with having on 2t5, 4t6.

The best I could get for fire is 2661. I see some of the logic has changed since these numbers are different than they were a few days ago.
Is that arcane/fire or deep fire?
#2833SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Jonny_Monroe View Post
Is that arcane/fire or deep fire?
2/48/11
#2834SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zeromega
1st Post on E&J!


After running MT and Heroic MT a few times on the PTR last night, I noticed that my Fireballs were traveling (what appeared to be) alot faster than they do on the Live Realm. Has anyone else noticed a difference in the speed / travel time of your Fireballs and Frostbolts?

I'm not sure how to go about even testing this, but having raided on my Mage for over 2 years, I am accustomed to a certain amount of 'travel time' between myself and my target. It 'feels' like that travel time has been diminished.

Would this be a 'quick fix' to the <2 second Fireball Ignite stacking?


As a side note and totally off topic: E&J has been a valuable resource for myself and my guild mates for a long time. I appreciate all the info that Vontre, Pointofbrew, and Manly have taken the time to dig up and discuss openly on these forums. Here's a big THANKS to all you guys.
#2835SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
Originally Posted by Zeromega View Post
1st Post on E&J!


After running MT and Heroic MT a few times on the PTR last night, I noticed that my Fireballs were traveling (what appeared to be) alot faster than they do on the Live Realm. Has anyone else noticed a difference in the speed / travel time of your Fireballs and Frostbolts?

I'm not sure how to go about even testing this, but having raided on my Mage for over 2 years, I am accustomed to a certain amount of 'travel time' between myself and my target. It 'feels' like that travel time has been diminished.

Would this be a 'quick fix' to the <2 second Fireball Ignite stacking?
The travel time shouldn't make a difference to the frequency at which the fireballs land and thus the duration of time between ignite procs. If they ARE travelling faster it makes them a bit harder to intercept in PvP (Not that many people are quick enough to react to a ball once its already in the air, but meh).

since EU transfer is still a bit screwy, I can't go test this.
#2836SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zeromega
Originally Posted by Jonny_Monroe View Post
The travel time shouldn't make a difference to the frequency at which the fireballs land and thus the duration of time between ignite procs. If they ARE travelling faster it makes them a bit harder to intercept in PvP (Not that many people are quick enough to react to a ball once its already in the air, but meh).

since EU transfer is still a bit screwy, I can't go test this.

I must have misread the new 'rolling ignites' concept then. I was under the impression that you had to be a certain distance from the mob to allow for a certain amount of travel time between casts but before ignite ticks. If that travel time is diminished, wouldn't that mean the fireball would reach the mob faster on the 2nd cast and thus negate the stacking of ignites? Or would the oppositte happen and make it easier / more likely that the ignites will stack because you can get more Fireballs at said mob in a faster period of time (because of increased travel speed on the Bolts).
#2837SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
While browsing the WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes , I think I found a new note.

* Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
#2838SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Its in fact more complex than that. The basic gist of it is that your fireball must be 'mid-air' (read: mid-air or ignite not applied but fireball casted) during a time window that currently includes 2 variables:

- travel time (which is not known whether it affects the rolling ignite or not)
- ignite application time (which personally I believe is what comes most into play)
#2839SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
While browsing the WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes , I think I found a new note.

* Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
Mages are now officially DPS KINGS. At last.
#2840SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zeromega
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Its in fact more complex than that. The basic gist of it is that your fireball must be 'mid-air' (read: mid-air or ignite not applied but fireball casted) during a time window that currently includes 2 variables:

- travel time (which is not known whether it affects the rolling ignite or not)
- ignite application time (which personally I believe is what comes most into play)

So this would imply that "IF" the Fireball travel speed has been increased, then we may actually be 'more likely' to see the Fireball 'mid-air' while the ignite application time is being calculated. Interesting. I'll do some more testing with my Haste gear on with <2 Second Fireballs on the PTR and post results later.


The AE Change would mean that instead of our AE damage being hard capped at 6,000 (for example) it would now be capped at 9,000? This is a pretty substantial increase in Damage if this is the case! Woo hoo!
#2841SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Cardynal
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Mages are now officially DPS KINGS. At last.
AOE DPS KINGS.

Last edited by Cardynal : 02/15/08 at 3:43 PM.
#2842SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3LiquidHAL
It does seem that blizzard is trying to push mages towards arcane again with the GCD change, spirit changes, still lots of spirit on the mage gear, and now this. Arcane should not need the 2-piece T5 bonus to be viable though, they need to just buff the spell with it and then change the 2-piece T5 to something that benefits all specs.
#2843SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Stein
Originally Posted by Stein View Post
Wouldn't it be a good idea to:

- evocate with 1s left on IV?
- IV -> snap -> IV+AP+Trinkets? pro: 100% IV/AP sync...con: 20s wait on AP in 6:20 fight
- PoM to start AB ramp up?
- snap at 2.13s?
- hold off on early AB spam to ensure enough mana to AB spam for every IV/AP for say...the first 4min of the fight?
Think these are good ideas Vontre? Plan to include them in your super cool simulator?
#2844SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by LiquidHAL View Post
It does seem that blizzard is trying to push mages towards arcane again with the GCD change, spirit changes, still lots of spirit on the mage gear, and now this.
I don't think any of these changes were made with arcane mages in mind. The GCD change effected all casters, but if anything it was more directed towards healers. Priests and druids rely heavily on instant cast heals while pallies and shamans make ample use of their 1.5 second lesser heals. The change to GCD makes haste relevant for healers. Same with the spirit change: shamans received a buff to their water shield in the previous patch, so the spirit boost to druids/priest mana regeneration was the next logical move. As for gear, there have been spirit on mage pieces ever since pre-BC. I think arcane spec just benefits more from the latest global buffs blizzard made.
#2845SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Pudgeball
Would the [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] have any possible use for an arcane mage in 2.4? I believe it has a 2% chance to proc from each target (with no internal cooldown to boot). Doubt it would be worth if it you were just AB spam + FB regen period. It could be though, I haven't done any math on it at all regarding that. But would this be effective for an encounter with AoE presence? Fights like Gluth, Nightbane, Hyjal Trash, Suppression room mechanics etc - could theoretically let you spam AE while remaining in 100% regen time the entire time (And let you put on Molten Armor over Mage Armor as well).

Especially now with the AE damage cap change, it gives Arcane mages more viability overall perhaps. AoE has been a present concept throughout the various tiers, and we can only expect it to appear in Sunwell as well (if it hasn't already )
#2846SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gaspar
Originally Posted by Pudgeball View Post
Would the [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] have any possible use for an arcane mage in 2.4? I believe it has a 2% chance to proc from each target (with no internal cooldown to boot). Doubt it would be worth if it you were just AB spam + FB regen period. It could be though, I haven't done any math on it at all regarding that. But would this be effective for an encounter with AoE presence? Fights like Gluth, Nightbane, Hyjal Trash, Suppression room mechanics etc - could theoretically let you spam AE while remaining in 100% regen time the entire time (And let you put on Molten Armor over Mage Armor as well).

Especially now with the AE damage cap change, it gives Arcane mages more viability overall perhaps. AoE has been a present concept throughout the various tiers, and we can only expect it to appear in Sunwell as well (if it hasn't already )
Pudgeball, it would seem at first glance that the card is beneficial overall. However, those situations you mentioned: "Gluth, Nightbane, Hyjal Trash, Suppression room mechanics etc" aren't exactly gamebreaking. Gluth is irrelevant for intents and purposes, Nightbane is archaic at the top-end, and trash waves in Hyjal give more than adequate time to regenerate enough mana. In-combat mana regeneration is a different concept, but does it warrant a discussion in regards to AOE? I'm not so sure.

Places with "Suppression room" mechanics like ROS trash are extremely easy for most BT guilds, and the only time I know of when mana is an issue is if someone lags behind and drags an Angered Essence mob down the ramp. It is an interesting concept though especially if the new Arcane Explosion buff remains through the 2.4 PTR unchanged.
#2847SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Pudgeball
Originally Posted by Gaspar View Post
Pudgeball, it would seem at first glance that the card is beneficial overall. However, those situations you mentioned: "Gluth, Nightbane, Hyjal Trash, Suppression room mechanics etc" aren't exactly gamebreaking. Gluth is irrelevant for intents and purposes, Nightbane is archaic at the top-end, and trash waves in Hyjal give more than adequate time to regenerate enough mana. In-combat mana regeneration is a different concept, but does it warrant a discussion in regards to AOE? I'm not so sure.

Places with "Suppression room" mechanics like ROS trash are extremely easy for most BT guilds, and the only time I know of when mana is an issue is if someone lags behind and drags an Angered Essence mob down the ramp. It is an interesting concept though especially if the new Arcane Explosion buff remains through the 2.4 PTR unchanged.
Aye understood. Would be curious to see the single target math on it for AB spam. Regarding the AoE portion of it, I guess we'll need to see the rest of Sunwell first before we know if there's anymore serious AoE. I also forgot Solarian and Morogrim, which probably for him, it could be really neat.
#2848SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Tompin
Is the Arcane Explosion change really going to make that big a difference? As a normal deep fire mage, even with the best gear possible (pre sunwell), I would have to hit 9-10 mobs to cap my Arcane Explosion (6700 damage cap I believe). That doesn't happen very often to me in our raids. I haven't checked, but I'm guessing the average Hyjal wave has about 13-14 mobs total. That includes "hard-to-aoe-mobs" such as Gargoyles, Frost Wyrms, Infernals, Necromancers (usually sheeped I think?) and Banshees (sometimes immune to magic).

It does make it much easier to utilize Arcane Power and Power Infusion while AoEing though. Another arcane buff I suppose, at least more so than fire/frost.

A buff is a buff however, and maybe it comes to its own in sunwell instead.

Edit: It does make it a fair bit better with molten fury. Forgot about that. Hopefully, the gcd change and this will bring it close to SoC.

Last edited by Tompin : 02/15/08 at 5:41 PM. Reason: Forgot Molten Fury
#2849SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
I just did a round of aoe tests on PTR. The new cap for AE seems to be 10180 non-crit damage (up from previous ~6730, so 51% increase)
#2850SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Stein
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
If you look through the EJ posts you'll see discussions about AB debuff - latency interaction and how it doesn't work right. Before /stopcasting change this was not so apparent, but with that change I did some testing and almost always when chaincasted the debuff does not apply on the immediate next chaincasted spell.
I agree that the debuff is never applied in time on the client. Try casting the spell .2 sec earlier than quartz says you should....during ramp up, it will still work.

I think the debuff is being applied server side, and the cast completes as fast as you'd expect it to in a perfect world.
#2851SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Icicles
Any way to figure out the optimal Fireball cast time to maximize chances of rolling ignite (i.e. the threshhold where you get 1 more Fireball than you would without haste in the time it would take for ignite to fall off) and thus the ideal haste rating to aim for in a maximum haste/crit gear setup.
#2852SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Stein View Post
I agree that the debuff is never applied in time on the client. Try casting the spell .2 sec earlier than quartz says you should....during ramp up, it will still work.

I think the debuff is being applied server side, and the cast completes as fast as you'd expect it to in a perfect world.
When I say I tested it that means I actually went to Dr. Boom and looked at spell info returned from server and combat log time stamps. Go out and try ramping it up a few times. 2nd AB will always be 2.5 sec and 4th AB won't coincide with GCD.
#2853SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Yes Kavan that matches exactly my testing as well. I did a feature request to the quartz author to put the one-liner that shows the cast time of your current spell, which is especially nice when trying to do rolling ignite tests. However, with that change I immediately noticed on the PTR while trying 40/0/21 that I would get double 2.5s AB in a row pretty much every single time. I did notice it at other times but didn't really pay attention to it. Now if only I could get my feature request to show channelled spells ticks on the cast bar...
#2854SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Alvira
This is why I prefer a straight down burn to OOM and then going into high DPM mode for arcane style of play if possible. Playing around too much with rotation risks that a spellpushback, or some of these issues or just a delay in pressing a button might result in dropping out of the 1.5 second AB cast unintentionally. And AB DPS is the best when casting at 1.5 seconds and sub par at other times.
#2855SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
You shouldn't be that afraid with something messing up your rotation. 2.5 sec AB is basically same dps as AM, so the only role AM has is debuff management. If for some reason you drop the debuff too soon you'll still do more dps at higher dpm doing AB cycle than AM spam. The only difference would be on heavy interrupt fights. At about 8 interrupts per minute you should switch to 1:1 AB:AM ratio, at more than 1 interrupt per 2 sec you should use pure AM spam.
#2856SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BryantC
Is the Frostbolt resist chance from Elemenal Precision still 6% or back at 3%? I am raiding as frost and i am not seeing much resist at my current spell hit.
#2857SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
jogjog
I'm currently testing the 40-0-21 on 2.3, just to see what we can do with that spec in BT/hyj, being aware that's not actually optimized (loss from GCD, lower regen.).

And ... I'm WTF amazed.

During some raids using 2/48/11, bloodlust, flamecaps, pots etc... I never reached more than 1500 DPS on normal boss (I mean, we exclude special events like ROS or akama). Yes, that's the value averaged by Vontre_DPS_spreedsheet for my current fire gear.

In testing 40-0-21, I didn't expected to beat it, I just wanted to test the gameplay... Waiting 2.4 with some hopes
I have passive haste on 2 slots and anything better to replace it for a 40-0-21@2.3 oriented gear, i droped the hellfire-encassed pendant for the pvp one (lol). I also loose some stats on my gloves, droping the gloves from insigna for T5 bonus (yeah, I only have 2 T5 in my bags: gloves and spaulders ).

Yeah, I wasn't expecting more than fun and change.

And then, I did it: Wow Web Stats

I only spammed AB during the "trinket, AP" rush, and cycled AB*x / fb*3 (fb*4 during bloodlust) the rest of the time, I wasn't especially lucky with crits, and winter's chill wasn't on the boss...


So yeah, 40-0-21 kick ass, and I'm pretty sure that 1.5 sec GCD or not, it kicks more ass using cycles. And we all know that arcane builts are very goods for hyjial trashs.

You will say: "ok, but you have 0 anti-pushback dude". Yes, actually it's my last doubt about the spec, but I did a full Hyjial + naj, supremus, akama without being embarrassed with it. I have big doubts for ROS, and my guild is currently trying guttrog, so I can't pretend that the spec is better than 2/48/11 for all the events of BT/hyjial.

So 40/0/21 = THE spec for bt / hyjial ??? ( I'm Almost sure of it ).


Now, the question is, what about sunwell. Actually, it's unfortunately not my problem (and not the problem of some raiders reading the topic), but we all look it with some interests... Yeah, that's also why we read this topic. I hope manly, vontre or some other people will tell us soon.



ps: I hope my english isn't too bad to be understood (french guy inside)

Last edited by jogjog : 02/15/08 at 11:42 PM.
#2858SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
During the 2min59s fight you've done 264893 damage which is 1480 dps. Granted this isn't exactly an accurate number either but just shows you how messed up the "DPS" tab on WWS is. Armory is messed up right now so I can't see your gear but do you really have 32% frostbolt crit and 33% arcane crit? Due to the very short fight you may have just gotten lucky on crits plus some wws "wrong" dps calculation (due to how it accounts for "dps time") your WWS for that fight is far from showing anything. You gained 14 clearcasts yet only casted 53 spells which means you got 2.6 times more clearcasts than expected and thus just the above-average clearcast rolls alone gave you almost 5% more crit than you should've had, before checking the gear for lucky rolls on crits.

I've already shown using simple statistics that short fight WWS have a huge deviation and yours is just an extreme example of it, as well as a reminder that arcane potency further increases DPS deviation. I could do more math to show how likely/unlikely this is to be repeated and what your average was supposed to be if I knew your stats but it doesn't really matter as my goal was to show that the WWS report is not showing arcane is "OMGWIN".

Also if your baseline is actually a 3 minute fight you may want to consider comparing it to 0/40/21 rather than 2/48/11.
#2859SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
Jogjog; the gemming on your shoulders and legs is terrible. This and your current spell hit rating (which for arcane is capped, in fact ur wasting 2% hit because its over the cap) would lead me to believe that when you were 2/48/11 you were not hit capped, maybe even several % off. That may have been a large part of why you weren't seeing numbers as high as they should have been with 2/48/11. Also why aren't you using TLC as one of your trinkets (especially since you dont need the hit on that tear with arcane). At least until the GCD haste changes in 2.4, TLC is the highest dps trinket by a good margin for any arcane rotation.
#2860SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
TLC was nerfed to have 2.5s cooldown which is pretty terrible. However easy upgrades such as darkmoon card: crusade are available.
#2861SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Duravi View Post
Jogjog; the gemming on your shoulders and legs is terrible. This and your current spell hit rating (which for arcane is capped, in fact ur wasting 2% hit because its over the cap) would lead me to believe that when you were 2/48/11 you were not hit capped, maybe even several % off.
I agree for the legs, but it's too old to change it now, I cap that spec @119, droping my cloack for ruby drap of mysticant , and I cap fire spec @ 163 using ashyen's gift and belt of blasting.
#2862SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Duravi
TLC was nerfed to have 2.5s cooldown which is pretty terrible. However easy upgrades such as darkmoon card: crusade are available.
The nerf on TLC prevents you from getting lightning bolt, not a charge, every 2.5s despite what the tool tip says. The only thing the nerf even affected was clearcasted AMs and arcane explosion (flamestrike too to a lesser extent), I meangetting 3 crits in 2.5 seconds doesn't ever occur outside of those two scenarios. It is still the highest dps trinket for arcane by at least ~10-20 dps (other than Skull if you are using all the hit on it). Crusade come in at around 80 dps assuming you can keep it up constantly, TLC with AB rotations around 110 dps. For straight AM spam it is even higher, at ~140 dps, but AM's poor scaling makes it not worth doing. TLC was not and still isnt a good trinket for frost or fire specs, but for arcane the only trinket that puts out more dps than TLC is Skull of Guldan.

Here are the #s for after the 2.3 changes on trinkets vs spec for a BT/Hyjal geared mage:
SimulationCraft/Trinkets/Mage - Shadowpriest.com Wiki
The table you want to use is the "mage_48_13_0_ab?" this assumes a 3xAB, 1xAM , and then 1xscorch or fireblast. Also for obvious reasons you can ignore Eye of Magtheridon on the table, yes it does do that much dps when your the far below the hit cap but if you scroll down to the bottom of the table you will see about how much dps you lose for each percent off of the hit cap, and its not a good deal to say the least heh. If you want to test out how close these numbers come to your actual values just save up a few days of recount or WWS (boss fights only obviously) data experimenting with different trinkets. You will find that it comes vert close, assuming your geared appropriately (read: not kara gear).

Jogjog the reason I mentioned your shoulders as being poorly gemmed is the +10 spell crit gem. +10 spell crit gems are terrible, in fact crit is terrible in general compared to hit, dmg and haste. If you need a yellow gem in a socket to get a good +dmg socket bonus and you are already hit capped then you are basically forced to use a gem with crit on it, and even in that case you use crit/dmg not just pure crit. Seeing a mage with pure +crit gems is usually a sign that they arent very good at math.

Last edited by Duravi : 02/16/08 at 11:24 AM.
#2863SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nakawe
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
During the 2min59s fight you've done 264893 damage which is 1480 dps. Granted this isn't exactly an accurate number either but just shows you how messed up the "DPS" tab on WWS is. Armory is messed up right now so I can't see your gear but do you really have 32% frostbolt crit and 33% arcane crit? Due to the very short fight you may have just gotten lucky on crits plus some wws "wrong" dps calculation (due to how it accounts for "dps time") your WWS for that fight is far from showing anything. You gained 14 clearcasts yet only casted 53 spells which means you got 2.6 times more clearcasts than expected and thus just the above-average clearcast rolls alone gave you almost 5% more crit than you should've had, before checking the gear for lucky rolls on crits.

I've already shown using simple statistics that short fight WWS have a huge deviation and yours is just an extreme example of it, as well as a reminder that arcane potency further increases DPS deviation. I could do more math to show how likely/unlikely this is to be repeated and what your average was supposed to be if I knew your stats but it doesn't really matter as my goal was to show that the WWS report is not showing arcane is "OMGWIN".

Also if your baseline is actually a 3 minute fight you may want to consider comparing it to 0/40/21 rather than 2/48/11.
longer fight then 2 minutes. Two top mages are 40/0/21 The other mage in grp is deep ice for wc debuff.

Wow Web Stats

I have 31% crit with arcane blast and 49% with frostbolt. You people seem to be awefull negative on the 40/0/21 build. Maybe your not gemming right? I did 1489dps on a kael fight. Does anyone realize how long that fight is? Sure mana is an issue, but you have to carry tons mana pots and use them all the time. When 2.4 comes out those mid range instances will be all 40/0/21 builds. This spec already performs equal with fire. The only disadvantage to this build is it requires you to think. There is no set rotation, Your rotation is whatever works for your mana.

If you want a fun, high dps spec in ssc, tk,mt hyjal and start of bt use 40/0/21. If you want to push 2 buttons and be bored go fire. If people are struggling to get high dps using 40/0/21 then you need to re-evaluate how you approach the spec.

Last edited by Nakawe : 02/17/08 at 12:42 AM.
#2864SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Assuming you macro all your cooldowns to 1 button, both 40/0/21 and 0/47/11+3 press the same amount of buttons.

Just the fact you topped the damage meters doesn't mean your spec is good, it just means you have better skill/gear than the rest of your raid.

When will people realize that just the fact they did good on a WWS doesn't really mean anything about their good/bad gear choices? There are just too many random (and non-random) factors that can increase/decrease DPS but should not be accounted for when deciding what gear to pick for the pure reason they're just as likely to hurt your DPS as they are to help it. Bringing the WWS where you topped the meters, by itself, doesn't prove anything, even if you did 1800 DPS.
#2865SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
jula
So I did some haste math for AB spamming. Here is my results, please correct me if i am wrong.
My goal was to find the haste cap in different scenarios.

haste rating formula = c / ( 1 + x/1577)
AB - 2.5 sec
AB ramped - 1.5 sec
AB ramped with bloodlust = 1.5 / 1.3 = 1.15
AB ramped with icy veins = 1.5 / 1.2 = 1.25
AB ramped with icy veins + bloodlust = 1.5 / 1.3/ 1.2 = 0.96


how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec ?
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 = 1
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) = 2
2.5 / 2 = 1 + x/1577
1.25 = 1 + x/1577
0.25 = x/1577
394.25 = x

how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec when icy veins is active?
( 2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 ) / 1.2 = 1
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 = 1.2
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) = 2.2
2.5 / 2.2 = 1 + x/1577
1.136 = 1 + x/1577
0.136 = x/1577
215 = x

how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec when bloodlust is active?
( 2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 ) / 1.3 = 1
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 = 1.3
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) = 2.3
2.5 / 2.3= 1 + x/1577
1.0869 = 1 + x/1577
.0869 = x/1577
137 = x

how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec when bloodlust and icy veins is active?
nothing. its already faster than 1 sec.


edit: fixed some numbers based on reply #2866.

Last edited by jula : 02/17/08 at 4:57 AM.
#2866SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Bloodlust and IV don't work as you're suggesting. It's a haste effect, not speed increase. So for example AB ramped with icy veins + bloodlust = 1.5/1.2/1.3 = 0.96.
#2867SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Assuming you macro all your cooldowns to 1 button, both 40/0/21 and 0/47/11+3 press the same amount of buttons.

Just the fact you topped the damage meters doesn't mean your spec is good, it just means you have better skill/gear than the rest of your raid.

When will people realize that just the fact they did good on a WWS doesn't really mean anything about their good/bad gear choices? There are just too many random (and non-random) factors that can increase/decrease DPS but should not be accounted for when deciding what gear to pick for the pure reason they're just as likely to hurt your DPS as they are to help it. Bringing the WWS where you topped the meters, by itself, doesn't prove anything, even if you did 1800 DPS.

I was merely pointing out that 40/0/21 spec can maintain a high dps on long fights too. Your previos post suggested that he maintained a high dps beacuse it was a short fight. At least thats the way I understood it. Forgive me if my assumptions were incorrect. I linked wws to backup my claims so people didnt think I was exaggerating.

We have some good raiders, so I wouldnt say I was any better then rest of them. I am probably one of the worse geared on that list. I was then anyway, I have since upgraded my stomcaller. hehe. I dont consistantly top dps meters either. I am normally near the top though. I have played both fire and arcane and feel they both have strong and weak points. They are about equal in dps with my gear according to all of the mage calculators . With buffs to mana regen next patch, I feel arcane will be the miidle game spec till people get enough haste so that fire will outdps it again.
#2868SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rounced
Just a quick interjection.

Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%

Does this, combined with haste affecting the GCD, now completely invalidate all our other AE spells no matter what the spec?
#2869SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Setia
If there's more than ten targets, yeah.

Using the caps proposed on WoW Forums -> Sunday morning PTR AoE Cap testing , the number of targets required to cap at 1200 +damage would now be approximately, for a fire spec:

New AE: cap of 10095 = 15 targets
Dragon's Breath: cap of 10100 = 9 targets
Blast Wave: cap of 9440 = 9 targets
Flamestrike: cap of 7830 = 8 targets

Cone of Cold (frost spec, talented): cap of 6500 (7 targets)

Yeah, 3-second cast, 1,1k-mana Flamestrike will have a lower cap than AE on the initial hit.

Last edited by Setia : 02/17/08 at 3:15 AM.
#2870SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
aoe caps and best aoe spell

Even before the change AE had a LOT more than 1/2 the cap of flamestrike while you're able to cast 2x as many, which means those changes don't really change anything regarding which spell you should use. It was and remains arcane explosion in an AOE-capped situation.
#2871SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Unless I'm mistaken the 10-target aoe cap is not relevant; AoE caps at a given value, and that value divided by the sum of the targets is the max non-crit they will receive. You can in fact reach the cap with under 10 targets. I seem to recall the 10-target conceptualization being mentioned only in the patch-notes that instigated the AoE cap, but back then AoE gained hardly any benefit from spellpower and as such the 10-target limit for base spell was pretty much a 10-target limit for buffed spellgear.

Also don't forget, Flamestrike has two components. There is reason to support an initial Flamestrike (also giving your pala a fraction more agro-build time) and follow up with AE spam in the Flamestrike DoT. At Execute Range hit Blastwave and polish off with AE for any remainders.

I wonder whether this new 10800 cap will bring untold doom in the form of agro extraordinaire.

edit: typo
#2872SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphya
I just found this Vis Major WWS stats of Gorefiend: LINK.

That's a pretty good example what superior support can do. This WWS shows 2767 DPS for Mysticfox (Gnome Mage), which is probably the highest mage DPS on Gorefiend so far. If you take a look at raid at the raid composition it looks like the ideal setup to support this mage: Mysticfox seemed to have not only Curse of Elements and a ideal group (Shadowpriest + Elemental Shaman + Moonkin) and 3 drums of battle, but also some really nice stacking in Molten Fury range:

03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Fel Infusion
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Mojo Madness
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Icy Veins
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Combustion
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Destruction
03:21'18.562	Mysticfox gains Power Infusion
Which lead to some nice fireball crits

Gaining all sorts of insane buffs (like Power Infusion which you usually just don't get) can really push your DPS by an considerable amount, but i did not expect the difference to be THAT high.
#2873SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
That WWS has 5.3mil damage and i believe as it's been said those reports tend to be inaccurate/fake.
#2874SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Leonina
They are still valid for individual DPS if my memory serves me correct
#2875SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Wueste
Yes they are, because the only "problems" here are the Vengeful Spirits (Vengeful Spirit - WWS) - they are listed as pets, so their damage done is shown. But that does not affect individual damage done.
#2876SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Why do people not realize those numbers use darkmoon faire buff too?

Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
longer fight then 2 minutes. Two top mages are 40/0/21 The other mage in grp is deep ice for wc debuff.

Wow Web Stats

I have 31% crit with arcane blast and 49% with frostbolt. You people seem to be awefull negative on the 40/0/21 build. Maybe your not gemming right? I did 1489dps on a kael fight. Does anyone realize how long that fight is? Sure mana is an issue, but you have to carry tons mana pots and use them all the time. When 2.4 comes out those mid range instances will be all 40/0/21 builds. This spec already performs equal with fire. The only disadvantage to this build is it requires you to think. There is no set rotation, Your rotation is whatever works for your mana.

If you want a fun, high dps spec in ssc, tk,mt hyjal and start of bt use 40/0/21. If you want to push 2 buttons and be bored go fire. If people are struggling to get high dps using 40/0/21 then you need to re-evaluate how you approach the spec.
Grats, your WWS shown dps is high because your dps_time is low. You've made the exact same mistake as 90%+ of every mage I seem to see post theses things.

WWS DPS = total_damage / dps_time
dps_time = (encounter duration cut in 5s slices. if you deal any damage during a 5s slice, you gain 5s of dps_time)

In other words, WWS DPS will misrepresent deep fire dps due to the fireball dot, which increases your dps_time, which has the effect of diluting your shown WWS DPS. If you want to compare specs, the best value to use is dps_average (total_damage/encounter_duration), which is an extra column in the options.
#2877SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3draxon0012
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Why do people not realize those numbers use darkmoon faire buff too?
Honestly. 4300 Average fireball hits? Come on guys, read the fine print.
#2878SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zeromega
I have a quick question about whether or not there is a point where gaining haste at the cost of crit becomes a bad trade?

In my Current Haste Gear Setup (Two Rings, Shoulder, Bracer, Belt) I'm at exactly 10% Haste at the cost of almost 85 spell damage and 2% crit. The 10% Threshold for Haste though has been the most noticable difference in DPS for me personally.

The basis of the question is that I am currently able to maintain 10% Haste and hover around 31% Fire Crit and 1300's buffed Spellpower. When I begin to add more haste and not sacrificing any Damage, only crit, is there a 'magic number' where losing anymore crit makes Fire not perform as well?

I have always had a personal minimum threshold of 30% Crit with MA. I'm reaching a point now where adding more Haste Rating is going to be at the cost of my Crit rating dropping below that 30% threshold. Understandably this will be different with the new T6 Gear in Sunwell, but I am faced with this decision currently.

I understand that the spell damage to haste ratio is almost 1 to 1, but at what point does the crit to haste ratio begin to favor more crit instead of haste? Or is this more of a personal decision than a TC decision?

Thanks in advance.
#2879SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Wueste
Originally Posted by draxon0012 View Post
Honestly. 4300 Average fireball hits? Come on guys, read the fine print.
4300 average fireball hits during such a short fight are nothing special. My raid is far away from these dps numbers, but if you take a look at our gorefiend log from today Thrudnir - WWS my average fireball hits were 4400.

My equipment is shown here: The World of Warcraft Armory (1332 firedamage unbuffed)
My Buffs have been: Flask of Pure Death +80
Blessed Wizard Oil: +60 (vs. Undead)
Restoration Shaman: +101
Food: +23

1 minute flamecap: +80
2x 15 seconds destruction: 2x +120
(no bm hunter)

I had nothing like darkmoon faire buff or something else, just normal raid buffs (coe, ...) and my critrating tonight was really very bad

Last edited by Wueste : 02/17/08 at 5:49 PM.
#2880SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphya
Why do people not realize those numbers use darkmoon faire buff too?
Did you mean the Vis Maior WWS i linked? If so, here is another one:
LINK ~2700 DPS.

To be honest, i wasn't even aware of the 10% damage buff from darkmoon faire, thanks for the tip
But given the fact that darkmoon faire starts at the beginning of each month and these stats are listed for 29. January i somewhat doubt that this mage got the buff and then didn't log in until the raid on January the 29th.
#2881SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
Originally Posted by Saphya View Post
Did you mean the Vis Maior WWS i linked? If so, here is another one:
LINK ~2700 DPS.

To be honest, i wasn't even aware of the 10% damage buff from darkmoon faire, thanks for the tip
But given the fact that darkmoon faire starts at the beginning of each month and these stats are listed for 29. January i somewhat doubt that this mage got the buff and then didn't log in until the raid on January the 29th.
The fight lasted 2:20. The only possible way of killed it that fast is with a full raid with darkmoon faire buff.

Try again.

EDIT: Case in point, the first link you gave us shows 2:19 fight. This new one shows 2:20. So yes, you just effectively proved us one of either 2 things:
1- the date of the encounter is based on when you upload the parse (??? that would not make any sense but who knows)
2- vis maior modifies their parses (or rather, the date of encounter)

(besides, if you look at both parses they conspicuciously only show the first 4 bosses of BT, which is a clear indication of darkmoon faire buff)

Last edited by manly : 02/17/08 at 6:12 PM.
#2882SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Zeromega View Post
I have a quick question about whether or not there is a point where gaining haste at the cost of crit becomes a bad trade?

I understand that the spell damage to haste ratio is almost 1 to 1, but at what point does the crit to haste ratio begin to favor more crit instead of haste? Or is this more of a personal decision than a TC decision?
Image a setup where you have zero haste and high damage/crit.
You usually value your stats combared to +dmg, at least I do.

Then you have values like 1 crit ~ 0.75 dmg, 1 haste ~ 1.15 dmg as an example.
1% haste is a 101%/100% = 1% damage increase for you.

Now, you magically gain 157 haste rating = 10% haste while your damage/crit/hit stays the same, from new gear.
Then, 1% more haste is 111%/110% = 0.909% damage increase only.
So, the relative value of haste decreases to 1.15 (previous) * 0.909 (from 1% increase to 0.909% increase now) = 1.045.
That means 1 haste is now only worth ~ 1.045 dmg.

As your passive haste increases, the relative value compared to +dmg slowly decreases.


Haste will always be better than crit for pure DPS unless you stack it excessively.
Keep in mind that crits give you mana, haste takes it. This may or may not be important.
Mind you that 1s is still the limit for the GCD. Depending on spec and setup, you may run in danger of reaching it.
I think that with the current itemisation, I'd always pick damage over haste if there is a choice.


My personal preference with haste is that I don't switch crit/hit/dmg for haste on sidegrades, but I will switch it on upgrades.
Point for point when mana is no issue, crit won't beat haste for DPS unless you excessively stack it and you run into the global cooldown for your main spells.
#2883SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Why do people not realize those numbers use darkmoon faire buff too?


Grats, your WWS shown dps is high because your dps_time is low. You've made the exact same mistake as 90%+ of every mage I seem to see post theses things.

WWS DPS = total_damage / dps_time
dps_time = (encounter duration cut in 5s slices. if you deal any damage during a 5s slice, you gain 5s of dps_time)

In other words, WWS DPS will misrepresent deep fire dps due to the fireball dot, which increases your dps_time, which has the effect of diluting your shown WWS DPS. If you want to compare specs, the best value to use is dps_average (total_damage/encounter_duration), which is an extra column in the options.

This is all relative to the spell you cast. I should have stressed total damage output, not dps. The top mage on that list is 40/0/21 as well and has a much higher dps time. He casted more frostbolts then I did. Frostbolt is longer cast time there fore dps total is lower. The difference between him and I was 3k? Again, according to all the mage calculators I have played with, 40/0/21 is within 15 dps of 2/47/11+2. The math supports 40/0/21 as a viable spec. I come to forums and see people slamming it. They are not accurately portraying the truth. Both spec are equal for all intent and purpose. They just require different play styles. This is the calculator I use. please tell me if you feel it is innaccurate Man Out of Time - Theorycraft-o-Matic .

Thank you though for pointing out the obvious on how wws displays the information, I am sure some people may not be aware of that tidbit of information. The fight I linked there is alot of moving around, as I am sure you know. It is very hard to manage mana in a fight that long, but, my original purpose was to point out that 40/0/21 is viable for long fights as well. In 2.4 it becomes even better if changes hold.
#2884SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3marloz
Speaking of 40/0/21 specs, I see alot of discussion going on about rotations etc. I've been raiding with 40/0/21 since forever, and frankly speaking I haven't seen anyone mentioning just frostbolt spam. I'll attach a recent Teron fight where I attempted to push it. (although destro/drums weren't used) COE 10% was up, wc-mage, resto shaman and Moonkin as group buffers.

Wow Web Stats

You might notice that my crit (61%) seems somewhat high - although I went through it and my technical crit% should be 58%, so there isn't any major abnormalities.

No flaming (of me!) please.
#2885SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Holeman
what is this darkmoon faire buff?
#2886SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Dollar
Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage - Spells - World of Warcraft is the Darkmoon Faire buff.
#2887SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3deftnblind
Can anybody confirm the extra ghost hit from frostbolt?

I can't find any information related to it.

if it is verified, I guess could be quite a big change in the gear planing and final dmg resutls.
#2888SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Using that nifty button at the top of this thread labeled "search this thread" with the search of "Elemental Precision" yeilded http://elitistjerks.com/search.php?searchid=945746 which in turn means you failed to search this thread, and in turn probably didn't read Elitist Jerks - Announcements in Forum : Public Discussion or Elitist Jerks - Announcements in Forum : Public Discussion either.

In other words, yes it is still bugged.
#2889SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3amped
hey all, long time reader, first time poster, etc.

i was curious as to if anyone on the PTR has gotten their hands on the Timbal's Focusing Crystal from Heroic MT.

Timbal's Focusing Crystal - Items - World of Warcraft

the effect on it; Equip: Each time one of your spells deals periodic damage, there is a chance 285 to 475 additional damage will be dealt, has me interested in if this is worth picking up. The first thing that came to my mind was it procing on my fireball DoT, but i was curious if anyone has tested it on Ignite. From what i've read it seems to have a ~10% proc rate and has a 15 second internal-cooldown, and it is able crit for 150% (based on your shadow crit%). It is not affected by Rune (thank god).

To me it seems like a damn good replacement to either my Quag's eye or Icon (since my guild has never seen any skulls in 19 illidan kills, and they dont take mages to ZA because they prefer locks). I was mainly hoping to find some insight on anyone's findings or anyone's TC on this item and if it really could be a top item-slot contender for end-game once 2.4 goes live.

thanks
#2890SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3draxon0012
Originally Posted by Wueste View Post
4300 average fireball hits during such a short fight are nothing special. My raid is far away from these dps numbers, but if you take a look at our gorefiend log from today Thrudnir - WWS my average fireball hits were 4400.

My equipment is shown here: The World of Warcraft Armory (1332 firedamage unbuffed)
My Buffs have been: Flask of Pure Death +80
Blessed Wizard Oil: +60 (vs. Undead)
Restoration Shaman: +101
Food: +23

1 minute flamecap: +80
2x 15 seconds destruction: 2x +120
(no bm hunter)

I had nothing like darkmoon faire buff or something else, just normal raid buffs (coe, ...) and my critrating tonight was really very bad
Draxon - WWS

I have 1231 Damage unbuffed, only 100 less +dmg, with the same group/buffs as you ( resto shaman ) flask/oil/food, how can you explain the discrepancy of over 700 damage difference on fireballs. ( CoE was up ) Doesn't really make sense to me unless you were faired
#2891SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by draxon0012 View Post
Draxon - WWS

I have 1231 Damage unbuffed, only 100 less +dmg, with the same group/buffs as you ( resto shaman ) flask/oil/food, how can you explain the discrepancy of over 700 damage difference on fireballs. ( CoE was up ) Doesn't really make sense to me unless you were faired
Thrudnir - WWS Him
WWS Loading... You

Notice the difference on trinkets and destro pots? Also since the US armory is broken, going to assume you have 4 piece T6.

Also notice how his crit rate was absurdly low? That means sub 20% his Fireballs were normal hitting the mob causing an inflated avg Fireball hit. His max hit, normal, is only 400 more than your's, which could be due to the trinkets/potion and such.
#2892SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinborn
Originally Posted by amped View Post
(since my guild has never seen any skulls in 19 illidan kills, and they dont take mages to ZA because they prefer locks)
Sorry to hear that. On our bear runs, we don't take any locks. Just me.

I would suggest telling your officers to stop loot whoring and bring some class balance.
#2893SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
jogjog
Originally Posted by jula View Post
So I did some haste math for AB spamming. Here is my results, please correct me if i am wrong.
My goal was to find the haste cap in different scenarios.

haste rating formula = c / ( 1 + x/1577)
AB - 2.5 sec
AB ramped - 1.5 sec
AB ramped with bloodlust = 1.5 / 1.3 = 1.15
AB ramped with icy veins = 1.5 / 1.2 = 1.25
AB ramped with icy veins + bloodlust = 1.5 / 1.3/ 1.2 = 0.96


how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec ?
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 = 1
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) = 2
2.5 / 2 = 1 + x/1577
1.25 = 1 + x/1577
0.25 = x/1577
394.25 = x

how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec when icy veins is active?
( 2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 ) / 1.2 = 1
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 = 1.2
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) = 2.2
2.5 / 2.2 = 1 + x/1577
1.136 = 1 + x/1577
0.136 = x/1577
215 = x

how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec when bloodlust is active?
( 2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 ) / 1.3 = 1
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 = 1.3
2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) = 2.3
2.5 / 2.3= 1 + x/1577
1.0869 = 1 + x/1577
.0869 = x/1577
137 = x

how much haste rating (x) is needed to reduce ramped AB to 1 sec when bloodlust and icy veins is active?
nothing. its already faster than 1 sec.


edit: fixed some numbers based on reply #2866.
Casting speed - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
--->
Note: Blizzard rounds to 4 significant digits.

And I have another problem with AB, according to this Arcane Blast - Spells - World of Warcraft, AB(3) with any passive haste is 1.498 s cast, and vontre dps spreedsheet gives 1.51s .

Last edited by jogjog : 02/18/08 at 8:56 AM.
#2894SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jula
reply to #2893:
I don't see your point...
Your wowhead links indicates 1.498 cast time not 1.468 as you mention.
Regardless, the rounding error seems insignificant to me.
#2895SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
I've got a question about how manaregen works in 2.4
The information I've seen about it so far has been "Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit." Do you know if anything more conclusive has been posted anywhere?

I did a quick test on the ptr yesterday where I equipped more spirit, alchemist stone, the mark of defiance and mage armor (with a 40/0/21 build). With this setup I could for the very first time cast frostbolts on Dr.Boom close to indefinately. I kept going for about 8-9 minutes before I got tired so needless to say this new regen works. This was selfbuffed however so I can only imagine the difference raidbuffed with imp spirit, kings, wild etc.
#2896SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 zeidrich
Originally Posted by Saphirox View Post
I've got a question about how manaregen works in 2.4
The information I've seen about it so far has been "Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit." Do you know if anything more conclusive has been posted anywhere?
Why, yes! On this very forum in fact!

Intellect -> Spirit Conversion on the PTR : Theorycrafting HQ
#2897SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3irbi
Originally Posted by deftnblind View Post
Can anybody confirm the extra ghost hit from frostbolt?

I can't find any information related to it.

if it is verified, I guess could be quite a big change in the gear planing and final dmg resutls.

The ghost hit has been confirmed multiple times, by multiple people, in multiple threads.

You can easily test it yourself. Lower yourself from hitcap, by 6%, (3% normal precision + 3% ghost precision) and frostbolt spam a target. Parse it through WWS.
#2898SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Mages are awesome in ZA... Short fights mean sub-20% cooldown stacking can go pretty crazy. With the melee stacking you might not get BL/hero (although if your raid leader is competent he can swap the tank out for the windfury-bot's bloodlust/heroism and if you have a 2nd shaman swap you+the shaman with the windfury bot+tank for 2nd blooslust), but even without BL/hero "just" combustion, icy veins, trinkets and flame caps (not to mention destro potion) at <20% that will actually have a good uptime% of the fight will probably make you outdps the warlocks on bosses. For trash you might get a bit out-dpsed a bit but you do have counterspell/spellsteal for the nasty flamecasters.

Overall I see "warlocks are better" as a compeltely invalid reason for not bringing mages to ZA. Most likely either your leaders are bad or they think you're bad and don't want to bring you.
#2899SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Nurru
We've brought a Warlock and Mage to each of our chest runs, it seems odd to not bring a Mage. For the length of those fights I do extremely well in the meters and provide a good CC for the trash along with some additional AOE.

edit: Maligne makes some good points about Scorch and 1 mage in ZA though.

Last edited by Nurru : 02/18/08 at 1:41 PM.
#2900SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Maligne
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Mages are awesome in ZA... Short fights mean sub-20% cooldown stacking can go pretty crazy. With the melee stacking you might not get BL/hero (although if your raid leader is competent he can swap the tank out for the windfury-bot's bloodlust/heroism and if you have a 2nd shaman swap you+the shaman with the windfury bot+tank for 2nd blooslust), but even without BL/hero "just" combustion, icy veins, trinkets and flame caps (not to mention destro potion) at <20% that will actually have a good uptime% of the fight will probably make you outdps the warlocks on bosses. For trash you might get a bit out-dpsed a bit but you do have counterspell/spellsteal for the nasty flamecasters.

Overall I see "warlocks are better" as a compeltely invalid reason for not bringing mages to ZA. Most likely either your leaders are bad or they think you're bad and don't want to bring you.
Yeah I disagree there. As Manly pointed out earlier, having only a single fire mage is pretty terrible for trash and extremely short fights, due to scorch. I've been on two bear runs so far, one as fire where we finished with literally 00:00 on the clock and one as Illidan frost where we had 6 minutes left. Of course I'm not accrediting it all to the spec change, but I think it certainly helped. The trash in ZA matters so much that it's worth giving up some <20% dps on bosses (of which there isn't much of anyway due to that window being so short to begin with). Add in high WE uptime due to said short fights and max permafrost and Imp Blizzard and I much prefer frost for ZA.
#2901SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Mages are awesome in ZA... Short fights mean sub-20% cooldown stacking can go pretty crazy. With the melee stacking you might not get BL/hero (although if your raid leader is competent he can swap the tank out for the windfury-bot's bloodlust/heroism and if you have a 2nd shaman swap you+the shaman with the windfury bot+tank for 2nd blooslust), but even without BL/hero "just" combustion, icy veins, trinkets and flame caps (not to mention destro potion) at <20% that will actually have a good uptime% of the fight will probably make you outdps the warlocks on bosses. For trash you might get a bit out-dpsed a bit but you do have counterspell/spellsteal for the nasty flamecasters.

Overall I see "warlocks are better" as a compeltely invalid reason for not bringing mages to ZA. Most likely either your leaders are bad or they think you're bad and don't want to bring you.
The added utility of a sheep in ZA helps immensely on a timed clear.

Ideally, though, you'd have 1 lock and 1 mage for the Dragonhawk boss.
#2902SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
Originally Posted by zeidrich View Post
Many thanks. Missed it for lack of being on firstpage, lesson learned.
#2903SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I agree the short fights do make frost rather viable, although i hadn't looked deeply enough into the pushback frequency, which may or may not be enough to matter.
#2904SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by jogjog View Post
Casting speed - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
--->



And I have another problem with AB, according to this Arcane Blast - Spells - World of Warcraft, AB(3) with any passive haste is 1.498 s cast, and vontre dps spreedsheet gives 1.51s .
The live game will not allow you to chain cast faster than the global cooldown.
#2905SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Inoko
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
I agree the short fights do make frost rather viable, although i hadn't looked deeply enough into the pushback frequency, which may or may not be enough to matter.
Bear has none, DH is rather pathetic on it as well. Lynx I guess has a little (Totems) but mostly doesn't. Eagle has a significant amount, though, with the flying eagles. IB Will get eaten rather quickly, and depending on your luck, this could be a bad fight.

[Edit: Bear has a charge and an AoE Silence, both of which are not "pushback" as such. DH Flamebreath is really the only thing on him, once the adds are downed, which for us at least is AoE, so insta-casts, no pushback.]
#2906SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Hex Lord also has a ton.

[e] I guess he's not part of the bear timer though
#2907SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Kasi
Hex Lord has a lot, but its all concentrated in a part of the fight that will make it hard to dps anyways. Even with 70% pushback resist you're going to have a hard time casting much. Its only a few seconds out of every minute as well, so it really shouldn't be a bother at all.
#2908SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
The math supports 40/0/21 as a viable spec. I come to forums and see people slamming it. They are not accurately portraying the truth. Both spec are equal for all intent and purpose. They just require different play styles. This is the calculator I use. please tell me if you feel it is innaccurate Man Out of Time - Theorycraft-o-Matic .

Thank you though for pointing out the obvious on how wws displays the information, I am sure some people may not be aware of that tidbit of information. The fight I linked there is alot of moving around, as I am sure you know. It is very hard to manage mana in a fight that long, but, my original purpose was to point out that 40/0/21 is viable for long fights as well. In 2.4 it becomes even better if changes hold.
The simulator you selected seems... incomplete. There seem to be a lot of factors missing from the calculation: shaman buffs (wrath of air/mana stream/mana tide/bloodlust), meta gem choices, destruction pots, flame caps, and trinkets. I'm not sure if there's an additional option to enable these variables, but I didn't see it when I visited the site. In addition, do you know if the program simulate proper cooldown stacking? The greatest advantage fire has is the enormous amount of cooldown stacking that can be employed in the last 20%. If a simulator is unable to account for this, then the simulated damage for fire will be far lower than the actual output. I think the generally accepted simulator is vontre's magegraf.

Finally, I don't think the Kael fight is the best assessment of DPS. There are two intense DPS phases in the fight (phase 2 on weapons and phase 3 on thaladrad). Other than those two instances, the rest of the fight is more about coordination and control. Depending on what roles each of the players have, it can dramatically influence DPS.
#2909SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinborn
I've done all the ZA bear runs in my guild as fire with 3/3 imp. flamestrike. I'm just a big fan of aoe, and we have a beast of a prot pally who leads the runs. I mostly aoe trash. Our dps is me, shadowpriest, ele shammy, and a mix of rogues/hunters (at least 1 of each). Feral offtank who can dps on bosses and after his mark is killed for trash.

Guess I just like the dps I can do to the bosses as fire for these runs. I can pop cooldowns on bear boss after scorches are stacked, inivis, get a bloodlust when he goes human again, and catch back up to the tanks when the boss is <10%. Invis is harder to pull off for eagle so I just hold back a bit. Too much other stuff on dragonhawk for me to catch the MT. I should try to invis on lynx, but I haven't noticed me catching the tanks so bad on that fight.
#2910SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Kasi View Post
Hex Lord has a lot, but its all concentrated in a part of the fight that will make it hard to dps anyways. Even with 70% pushback resist you're going to have a hard time casting much. Its only a few seconds out of every minute as well, so it really shouldn't be a bother at all.
I would think dps casters would all have conc aura for hex lord.
#2911SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Kasi
Ours certainly don't. We generally don't run with more than one paladin. That paladin also happens to be our MT. Thus he very rarely goes in the caster group. Sometimes when we've run with 2 then yes split them up. But not all guilds run ZA with multiple paladins.
#2912SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Kasi View Post
Ours certainly don't. We generally don't run with more than one paladin. That paladin also happens to be our MT. Thus he very rarely goes in the caster group. Sometimes when we've run with 2 then yes split them up. But not all guilds run ZA with multiple paladins.
What prevents you from putting the paladin tank in the caster group?
#2913SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
I tank ZA on my alt paladin and I actually prefer the caster/healer group since I get mana back from spriests, totems, whatever. And it lets you create a fully stacked melee group since you don't have to waste windfury and such on the paladin tank.
#2914SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Kasi
We run a fairly caster heavy group. Generally we run prot pally, feral druid, hunter, ele shaman, sp, frost mage, destro lock, holy priest, resto druid and arms warrior. Since we run 2 healers, they need the SP. That leaves 2 spots left in the caster group. They generally go to the ele shaman and mage since they need the mana. Especially me since I am the .5 healer in this fight and I do throw out some heals on certain fights to help out during burst damage. I suppose you could switch in the pally for one of us 2, but thats not going to really help the interrupt issues for hex lord. Yes I know ideally I'd be enhance and would be in the physical dps group but I'm not. It's not like the pally's aura helps the druid either so we just leave them where they are.
#2915SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Neuromaster
Theory: Passive haste rating is a bad itemization choice for builds/spell rotations that use stacked arcane blasts to DPS, despite the changes to the GCD in 2.4.

Argument outline: Builds using Arcane Blast are mana-limited, not throughput-limited. Their damage output is a function of how much mana is available during the fight. Haste just exhausts your mana faster.

Caveat: Haste does help cooldown stacking, though more for bloodlust/heroism/icy veins than passive haste. There may also be other fringe benefits.


Is this interesting/controversial enough to explore in more detail?
#2916SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Inoko
Originally Posted by Neuromaster View Post
Theory: Passive haste rating is a bad itemization choice for builds/spell rotations that use stacked arcane blasts to DPS, despite the changes to the GCD in 2.4.

Argument outline: Builds using Arcane Blast are mana-limited, not throughput-limited. Their damage output is a function of how much mana is available during the fight. Haste just exhausts your mana faster.

Caveat: Haste does help cooldown stacking, though more for bloodlust/heroism/icy veins than passive haste. There may also be other fringe benefits.


Is this interesting/controversial enough to explore in more detail?

Remember that if you're going for AM-AB for OO5SR ticks, then too much passive haste will be detrimental, as you'll no longer be well, out of the five second rule.
#2917SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Neuromaster View Post
Theory: Passive haste rating is a bad itemization choice for builds/spell rotations that use stacked arcane blasts to DPS, despite the changes to the GCD in 2.4.

Argument outline: Builds using Arcane Blast are mana-limited, not throughput-limited. Their damage output is a function of how much mana is available during the fight. Haste just exhausts your mana faster.

Caveat: Haste does help cooldown stacking, though more for bloodlust/heroism/icy veins than passive haste. There may also be other fringe benefits.


Is this interesting/controversial enough to explore in more detail?
This is pretty much spot on, there's not much to be discussed really. =p
#2918SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Neuromaster View Post
Theory: Passive haste rating is a bad itemization choice for builds/spell rotations that use stacked arcane blasts to DPS, despite the changes to the GCD in 2.4.

Argument outline: Builds using Arcane Blast are mana-limited, not throughput-limited. Their damage output is a function of how much mana is available during the fight. Haste just exhausts your mana faster.
That's a dumb argument, really. Saying "+haste is useless because AB spam is mana limited" is like saying "+healing is useless beacause it increases overheal."


I'll try an analogue:

You want to build a one week and have a group of 5 workers. They cost 100$ per hour normal working (=frostbolt spam), and 300$ per hour overtime (=AB spam). You won't make it in time with only regular work (=FB spam won't be enough damage), so you'll have to pay a lot of money (=mana) on overtime to get the workload done.

Now you have the idea of adding a 6th worker to your group. So, your group works 20% faster, but also costs 20% more money (=20% haste).
That means you can get the same work done with a lot less overtime (=same damage with a lot less AB spam), which will save you a noticable amout of money.

So, you the work done with a lot less overtime, have a decent amount of money left, which you can now spend on more overtime to have a terrace built!


This is the analogue. I'll put some numbers into Vontre's to get some values to compare it.


Edit:

Okay, now to properly model it. Take a 5 minute fight, 300sec.
15k base mana, 11k from Evocation, 9k from 3 gems, 8k from 3 pots. 400mp5 while casting, 350 from an SP, 50 from BoW should be very very generous. 800mp5 means 48k mana over 5 minutes.
Totals at 91k mana. Spread over 5 minutes, we can burn 300 mana per second.

Lets now look at the spells, assuming 40/0/21 with winter's chill, no cooldowns used at all.
Frostbolt spam - 1714 DPS, 92 mps.
AB(3) spam - 2292 DPS, 476 mps. +578 DPS, +384 mps compared to FB spam, or 1.505 damage per mana.
AB3/FB3 - 1789 DPS, 137 mps. +75 DPS, +45 mps compared to FB spam, or 1.667 damage per mana.

This means, to get the most damage, we use AB3FB3 as our efficient rotation, and AB3 as spam to burn excessive mana.

That means 147s of AB spam and 153s of rotating burns 90.933 mana for 610.641 damage.

Let's now add 5% haste to our gear. For those who want the numbers for that:
// Frostbolt spam - 1800 DPS, 97 mps.
// AB(3) spam - 2407 DPS, 476 mps. +607 DPS, +403 mps compared to FB spam, or 1.505 damage per mana.
// AB3/FB3 - 1878 DPS, 144 mps. +79 DPS, +47 mps compared to FB spam, or 1.667 damage per mana.

With this, we get 134s AB spam, 166s rotating, burning 90.852 mana for 634.307 damage.

Which is 23.666 more damage, or 3.88% more damage.
I didn't include any cooldowns. I didn't do any fancy graphing. I probably have a few rounding errors.
AB3/FB3 might not work due to the known client/server AB debuff delay issues, and we'll have to fall back to AB spam and FB spam.
That will probably shift numbers a bit, but not make them completely worthless.
Edit: Just checked it with only AB3 spam and FB spam. Slightly lower numbers, but still a ~3.9% increase.


3.88% more damage from 5% haste on gear. This is very far from being a useless stat.


I'll try another split of mana and damage for the cycles, to illustrate where your mana comes from.

An AB3/FB3 rotation for 5 minutes will do 536.700 damage for 41.100 mana, at 13 DPM.
That leaves us with 49.900 mana to spare, that we burn by spamming AB instead of rotating for a while.
But changing from rotation to spam, we burn the 49.900 mana into 73.900 damage, at 1.5 DPM.

With 5% haste, we spend 5% more on our rotation for 5% more damage.
That means we spend another 2055 mana for 26.500 more damage in our rotation.
That means can spam less AB, as we have less excessive mana. With a 1.5 DPM conversion on AB spam, our missing 2055 mana translates into 3.100 less damage from AB spam.
Notice that since AB casts faster, it will be even less AB spam time, since we have less mana and spam consumes it even faster.

So, haste allows us to change how we spend our mana. It allows to change from spending 2k mana on AB into spending it on rotations which are nearly 10 times as efficent to convert mana into damage.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/19/08 at 7:02 AM.
#2919SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
I agree partially with Roywyn and partially with Neuromaster (William Gibson fan by any chance?).

We conventionally calculate efficiency in terms of DPM. This is fine for fire and frost, but it is missleading for arcane. The DPM will ofcourse not change but given arcane regens a lot more from external factors (add OO5SR and I5SR huge tics in 2.4 to what fire and frost already get, ie. SP, Potspam, Managemspam, Mana spring) the relative benefit of external regen increases compared to DPM efficiency.

Strictly, the mana-spent/damage-dealt ratio will go down signifficantly when you break the 5SR but not more so than is reasonable sooner. JoW will also remain unaffected as it is irrelevant to haste.

I think it's safe to say that enough haste to erradicate the 5SR will effectively make the AB/AM rotations pointless. It says nothing however of AB/Fbolt or AB/Fball rotations. A high-haste spec will also be more sensitive to loss of regen; A SP death will hit harder on a high-haste build than on a no-haste build but the question remains will the efficiency loss be offset by superior DPS?

Personally I've got a slight impression in the back of my mind that perhaps there's merit in the ol'nabcake blue-gear spec of choice: 40/18/3 where you leech scorch off other firemages (given you have them of course) and spec your 18 into Master of Elements. I'd like to look into whether AB/AM rotations are in fact a better "economy" cycle than AB/FBall rotations given 3/3 MoE.
#2920SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Neuromaster
Edit: The following was written before I saw Roywyn's model. It's interesting, and haste looks more useful than I'd imagined. I don't trust myself to check that kind of math on a good day much less at 6am, but I have no particularly compelling reason to believe it's incorrect. Interesting that with more haste you want to cast fewer arcane blasts.

=============================

Yes, William Gibson FTW.

I'm working from the old two-cycle theory of max DPS for arcane. From my understanding, what that TC means in real life is that for any fight an arcane mage will run some ratio of two cycles, one being fully stacked AB and one being filler (some combination of AM/scorch/fireball/frostbolt). The two-cycle theory states that if you pick the correct filler cycle & the correct ratio between AB spam and filler, your damage is maximized and you end the fight with zero mana.

I'm also basically ignoring the effect haste has on OO5SR vs I5SR ticks. Partially because the math's ugly, partially because arcane mages already have 45% regen I5SR, and partially because it's so dependent on which filler cycle you pick. Full disclosure: my thoughts are so far 100% napkin math, but I still think spell haste is a bad itemization choice _regardless_ of your filler cycle.

The reasoning (in slightly more ugly detail) is as follows: Take any given fight duration - say 3 minutes. Given the DPS/DPM of your AB and filler rotations, along with your total mana pool over the duration (initial + all forms of regen), work out the optimal ratio between AB spam and filler - by the two-cycle theory, if you chose the correct cycles you're doing max DPS. Now maintaining that rotation, add enough passive haste to go OOM at the 2:40 mark.

If you were fire or frost, you'd chuckle gleefully and continue casting for the last 20s, but you're not - you're arcane, so you can do one of two things:

1) DPS for 20s on pure regen. Note this is still an improvement over the baseline - haste will always help _some_
2) Go back in time & run your theorycraft machine again, taking haste into account. You'll come up with a slightly different ratio of cycles that allows you to end the fight at zero mana at the 3 minute mark again. Again, an improvement over baseline.

In both cases there is an improvement, but it's minor compared to frost/fire, and I suspect related in a complicated and fugly way to mana availability & shifting relative efficiencies of cycles.

This is all very, very abstract and makes a number of dangerous assumptions. Do you know many arcane mages who know precisely how long each fight will be, how much total mana (including ALL forms of regen) they'll have at their disposal over that period of time, and use that information to work out exactly how many of each spell to cast? Yeah.

Last edited by Neuromaster : 02/19/08 at 6:08 AM.
#2921SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Neuromaster View Post
Do you know many arcane mages who know precisely how long each fight will be, how much total mana (including ALL forms of regen) they'll have at their disposal over that period of time, and use that information to work out exactly how many of each spell to cast? Yeah.
AB3FB3 burns 137 mps. You have up to 800mp5 from spirit, SP, BoW - stuff that works continuously (unlike pots, gems, Evo).
That means your mana will go up while doing your rotation (or spamming FB).

So, spam AB when your cooldowns are up and when you have high mana. Cast rotations when you're low on mana.
Start spamming AB when the mob has less than 90s to live and you should be able to finish with close to zero mana.

It's complicated in sheets, but it's really not rocket surgery in practise.


Edit:

In defense of Kaiida and Vontre - yes, the idea of Arcane specs is that you generate a ton of mana, spend it on some base rotation, and burn all the excessive mana via AB.
As such, using haste is counterintuitive, I agree.

But the issue is that the mana-to-damage conversion of AB is just horrid. "More mana" is simply the least effective way of increasing your total damage.

Look at the numbers of the first calculations.
With 41k mana, you do 537k damage.
You add another 50k mana for 74k more damage.

121% more mana for 14% more damage. Ouch.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/19/08 at 7:35 AM.
#2922SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Also something must be said of the transitions between "Economy" and "DPS" rotation. Looking at either the Kavan-style (AB/AM)*3/Sc or the conventional AB*3/AM/Sc (or AB*3/Fball*3 or AB*3/Fbolt*3) the exact turn-over point between the two states can be a signifficant difference in Overall DPS.

Take the following wrong scenario:
AB*3/AM/Sc -> AB spam. You gain 1x AB ramp time which effectively, while it looks like a conversion from Economy -> DPS cycle it in fact is one and a half Economy Cycle ( AB*3/Am/Sc/AB*3 -> AB spam). The optimal way to do this would be to forgo Sc and instead AB*3/AM/ -> AB spam, netting a fully ramped AB at the point of cycle-swap.

Likewise, it's possible to mix the cycles for even more confusing but possibly better theorycraft. Eg: AB*5/AM/Sc, or injecting a AM in the AB spam.

I feel there is signifficant error margin (>1%) to be erradicated from correct/effective cycle control. It's easy to say "start AB spam when you think boss will die with you OOM" but if you interrupt your cycle at the wrong point you might end up with 7.5sec worth of AB ramp you wouldn't have if you had skipped that last scorch.

Originally Posted by Neuromaster View Post
arcane mages already have 45% regen I5SR
Arcane mages in fact have 60% I5SR. Arcane Meditation was changed to 30% a while back, 2.2 I believe.
#2923SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by jula View Post
( 2.5 / ( 1 + x/1577) - 1 ) / 1.3 = 1
.

You sure it's not 1.5/(1+x/1570)/1.3=1 ??
#2924SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jula
#2923:
I did not actually test it myself, but it is my understanding that the benefit of haste rating is calculated using base cast time, which in this case is 2.5 seconds. If i am wrong, someone please say so.

I think some people are missing the huge DPS increase haste has on AB(3).
Lets compare some spells and see the effect of 25% haste for example:
1. scortch 1.5 seconds, with 25% hate - 1.5/1.25 = 1.2 seconds
2. fireball 3.5 seconds, with talents 3.0 seconds, with 25% haste - 3.5/1.25 - 0.5 = 2.3 seconds
3. frostbolt 3 seconds, with talents 2.5 seconds, with 25% haste - 3/1.25 - 0.5 = 1.9 seconds
4. AB 2.5 seconds, ramped X3 1.5 seconds, with 25% haste - 2.5/1.25 - 1 = 1.0 seconds

25% haste means that in the time you would cast 100 spells normally, you would accually cast 125.
now lets check what accually happends for each of these spells:

1. instead of 100 scortchs in 1.5*100 = 150 seconds, with 25% hate you would cast 150/1.2 = 125 scortches.
2. instead of 100 fireballs in 3.0*100 = 300 seconds, with 25% haste you would cast 300/2.3 = 130.4 fireballs
3. instead of 100 frostbolts in 2.5*100 = 250 seconds, with 25% haste you would cast 250/1.9 = 131.57 frostbolts.
4. instead of 100 AB(3) in 1.5 * 100 = 150 seconds, with 25% haste you would cast 150/1.0 = 150 AB(3).

So from the 25% haste we got from our gear we effective gain:
1. Scortch gains exsactly 25% effective haste.
2. Fireballs gain 30.4% effective haste.
3. Frostbolts gain 31.57% effective haste.
4. AB(3) gains 50% effective haste.

Notice frosbolts gain more than fireballs, this is because the "-0.5 seconds cast time" talent helps frostbolt more (0.5/3 > 0.5/3.5).
#2925SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by jula View Post
#2923:
I did not actually test it myself, but it is my understanding that the benefit of haste rating is calculated using base cast time, which in this case is 2.5 seconds. If i am wrong, someone please say so.
here is the question... I'll try it after work
#2926SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3skullpunch
#2923:
I did not actually test it myself, but it is my understanding that the benefit of haste rating is calculated using base cast time, which in this case is 2.5 seconds. If i am wrong, someone please say so.
Now, I haven't tested this myself with Arcane Blast, but Holy Light and Light's Grace are analogous enough. I can tell you that haste will affect the final cast time in that case.

That is: Without Light's Grace, your haste is applied to a 2.5s spell.
With Light's Grace, your haste is applied to a 2.0s spell.
#2927SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Stein
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
When I say I tested it that means I actually went to Dr. Boom and looked at spell info returned from server and combat log time stamps. Go out and try ramping it up a few times. 2nd AB will always be 2.5 sec and 4th AB won't coincide with GCD.
2/19 10:01:23.430 Your Arcane Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1423 Arcane damage.
2/19 10:01:23.690 You are afflicted by Arcane Blast.
2/19 10:01:24.612 Boom Bot is killed by Suicide.
2/19 10:01:24.612 Boom Bot dies.
2/19 10:01:25.733 Your Arcane Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1426 Arcane damage.
2/19 10:01:26.294 You are afflicted by Arcane Blast (2).
2/19 10:01:27.336 Boom Bot dies.

edit to add: so I think this proves that the debuff is being applied in time on the server, but not the client. so a modified quartz that assumed the debuff during ramp up could be useful.

Last edited by Stein : 02/19/08 at 3:41 PM.
#2928SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rounced
Anyone test the new version of the MSD to see if the hidden cooldown has been decreased?
#2929SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
passive haste cap with bloodlust for AB spam:


1.0049=(1.5/1.3)/(1+x/1570) // yes, we want 1.0049, because if the result is 1.0051, the game tooltip would show 1.1, here, he will show 1, we assume a 1.5 AB without haste.

1.0049=1.1538461538/(1+x/1570)

1+x/1570=1,148219876451541

x/1570=0,148219876451541

x = 232 haste
#2930SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
What would the value of [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] be for a deep fire mage? How does it compare to the other trinkets that are available?

It has a proc rate of 10% with an internal cooldown of 15 seconds. It should benefit from CoS, any generic damage talents a mage has (Playing With Fire), and ISB procs. It can crit, and probably uses the same crit rate as the caster.
#2931SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nork
According to this, it's worth 44 damage/healing. AM doesn't proc it, nor does the Fireball DoT/Ignite.
#2932SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
Originally Posted by Nork View Post
According to this, it's worth 44 damage/healing. AM doesn't proc it, nor does the Fireball DoT/Ignite.
http://elitistjerks.com/634913-post902.html

"I didn't really try to test out the proc rate on it, but i picked it up out of curiosity and came to find out it procs on Fireball DoT ticks."
#2933SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Xochi
Originally Posted by manly View Post
The fight lasted 2:20. The only possible way of killed it that fast is with a full raid with darkmoon faire buff.

Try again.

EDIT: Case in point, the first link you gave us shows 2:19 fight. This new one shows 2:20. So yes, you just effectively proved us one of either 2 things:
1- the date of the encounter is based on when you upload the parse (??? that would not make any sense but who knows)
2- vis maior modifies their parses (or rather, the date of encounter)

(besides, if you look at both parses they conspicuciously only show the first 4 bosses of BT, which is a clear indication of darkmoon faire buff)
I can assure you we do not use the darkmoon faire buff or modify the date on any parse. They usually show only the first 4 bosses because we upload the parse right after the kill then again after we kill illdian.

Last edited by Xochi : 02/19/08 at 6:39 PM.
#2934SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 manly
no worries, I believe you.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people using world buffs at all. I would somewhat encourage it and use it if I could too. What I really want is world buffs to be removed from raiding, because ultimately it means I get people to link me those and try to compare specs. Then its a real mess to try and establish any kind of comparison.

Please blizzard, remove world buffs from raids.

On a different note, you might want to know there exists another world buff that is even better than darkmoon faire. Unfortunately it is only for horde melee.

Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage - Spells - World of Warcraft = darkmoon faire buff (+1-10% damage)
Hellscream's Warsong - Spells - World of Warcraft = nagrand grandmother questline buff (+15% melee haste)

Last edited by manly : 02/19/08 at 4:42 PM.
#2935SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Stein View Post
2/19 10:01:23.430 Your Arcane Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1423 Arcane damage.
2/19 10:01:23.690 You are afflicted by Arcane Blast.
2/19 10:01:24.612 Boom Bot is killed by Suicide.
2/19 10:01:24.612 Boom Bot dies.
2/19 10:01:25.733 Your Arcane Blast hits Dr. Boom for 1426 Arcane damage.
2/19 10:01:26.294 You are afflicted by Arcane Blast (2).
2/19 10:01:27.336 Boom Bot dies.

edit to add: so I think this proves that the debuff is being applied in time on the server, but not the client. so a modified quartz that assumed the debuff during ramp up could be useful.
This would indeed suggest that it is working correctly. I don't know what would be the cause for different results. You didn't have any passive haste right? This is the old post I was talking about before http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15980-m...iously_broken/ . I guess at this point the only course of action would be for more people to do the testing to try to figure out what is at the root of the problem.
#2936SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
I scrolled through a couple of logs to check how often the WE casts waterbolt.

The listed cast time is 2.5 seconds.
In the logs, the delay between spell hits are usually 2.7s-3.2s apart.

If we want to model things as close to to reality as we can, we should probably assume a 2.9s cast time on Waterbolt to account for the unavoidable dealy.
#2937SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
What fights did you look at combat log, if you summon it out of range it has to run into position, if the boss moves it runs into position, were these tank and spank fights?
#2938SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
What fights did you look at combat log, if you summon it out of range it has to run into position, if the boss moves it runs into position, were these tank and spank fights?
No movement, really just basic nuke fights. Gurtogg, Reliquary, Sharaz.
It doesn't get any dumber than those really.

Looked at Council and Illidan too, looked similar. They aren't reliable though.

Most spell hit delays are in the 2.7-3.2s bracket.
Also had one with 2.2s, but the next one was 3.5s. I guess that one cast got tracked too early. Usual log lag issues.
#2939SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Stein
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
You didn't have any passive haste right? This is the old post I was talking about before http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t15980-m...iously_broken/ . I guess at this point the only course of action would be for more people to do the testing to try to figure out what is at the root of the problem.
No passive haste equipped (in pvp gear actually).

That post doesn't have any updates since the stopcasting mechanic was changed. It may not have worked back then.

Casting .2 before quartz says i should is dangerous too though. Sometimes i lose count and try to cast it too early after i've fully ramped up.
#2940SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3epiphenom
Originally Posted by jula View Post
#2923:
I did not actually test it myself, but it is my understanding that the benefit of haste rating is calculated using base cast time, which in this case is 2.5 seconds. If i am wrong, someone please say so.
You are wrong.

I've always calculated effects of haste on my Fireball as on a 3.0s cast time, and the numbers match exactly. Haste is calculated on the actual cast time of the spell, not on the base.
#2941SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
haste and AB

3.88% more damage from 5% haste on gear. This is very far from being a useless stat.
This is far from an "stack-worthy" stat as well though. It's just like saying 80 intelect would give me a 1% DPS increase as 2.3 fire, which is far from useless, however it doesn't mean it's worth stacking.

For current fire specs haste is around 1.1-1.3 spell damage worth, ignoring additional mana consumption (which actually affects fire as well but it's hard to predict as the dps increase depends on what kind of mana restoring abilities yuo're already using as those will affect what kind of dps buffs you would be gaining if you had extra mana). For arcane blast extra mana consumption means even less dps as we are actually taking into account the noticeable dps increase you get from extra mana converted into extra arcane blasts. This means haste for arcane blast specs is at least somewhere under haste for fire spec, which would then mean it's probably under spell damage as well.

Will haste increase your DPS as 2.4 arcane? Yes. Does it make the best use of the itemization value? No, at least based on the calculations I've seen so far which definitely makes sense.
#2942SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
jogjog
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
This is far from an "stack-worthy" stat as well though. It's just like saying 80 intelect would give me a 1% DPS increase as 2.3 fire, which is far from useless, however it doesn't mean it's worth stacking.

For current fire specs haste is around 1.1-1.3 spell damage worth, ignoring additional mana consumption (which actually affects fire as well but it's hard to predict as the dps increase depends on what kind of mana restoring abilities yuo're already using as those will affect what kind of dps buffs you would be gaining if you had extra mana). For arcane blast extra mana consumption means even less dps as we are actually taking into account the noticeable dps increase you get from extra mana converted into extra arcane blasts. This means haste for arcane blast specs is at least somewhere under haste for fire spec, which would then mean it's probably under spell damage as well.

Will haste increase your DPS as 2.4 arcane? Yes. Does it make the best use of the itemization value? No, at least based on the calculations I've seen so far which definitely makes sense.
I'm ok with this, but we all know that itemisation is tending to haste, especially in sunwell. Other items have some hit. So with a hit cap of 129 for a 40/0/21, you will have haste, wanting it or not.

Starting on this, I'll personnaly try to limit my haste from 108 to 151, use IV and Bloodlust separatly, and try to keep cycles (just making only AB while AP):
Here are my calculation to justify it:


The cycles will be: 3 frostbolt injected, but 4 while BL or IV:

108 haste:
-normal: AB=1.4 FB=2.34 2.34*3=7.02
-IV: AB=1.17 FB= 1.95 1.95*4=7.8 (tested it on dr boom, not in raid)
-BL: AB=1.08 FB= 1.8 1.8*4=7.2


151 haste :
-normal : AB=1.37 FB=2.28 2.28*3=6.84
-IV : AB=1.14 FB=1.9 1.90*4=7.6
-BL : AB=1.05 FB=1.75 1.75*4=7

Last edited by jogjog : 02/19/08 at 10:51 PM.
#2943SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Copernicus
Mage updates with latest test realm patch-

# Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
# Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
# Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
# Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
# New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
#2944SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
Mage updates with latest test realm patch-

# Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
# Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
# Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
# Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
# New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
It's unfortunate Blizzard made such a huge nerf to mage raid DPS because of a purely PvP reason (shaman-mage teams in areans). If this goes through, fire is going to take a significant hit.
#2945SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gaunt
Originally Posted by Copernicus View Post
Mage updates with latest test realm patch-

# Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
# Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
# Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
# Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
# New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
QQ start

PvP ruined PvE i dont see why they dont just take a little bit of time and modify it so you cant stack the two while in a arena.

QQ end

My question is how will this affect CD rotations. Combust/IV trinket first min, IV/trinket as soon asp. Then combust/Hero trinket while under 20%?

Also how noticeable do yall predict this nerf will be on over dps?
#2946SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Very noticeable, I think. If the fight is long enough, it just means you'll Bloodlust/Heroism around 20%, then use IV down to death (I'm guessing). If it's not long enough, then you'll have to use IV before lust goes up, or at some other point during the fight. Either way, this change sucks. PvP changes that break perfectly acceptable PvE mechanics are freaking obnoxious.
#2947SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Mysticfox
Originally Posted by Saphya View Post
I just found this Vis Major WWS stats of Gorefiend: LINK.

That's a pretty good example what superior support can do. This WWS shows 2767 DPS for Mysticfox (Gnome Mage), which is probably the highest mage DPS on Gorefiend so far. If you take a look at raid at the raid composition it looks like the ideal setup to support this mage: Mysticfox seemed to have not only Curse of Elements and a ideal group (Shadowpriest + Elemental Shaman + Moonkin) and 3 drums of battle, but also some really nice stacking in Molten Fury range:

03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Fel Infusion
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Mojo Madness
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Icy Veins
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Combustion
03:21'18.187	Mysticfox gains Destruction
03:21'18.562	Mysticfox gains Power Infusion
Which lead to some nice fireball crits

Gaining all sorts of insane buffs (like Power Infusion which you usually just don't get) can really push your DPS by an considerable amount, but i did not expect the difference to be THAT high.
Actually that week's kill was far from perfect. The scorch debuff fell off 18-19sec before the boss died due to the mage maintaining the debuff dying. Additionally I went OOM sub 20% and had to get a single tick of evocate to continue =/. The reason DPS is so high is the short length of the fight increases the overall uptime of my cooldowns.

Also, we did not have any world buffs active. For reference please see below for our logs from tonight. Whichever mage lands the first scorch is tasked with the job of keeping the stack up. This is because we are not using Scorchio and the second mage to scorch cannot see the time remaining on the debuff.

Wow Web Stats = 2633 dps on Naj'entus (Look at max ignite, I had a huge crit streak w/ multiple 8.1k crits in a row sub 20% with cooldown stacking, the ignite stack fell off at the end of the fight but it was nothing but an insanely lucky streak)
Wow Web Stats = 2643 dps on Teron Gorefiend (Power Infusion at 20% with cooldown stacking, Moonkin Aura, extra Heroism)

Last edited by Mysticfox : 02/20/08 at 4:18 AM.
#2948SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 hypetech
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
Very noticeable, I think. If the fight is long enough, it just means you'll Bloodlust/Heroism around 20%, then use IV down to death (I'm guessing). If it's not long enough, then you'll have to use IV before lust goes up, or at some other point during the fight. Either way, this change sucks. PvP changes that break perfectly acceptable PvE mechanics are freaking obnoxious.
I think the biggest hit is going to be those of us that raid with shammys that like to bloodlust randomly. If a shaman pops BL as soon as you pop an IV, it's a complete waste of one of them. >.<
#2949SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
I think the biggest hit is going to be those of us that raid with shammys that like to bloodlust randomly. If a shaman pops BL as soon as you pop an IV, it's a complete waste of one of them. >.<
It's up to your raid leader/CO to make sure that random bloodlusts don't happen =P
#2950SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gaunt
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
I think the biggest hit is going to be those of us that raid with shammys that like to bloodlust randomly. If a shaman pops BL as soon as you pop an IV, it's a complete waste of one of them. >.<
You should look to replace that sham. Having a sham pop hero before 20% is a very large lose in dps for mages.
#2951SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Alcyon
One possible offset to the IV/Heroism nerf is the new Improved Fire Ward talent - 2 points causes it to affect ranged and spells, and a lot of raid encounters have raid wide AOE damage. It will be interesting to see which encounters this will be helpful on - I guess it depends on which encounters have the boss as the source of the damage (e.g. Kael's Arcane Explosion) and which use an invisible dummy (like the ground effect on Onyxia) as I suspect situations like the latter won't proc the damage on the boss but the former may.

I can't wait to try to kill myself on every fight so I do more damage!
#2952SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3rautrix
This is starting to look like the "leaked" patch notes that were floating around and proceeded the first official release.

I believe all that is left is the no spell pushback on IV and Ice Floes.
#2953SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Not certain whether it's a bug or not but my Molten Armor has been proccing off everything on the PTR, even without the talent.
#2954SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Wow Web Stats
04:38'19.890 Xerred gains Drums of Battle
04:38'19.890 Rormoon gains Drums of Battle
04:38'19.906 Mysticfox gains Drums of Battle
[no other drum gains ?]
[...]
04:38'20.265 Xerred gains Drums of Battle
04:38'20.265 Rormoon gains Blessing of Remulos
04:38'20.265 Mysticfox gains Drums of Battle
[...]
04:38'20.671 Firbalicious gains Drums of Battle
04:38'20.671 Reedu gains Drums of Battle
Another nice example of merged combatlogs.
#2955SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mysticfox
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Wow Web Stats

Another nice example of merged combatlogs.
It's actually an example of group swapping mid-fight to optimize for DPS or possible latency on Leica's end (?)
#2956SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Usually, if you have a buff, unless you click it off, it won't show on the combatlogs when you gain it again.

I suspect you mean that swapping group somehow refreshes the drums in the combatlogs ?
#2957SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rensy
I suspect he misunderstood what you were getting at :/

I have a fraps of our most recent kill however, if you would like to see it! I mean, I don't really know what to say.. this seems like an unjust accusation. If the goal is for accurate theorycrafting on this board then I don't see the purpose of doing "investigative reporting" within these logs to try and prove something that simply isn't the case. In other words, what is the purpose of going out of your way to discredit us?

I'm not an expert when it comes to the wow web stats client, but I can tell you that the kill times are accurate, because I have fraps for the Naj'entus, Teron, and Archimonde kills of tonight... all of which came in at number 1 on the public WWS.

I don't see why we need to be judged in particular. I know for my particular class I really enjoy maximizing my DPS, and so does my friend Mysticfox. So here's the deal, if you want to question us, I'm going to say "Okay, here's the video". It's either that, or I would graciously ask you to stop trying to discredit our accomplishments, because we put at least a fair deal of effort into our DPS, and it helps no one in the community to invalidate a very strong WWS, when other people could perhaps use similar investigation to yield positive results.

All this is kind of funny, because we made a conscious decision to not get world buffs. They absolutely trivialize the competition, and moreover they destroy the merits of the parses in regards to their theorycrafting value.

On the first page of the first log I could find from <Elitist Jerks>, the 98th placed Naj'entus, I found this evidence.

02:19'24.569 Manly gains Drums of Battle
[...]
02:19'25.011 Eswedge gains Drums of Battle
02:19'25.011 Siawyn gains Drums of Battle
02:19'25.017 Ironis gains Drums of Battle
[...]
02:19'25.386 Lailla gains Drums of Battle
[...]
02:19'28.613 Eswedge gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
02:19'28.613 Siawyn gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
02:19'28.613 Manly gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
02:19'28.613 Lailla gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
02:19'28.613 Ironis gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
Come on man. Are you altering your 98th place combat log to try and cheat the competition? In other words, your evidence is simply lack luster. Would you like the videos to prove these are valid WWS's, or can the community just agree to trust us?
#2958SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Mysticfox View Post
It's actually an example of group swapping mid-fight to optimize for DPS or possible latency on Leica's end (?)
Actually, you're in luck. It's easy to see given the VE heals from Xerred.

04:38'17.062 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Reedu for 232
04:38'17.062 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Firbalicious for 184
04:38'17.062 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Mysticfox for 184
04:38'17.062 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Rormoon for 185
04:38'17.062 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Xerred for 247
[...]
04:38'17.468 Xerred gains 42 Mana from Vampiric Touch
04:38'17.468 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Reedu for 211
04:38'17.468 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Firbalicious for 167
04:38'17.468 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Mysticfox for 167
04:38'17.468 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Rormoon for 168 (proof of no swap before)
[...]
04:38'19.890 Xerred gains Drums of Battle
04:38'19.890 Rormoon gains Drums of Battle
04:38'19.906 Mysticfox gains Drums of Battle
[...]
04:38'19.906 Reedu gains 38 Mana from Vampiric Touch of Xerred (proof of no swap after)
04:38'19.906 Firbalicious gains 38 Mana from Vampiric Touch of Xerred
04:38'19.906 Mysticfox gains 38 Mana from Vampiric Touch of Xerred
04:38'19.906 Rormoon gains 38 Mana from Vampiric Touch of Xerred
04:38'19.906 Xerred gains 38 Mana from Vampiric Touch
[...]
04:38'20.265 Xerred gains Drums of Battle
04:38'20.265 Rormoon gains Blessing of Remulos
04:38'20.265 Mysticfox gains Drums of Battle
[...]
04:38'20.671 Firbalicious gains Drums of Battle
04:38'20.671 Reedu gains Drums of Battle
[...]
04:38'20.687 Xerred gains 42 Mana from Vampiric Touch (proof of no swap after)
04:38'20.687 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Reedu for 210
04:38'20.687 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Firbalicious for 167
04:38'20.687 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Mysticfox for 167
04:38'20.687 Xerred's Vampiric Embrace heals Rormoon for 167
Proof: there was no group swapping.

I just want to be clear here. I know your numbers work, I do believe they are legit. While I did believe you were using darkmoon faire buff (mostly because I saw only the first 4 bosses on the parses), and I can see with the heavy group stacking that the numbers were done without it. Don't get me wrong, the numbers are nothing short of impressive, and does show that mages benefit a lot form group stacking. However, I can't stop but notice...why are you mentioning group swaps when there wasn't ? I'm not even questioning your numbers. The drums didn't make any sense doing a cursory look. I pointed it out and looked for it only because I saw too many merged logs that shows things like double curse of doom 3 seconds apart, or 4x soulshatter in a 2min fight. I have seen many many many bugged merged logs, enough to make me simply dismiss 100% of anything that remotely looks like one, because I can't know for sure what got double counted from what wasn't.
#2959SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rensy
Also, just so you know... Mystic thought the group swapping was in relation to our Teron kill.
#2960SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mysticfox
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Actually, you're in luck. It's easy to see given the VE heals from Xerred.



Proof: there was no group swapping.

I just want to be clear here. I know your numbers work, I do believe they are legit. While I did believe you were using darkmoon faire buff (mostly because I saw only the first 4 bosses on the parses), and I can see with the heavy group stacking that the numbers were done without it. Don't get me wrong, the numbers are nothing short of impressive, and does show that mages benefit a lot form group stacking. However, I can't stop but notice...why are you mentioning group swaps when there wasn't ? I'm not even questioning your numbers. The drums didn't make any sense doing a cursory look. I pointed it out and looked for it only because I saw too many merged logs that shows things like double curse of doom 3 seconds apart, or 4x soulshatter in a 2min fight. I have seen many many many bugged merged logs, enough to make me simply dismiss 100% of anything that remotely looks like one, because I can't know for sure what got double counted from what wasn't.
Sorry, I did not thoroughly read through your post and look at the particular WWS report you had linked. I thought you were referencing the Drum of Battle gains from our Teron Gorefiend kill, where I was indeed swapped into another group mid-fight.
#2961SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I am confused, what is wrong with the parse from our najentus kill? There is 5 buff gains from drums, I am the only leatherworker in the group. I pointed out your parse because it shows 7 drums gains that are less than 1 second apart.
#2962SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rensy
Oh, okay... I thought you were pointing out the latency discrepancy present in the combat logs. Regardless, the rest of the point stands... but I guess you've embraced the idea that we didn't use the Darkmoon buff and the numbers do add up, so I think the point I was trying to make at the end of my post is moot.
#2963SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Genocidal
Forgive my intrusion on the world buff subject but what kind of effect does molten shield proc on ranged/spells?
The patch notes are somewhat unclear about it.
#2964SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
This is far from an "stack-worthy" stat as well though. It's just like saying 80 intelect would give me a 1% DPS increase as 2.3 fire, which is far from useless, however it doesn't mean it's worth stacking.

<Stuff>

Will haste increase your DPS as 2.4 arcane? Yes. Does it make the best use of the itemization value? No, at least based on the calculations I've seen so far which definitely makes sense.
5% haste ~ 79 haste rating. Using magegraph (since I can't be bothered to do all the calculations again) with the same gear, I get the following for comparison.
+79 intellect => +3.3% DPS
+79 crit rating => +2.7% DPS
+79 spirit => +1.8% DPS
+91 (79*1.15) damage => +3.5% DPS
+79 haste rating gave me +3.8% DPS in my calculations.

I ran the haste on magegraph again, +79 haste gave me +3.2% damage and 1144 more mana at the end which can be used for another +0.3% DPS.


Now I'm really curious which stat is so much better than haste.


Edit: I didn't check the exact spells cast, but more haste means leass spam time, so you won't have the exact cast sequence, and therefore end up with a different amount of mana.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/20/08 at 5:07 AM.
#2965SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3rautrix
Originally Posted by Genocidal View Post
Forgive my intrusion on the world buff subject but what kind of effect does molten shield proc on ranged/spells?
The patch notes are somewhat unclear about it.

Your Molten Armor will proc 75 dmg to a ranged attack/spell. Not possible before this patch.

i.e. You can proc Impact on a hunter if you were deep fire and pvp'ing. Before, it was only melee.
#2966SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Genocidal: Apparently it procs the 75 damage "thorns effect" of Molten armor conventionally seen only Vs. Melee. Mostly a PvP buff as far as I can see. Another rather hopeless attempt to lure more pvp mages out of frost.

Roywyn: I'm puzzled by the +79haste = 1144 more mana. It's interesting that you gained significant Dmg gain but odd that it was cheaper. Did the simulator end up with much more Economy Cycle DPS time?
#2967SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
The effect of IV/Heroism no longer stacking is surprisingly small for Arcane, on the order of 0.1%. This means that during Heroism you should AB spam and use AP. For the rest of AP they should still be stacked with IV and AB spam. So nothing really changes here, use all cooldowns on AB spam, the only thing different is slight desync of AP and IV for Heroism which you would have to do anyway with passive haste.
#2968SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Baruk
If I'm not completely mistaken, the rumor about IV/BL not stacking comes from the fake patchnotes that were posted on mmo-champion.com
Nothing of it is contained in the official patchnotes so that this discussion is somewhat void.
#2969SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I am confused, what is wrong with the parse from our najentus kill? There is 5 buff gains from drums, I am the only leatherworker in the group. I pointed out your parse because it shows 7 drums gains that are less than 1 second apart.
yes, I also noticed it on an Akama report:


00:00'22.406 Jogjog gains Pouvoir des arcanes
00:00'22.859 Jogjog gains Présence spirituelle
00:00'23.640 Jogjog gains Bénédiction du Croissant d'argent
00:00'23.640 Jogjog gains Héroïsme

00:00'23.656 Jogjog's Déflagration des arcanes crits Ombre d'Akama for 4593 Arcane damage (757 resisted)
00:00'24.015 Jogjog is afflicted by Déflagration des arcanes
00:00'26.804 Jogjog gains Pouvoir des arcanes
00:00'26.875 Jogjog's Déflagration des arcanes crits Ombre d'Akama for 6294 Arcane damage
00:00'26.960 Jogjog gains Présence spirituelle
00:00'27.070 Jogjog gains Bénédiction du Croissant d'argent
00:00'27.085 Jogjog gains Héroïsme
00:00'27.132 Jogjog's Déflagration des arcanes crits Ombre d'Akama for 4593 Arcane damage (757 resisted)

00:00'27.179 Jogjog is afflicted by Déflagration des arcanes
00:00'27.648 Jogjog is afflicted by Déflagration des arcanes

I think it can happen when 2 or more people record the combatlog, and one of them has a lag..
#2970SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Toonie
Originally Posted by Baruk View Post
If I'm not completely mistaken, the rumor about IV/BL not stacking comes from the fake patchnotes that were posted on mmo-champion.com
Nothing of it is contained in the official patchnotes so that this discussion is somewhat void.
It's included here: US-PTR-notes
Seems pretty official to me. Can only hope it'll change back before 2.4 hits live.
#2971SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by Toonie View Post
It's included here: US-PTR-notes
Seems pretty official to me. Can only hope it'll change back before 2.4 hits live.

It is very ironic that more of those so called "fake patch notes" are making thier way into the PTR.
#2972SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
They never were posted as "fake patch notes". They were posted as "leaked notes", which were being discussed and seemed perfectly logical as a list of "things to look into and possibly work into PTR". They looked more "minutes of long meeting" than patch notes to me.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me that they're disseminating them and deciding pro/con each one, progressively releasing them onto PTR.
#2973SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
It is very ironic that more of those so called "fake patch notes" are making thier way into the PTR.
If they could make real the anti pushback in frost tree and the warlock nerf I'll be happy :p
#2974SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Baruk
Ok I have to apologize, this is not yet included in the patch notes on the EU wow site.
Damn them IV/hero was so much fun :/
#2975SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by jogjog View Post
If they could make real the anti pushback in frost tree and the warlock nerf I'll be happy :p
I'm waiting with baited breath for their ISB talent to (1) get a nerf (2) work on fire too. Can you immagine ISB now proccing only (say) 10% dmg buff but Incinerate also buffing fire by 10%? We'd be back at MC-level of DPS hierarchy. Sadly, it'd kill off arcane 2.4.

On the other hand, there -is- a "leaked note" about ISB affecting only the warlock, so this potential fire buff would also affect only the warlock.

One can only wait and wonder.
#2976SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
The effect of IV/Heroism no longer stacking is surprisingly small for Arcane, on the order of 0.1%. This means that during Heroism you should AB spam and use AP. For the rest of AP they should still be stacked with IV and AB spam. So nothing really changes here, use all cooldowns on AB spam, the only thing different is slight desync of AP and IV for Heroism which you would have to do anyway with passive haste.
Heroism is 30% haste for 40s. 40s*30% = 12s. What it effectively does is giving you 12s extra cast time for free.
In a world without clickies and cooldowns, it wouldn't matter what you do during heroism, and what you do before/afterwards.

It takes a bit to grasp it, but it really doesn't matter how you spread your casts.
A 40s fight is a 40s fight. A 40s fight under heroism is effectively a 40s*130% = 52s fight concerning your mana and casts.
Heroism gives you 12s free cast time.
And in a long fight (300s), Heroism does the same. It gives you 12s free casting, and it doesn't matter for the total damage whether you spam AB or your DPM thing* under Heroism.

I did the calculation with the data from before (300s fights, a few posts above), and both models - AB spam, or rotations during Heroism - yielded the same damage and mana use.


Of course, this changes with cooldowns. Stacking cooldowns gives you more then alternating, using Heroism under Arcane Power effectively gives you 19.5s of Arcane Power, your trinkets are amplified, etc.

And of course, with 30% haste you'll have to use another DPM rotation because the AB debuff wouldn't run off.
And it's easier to just spam AB and know that you don't use anything doing so than changing rotations on the fly and most likely mess them up.



Edit:
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
While that might be true for arcane, it's not true for fire because the improved scorch buff doesn't wear off 30% faster.
Yes, I should have been clearer on that. If you just use 2 rigid rotations, it doesn't matter when to use heroism.

But as soon as it dynamic, you should stack your cooldowns and blow them on whatever gives you most scaled damage.

Thanks for pointing that out. Nothing hurts more than renewing scorch with a full bar of buffs ticking

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/20/08 at 10:35 AM.
#2977SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Baruk
Has anyone evaluated yet the dmg loose for 2/48/11?
Or the influenced on the "optimal" CD stacking for that spec than?
Anyhow that probably belongs into the "Mage Cooldown Management " thread...
#2978SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
So much for fire raiding in the sunwell if that IV/BL change stays. I really don't see how it's going to compete with AB/FB as it wasn't that far behind in the first place. This will hit fire much harder than arcane/frost since you wouldn't want to pop both of them at the same time in the first place. It would take you to below the GCD for AB spam.


Vontre, let us know when you update your simulator. I'd like to see the affects on your model.
#2979SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3tedv
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Heroism is 30% haste for 40s. 40s*30% = 12s. What it effectively does is giving you 12s extra cast time for free.
In a world without clickies and cooldowns, it wouldn't matter what you do during heroism, and what you do before/afterwards.

It takes a bit to grasp it, but it really doesn't matter how you spread your casts.
A 40s fight is a 40s fight. A 40s fight under heroism is effectively a 40s*130% = 52s fight concerning your mana and casts.
Heroism gives you 12s free cast time.
And in a long fight (300s), Heroism does the same. It gives you 12s free casting, and it doesn't matter for the total damage whether you spam AB or your DPM thing* under Heroism.
While that might be true for arcane, it's not true for fire because the improved scorch buff doesn't wear off 30% faster. It turns your 8:1 or 9:1 rotation into a 10:1 or 11:1 rotation. You get 12 extra seconds, but all 12 of those will cast fireball (as opposed to normal cast time, which only fireballs 95% of the time). That's not a huge difference, but it's worth noting.
#2980SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Doroteasenjk
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
On the other hand, there -is- a "leaked note" about ISB affecting only the warlock, so this potential fire buff would also affect only the warlock.
And that item makes my pocket shadow priest cry. When he cries, my mana suffers. Personally, I would prefer to see the damage multipliers for warlock damage reduced to something sensible before seeing this.
#2981SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
galzohar
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
5% haste ~ 79 haste rating. Using magegraph (since I can't be bothered to do all the calculations again) with the same gear, I get the following for comparison.
+79 intellect => +3.3% DPS
+79 crit rating => +2.7% DPS
+79 spirit => +1.8% DPS
+91 (79*1.15) damage => +3.5% DPS
+79 haste rating gave me +3.8% DPS in my calculations.

I ran the haste on magegraph again, +79 haste gave me +3.2% damage and 1144 more mana at the end which can be used for another +0.3% DPS.


Now I'm really curious which stat is so much better than haste.


Edit: I didn't check the exact spells cast, but more haste means leass spam time, so you won't have the exact cast sequence, and therefore end up with a different amount of mana.
Seems I was looking at the numbers wrong. It does seem a little wierd though, although it does mean mana is not *that* much dps for arcane, probably due to the low mana->dps conversion, and intelect just scales much becuase it adds a little crit, a little spell damage *and* a little mana which adds up. I need to find the time to look more into it though.

A 40s fight is a 40s fight. A 40s fight under heroism is effectively a 40s*130% = 52s fight concerning your mana and casts.
Yes, but with only 40s worth of mana regen still. So it's less than a direct 30% dps increase.

As for stacking AP with BL/IV, unless I'm missing something AP increases your AB spam efficiency and doing so during BL/IV would actually allow more "efficient" ABs to be cast in the fight, doing more DPM, which would result in more DPS.

Last edited by galzohar : 02/20/08 at 12:25 PM.
#2982SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by jogjog View Post
yes, I also noticed it on an Akama report:

I think it can happen when 2 or more people record the combatlog, and one of them has a lag..
00:00'23.656 Jogjog's Déflagration des arcanes crits Ombre d'Akama for 4593 Arcane damage (757 resisted)
[...]
00:00'27.132 Jogjog's Déflagration des arcanes crits Ombre d'Akama for 4593 Arcane damage (757 resisted)
Yes, this is what merged logs do. See the same spell got recorded twice (unless you somehow...hit for the same amount, which seems dubious considering the copy of information from the above/after data). This is why I have been decrying people from not using merged logs - at all - we just don't know if spells are in there twice or what else got 'merged'. I suggested Vontre to put a 'merge logs' button in his simulator that would randomly add possibly a fireball or 2 in your dps (within the same time frame), and you can press the merge log key as often as you like. Of course, I said it jokingly, but that is exactly how I feel about merged logs. And unfortunately they recently removed the display of 'from whom the logs come from' so I can't tell apart if the logs are merged or not, so I can't know anymore whats legit from whats not.
#2983SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
I'm waiting with baited breath for their ISB talent to (1)
Honestly, as much as I love to hate that we have to use complex and shaman-dependent cooldown management to keep up with Warlocks, nerfing Warlock damage is not a buff to Mages, it's just a nerf to Warlocks.

If they nerf both of us, we still both end up further behind Hunters(who are insanely overpowered) and Rogues, which is not good for the caster section of the raid at all. Blizzard needs to rethink this nonsense of nerfing casters when we are already typically behind in terms of dps.
#2984SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Honestly, as much as I love to hate that we have to use complex and shaman-dependent cooldown management to keep up with Warlocks, nerfing Warlock damage is not a buff to Mages, it's just a nerf to Warlocks.

If they nerf both of us, we still both end up further behind Hunters(who are insanely overpowered) and Rogues, which is not good for the caster section of the raid at all. Blizzard needs to rethink this nonsense of nerfing casters when we are already typically behind in terms of dps.
/agree

The only reason warlocks are able to produce such high DPS is because of ISB. If ISB were to be nerfed, even if it is restricted to single warlocks, it would still be a nerf to overall raid dps because shadowpriests would lose much of their synergy. This in turn results in less mana - which will become significant if mages go back to arcane.
#2985SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nytro
I agree for the most part, Pintofbrew said it on page 119:

I'm waiting with baited breath for their ISB talent to (1) get a nerf (2) work on fire too. Can you imagine ISB now proccing only (say) 10% dmg buff but Incinerate also buffing fire by 10%? We'd be back at MC-level of DPS hierarchy. Sadly, it'd kill off arcane 2.4.
This would be amazing for mages if something like this went live and help bring some cross class synergy to mages since they would benefit from Improved Scorch damage boost while likewise we would benefit from the Incinerate boost.

One thing I would like to change with Improved scorch is how the bonus damage component directly into fireballs works, such as Winter's Chill does for Frostbolt which would reduce initial ramp up times needed with multiple fire mages in a raid. Do the numbers back this at all as a small boost or just 1 less button Ezmode for mages?

3X mages stacking Scorch (spell cast + GCD) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

3X mages starting Fireballs (with Improved scorch built into fireball) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

There would be a small offset since there would be no breakage in a fireball rotation to toss in a single Scorch once the initial stacking was complete.

EDIT:

Should also add with the above question that with a comparison of the 2 with a 1min fight duration as a example and static damage of a fireball, which will provide the most damage in that time frame ? First glance would tell me, fireball with Improved Scorch.

Last edited by Nytro : 02/20/08 at 4:53 PM.
#2986SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3tedv
Originally Posted by Nytro View Post
This would be amazing for mages if something like this went live and help bring some cross class synergy to mages since they would benefit from Improved Scorch damage boost while likewise we would benefit from the Incinerate boost.

One thing I would like to change with Improved scorch is how the bonus damage component directly into fireballs works, such as Winter's Chill does for Frostbolt which would reduce initial ramp up times needed with multiple fire mages in a raid. Do the numbers back this at all as a small boost or just 1 less button Ezmode for mages?

3X mages stacking Scorch (spell cast + GCD) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

3X mages starting Fireballs (with Improved scorch built into fireball) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

There would be a small offset since there would be no breakage in a fireball rotation to toss in a single Scorch once the initial stacking was complete.
Since Mages have three trees focused on doing damage, I'd love it if at least two trees had a non-stacking raid damage buff like Misery, and the third tree was the highest solo damage. Then you'd actually have incentive to bring all three mage specs to a raid. Winter's Chill could be that damage buff if it affected all spell (at a reduced rate). Same concept holds for Improved Shadow Bolt. The less spell school restrictions there are, the more encouragement there is for class/spec diversity. I mean, it's not like physical damage classes have one kind of armor penetration for rogues and another for hunters. Why should casters have some things for shadow damage, others for fire and frost? Misery and Judgment of the Crusader are the only buffs I can think of that benefit any spell regardless of school. Oh and Improved Faerie Fire, but even that's not enough to make most guilds bring a moonkin.
#2987SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Inoko
Originally Posted by Nytro View Post
3X mages stacking Scorch (spell cast + GCD) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

3X mages starting Fireballs (with Improved scorch built into fireball) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?.

Scorch with three mages is: 4.5 seconds (unhasted at all) for the first fireball, if the mages worked out before hand who was doing what.

0.00 all three mages cast scorch.
1.50 3x stack of scorch is up.
1.50 two mages start casting scorch.
1.50 one mage starts casting fireball.
3.00 5xstack of scorch.
3.00 two mages start casting fireball.
4.50 first fireball lands.
6.00 the other two fireballs land.

Fireball that applies a debuff given the same unhasted-ness.

0.00 all three mages start casting fireball.
3.00 all three fireballs are cast.
3.00 3x debuff (technically 4.0~ or so for fireball flight time)
3.00 all three mages start casting fireball.
6.00 all three fireballs are cast.
6.00 6x debuff -- only 5x applied, one is essentially "wasted" debuff wise. (technically 7.0~ or so)
6.00 all three mages start casting fireball.
9.00 all three fireballs are cast.

The fireballs cast at 6.00, assuming all are cast from the same distance at exactly the same time, will apply the debuff simultaneously and none will be effected by the last two stacks. The fully stacked fireballs will start hitting at 9.00.

The loss in initial DPS would be 3.5 fireballs (3, since half a fireball can't actually be lost) at a full stack, but is offset by having (3fireball-3scorch) damage added on the first cast, and (3fireball*3debuff-2scorch*debuff) on the second cast. or...

3 Fireballs * 1.15 versus ((3Fireball*1.0-3Scorch)) + ((3fireball*1.09)-(2scorch*1.09))
3.45FB || 3FB -3SC + 3.27FB - 2.18SC
3.45FB || 6.27FB - 5.18SC

Very bad napkin math for you there, but your 6.27FB - 5.18SC has to be >= 3.45 FB for the second one to be more damage. Or, 2.82FB have to be worth 5.18SC. I think. My brain isn't fully on, and I expect someone to come by and tear my math to pieces by pointing out an obvious flaw.


[Edit: in a one minute fight, the theoreticaly fireball that applies debuff would save you one to two scorches, depending on how perfect your ratio is -- probably two, since most mages will err on the side of caution for the debuff in MF range.
#2988SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
As of the last PTR push - they have taken all stamina off of the new tier 6 pieces

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...estregalia.jpg

I believe our hit problems are solved.
#2989SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey


Good change in that we got our hit, bad news is that we still kept our spirit, and lost our stam. Lets hope for one more change.

EDIT: Fuck that previous reply wasn't there when I clicked reply!
#2990SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
As of the last PTR push - they have taken all stamina off of the new tier 6 pieces

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...estregalia.jpg

I believe our hit problems are solved.
Seems like Blizzard is trying to prevent a case where players can use both the 4-piece T6 and 4-piece gladiator at the same time.
#2991SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Koosha
Yeah I really hope the t6 stays this way. Manly and I just did this math, now that we don't have to use the staff for hit, and we can use the MH/OH, you will definitively be able to have 366 haste rating before drums. Pretty amazing.
#2992SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Ztorm View Post
Seems like Blizzard is trying to prevent a case where players can use both the 4-piece T6 and 4-piece gladiator at the same time.
And using a bazooka to do it instead of a scalpel. For fuck's sakes, there's a hundred thousand more elegant solutions than bringing us back to 7k hp mages.
#2993SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Koosha
Skull of Gul'dan is also not stacking with Hex Shrunken Head right now, idk if thats a specific item bug or if its for icon too
#2994SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Fixing tierred gear to not make it good in pvp is god damn simple. Make tiered gear have a load of hit rating. And cut some stamina. And cut some dmg/crit too to give more hit. Not many mages would have complained on it, as long as you don't push it much (ie: arcane/frost doesn't really need much hit rating). Removing stamina alltogether does seem like a bold move, but hey I'm not going to complain.

On a different note, the new 3 t6 gear pieces are effectively a full extra tier level above their intended level thanks to this change. If this can put into perspective how good this is.

As Koosha pointed out, from the known gear currently, using optimum pieces for fire spec on all slots, you should have 366 passive haste without any gems. Were talking 23%+ passive haste (!). I didn't even bother checking the other stats; I don't expect to gain much boost in the other stats except maybe some dmg from the socket bonuses. This will be a very sizeable dps buff. Now the real question is -- how will destro locks scale, and I almost fear the results.

EDIT: just tested -- indeed, skull of gul'dan triggers a cooldown on all other trinkets. Well, another indirect nerf that affects more mages than destro locks. Who knew.
#2995SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
rautrix
Skull is not stacking with Icon either. They are now proccing cooldowns on each other.

However, if you pop Skull and use a mana gem with Serpent Coil Braid, you still get the dmg buff from the SCB.

Edit: One of our mages hit exalted and we are testing [Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen]. Neither of us have a TLC so can't test to see if they share a cooldown with each other.

Avg non-crit on the bolts is ~350 dmg and the bolts can crit; appears to be a 45s internal cooldown.

The Arcane Bolt's dmg is affected by target debuffs, so COS will push that up. But the Arcane Bolt is not affected by your spell dmg.

Last edited by rautrix : 02/20/08 at 8:07 PM.
#2996SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3taciturn
Bleh, so this patch is really taking out basically ALL CD stacking eh?

Not sure how the best way to use them is now, I just just whenever they come up and try and stack both trinkets sequentially during hero with flame cap, drums, destro pot, seems to take all the fun out. It might be a bit of a pain to juggle them all to have them up at the right time.
#2997SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Grai
*edit* stupid

Mods please delete

Last edited by Grai : 02/20/08 at 8:23 PM.
#2998SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Anyway, for the results. I updated magegraf.com so IV and BLoodlust never stack, and fixed up the logic a bit to just pop IV whenever. The result is a 1% dps loss for top-end mages (that means Manly) over 5 minutes.
#2999SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
The current wording of Emberstorm is "Increases dmg dealt by YOUR FIRE SPELLS" so you're right in that it's a wording change. However, it does not include any descriptor of the gain. I'd expect any scorch-like effect to read:

"Emberstorm: Increases lalala, and your X SPELL has a Y% To cause the Z DEBUFF on target which Increases All Fire Damage Taken By N and lasts M Seconds"

I don't think "damage of all fire spells" really means it's the new lockscorch. More than likely a case of bad vocabulary selection.
#3000SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Grai
Yea, I caught myself, but not before you could read it Pint.

The wording was weird, and the odd nature of the change made me wonder if that was indeed the case. After thinking about it more I just decided I was stupid and looking for buffs. I suspect that the base mechanic of their spell will eventually be extended for the other ranks as well though.
#3001SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
An incinerate buff is desperately needed, and anything that might encourage warlocks to put up CoE is a good thing for us.
#3002SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Actually, I'd rather have them spam shadowbolts to increase shadow priest returns, CoE is already worth it with 1-1.5 mages these days. But that's going off-topic ...


I took a look at the new gear. Using T6 hat, Council cloak (it will beat Highborne at high haste levels), Reliquary necklace, Z'A ring and Hex/Skull, tailoring robe and ring enchants the passive gear bonuses are:
1416 damage, 284 crit, 166 hit, 350 haste. 334 sta, 370 int, 155 spi.

Plugging that into Man Out of Time - Theorycraft-o-Matic I get:
// Fire+IV 1 crit = 0.75 dmg, 1 hit = 1.94 dmg, 1 haste = 1.02 dmg
// (Frost 1 crit = 0.73 dmg, 1 hit = 2.03 dmg, 1 haste = 1.18 dmg)

Adding Wrath of Air, Totem of Wrath and Flame Caps and averaged trinkets, this changes quite a bit for fire.
Fire+IV 1 crit = 0.86 dmg, 1 hit = 2.28 dmg, 1 haste = 1.18 dmg
Hm, this weighting doesn't look that much different anymore.


So, what happened is that due to the massive amount of haste, its relative value went down quite a bit.
This makes T6 gloves and Chronicle offhand much more attractive, but they have too much hit and I'd lose some damage overall due to losing socket bonuses. We're talking about 0.5% or something, so it's a wash anyway.


Just wanted to point out that that we're reaching a point where the relative value of haste drops.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/21/08 at 11:32 AM. Reason: Added raid buffs into comparison.
#3003SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kaili
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Anyway, for the results. I updated magegraf.com so IV and BLoodlust never stack, and fixed up the logic a bit to just pop IV whenever. The result is a 1% dps loss for top-end mages (that means Manly) over 5 minutes.
It seems like the Cast Sequence for Fire (2/48/11) is either wrong, displaying wrong or I'm a tard (one of the 3).

But it displays as :

Fire
Scorch
Scorch
Scorch
Fireball
Fireball
Fireball
Continues Fireball until end.

Is this intended by you ?
#3004SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
If you're wondering why it scorches x3, it's always done that. It's under the assumption you're not the only firemage and hence will only start off with 3 scorches to max it out.

If you're wondering why it doesn't rescorch (if that's the case) I don't know, it sounds like a bug.
#3005SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kaili
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
If you're wondering why it doesn't rescorch (if that's the case) I don't know, it sounds like a bug.
Yeah was the lack of more schorch casts that seem odd.

Was just wondering if it was a display bug or a bug with the castsequence.
#3006SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Dumped 2 mana bars into Dr. Boom on live, rotating 3AB/3FrB and some haste.

I had exactly 1 cast at 1.83s cast time.
It usually went (1.5)s - (2.5s or 2.17s, 50:50) - (2.17s mostly, 1.83s once) for the cast times of the 3 Arcane Blasts.
Using the "Quartz hack" to display the total cast time sent by the server.

Edit:
Did another test and got 1.5s - 2.5s - 2.17s I think 5 out of 6 times. That kind of kills rotations.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/21/08 at 8:35 AM.
#3007SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sguz
With the Skull Nev, which Trinket do I equip on the second Slot (asuming 2/48/11, hit Capped, Full T6)?
- Crusade
- Hex Shrunken Head
- TLC
- Serpent Coil
#3008SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Which brings us back to the (AB/AM)*3/Sc rotation. Seriously, client/server are not handling AB ramp adequately, meaning you want to keep AB-chaincast (as a ramp) to an absolute minimum. Getting a sore deal from the cast time is bac enough, getting a sore deal from the cast time -and- getting a sore deal from the manacost makes AB*3/(anything) rotations lose any advantage they have. The Consumption advantages of (AB/AM)*3/Sc combined with successful CC-AM put it naturally in a state of irrelevance w.r.t. the bad handling of AB. Technically you can even eradicate AB ramp by skipping a Sc at the end and simply shifting into AB spam seamlessly.

Sguz, I find it hard to believe you've managed to get a Skull and still even consider TLC in a fire build. The TLC is abysmally bad for any build that crits in small numbers. It's only seriously valuable in scorch builds or AM rotations. Other than that it's quite terrible.

SCB loses out in that it means you can't eat flame caps and unless you gain value from it's 10hit it's rather bad choice.

Head is clearly better than Crusade and I don't know why you're using Crusade instead of it (unless you don't have one). Personally I'll be voting Crusade/Head as it seems like CD-stacking is going out of fashion.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 02/21/08 at 8:59 AM.
#3009SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Actually, I'd rather have them spam shadowbolts to increase shadow priest returns, CoE is already worth it with 1-1.5 mages these days. But that's going off-topic ...


I took a look at the new gear. Using T6 hat, Council cloak (it will beat Highborne at high haste levels), Reliquary necklace, Z'A ring and Hex/Skull, tailoring robe and ring enchants the passive gear bonuses are:
1416 damage, 284 crit, 166 hit, 350 haste. 334 sta, 370 int, 155 spi.

Plugging that into Man Out of Time - Theorycraft-o-Matic I get:
Fire+IV 1 crit = 0.75 dmg, 1 hit = 1.94 dmg, 1 haste = 1.02 dmg
(Frost 1 crit = 0.73 dmg, 1 hit = 2.03 dmg, 1 haste = 1.18 dmg)

So, what happened is that due to the massive amount of haste, its relative value went down quite a bit.
This makes T6 gloves and Chronicle offhand much more attractive, but they have too much hit and I'd lose some damage overall due to losing socket bonuses. We're talking about 0.5% or something, so it's a wash anyway.


Just wanted to point out that that we're reaching a point where the relative value of haste drops.
I think you should be using equivalencies using buffed stats including a shaman totem.
The stats come out more like this 1.00 Damage: 0.53 Hit Rating, 1.20 Crit Rating, 0.87 Haste Rating using lhivera's calculator.

However - I don't think that lhivera has incorporated the new GCD mechanics and thusly scorch is skewing the results. By my maths it is more like 1.00 Damage: 0.53 Hit Rating, 1.20 Crit Rating, 0.835 Haste Rating

Edit: that doesn't even begin to incorporate flamecaps, destruction pots and damage trinket procs which would move it further in haste's favor (the skull - of course pushing it back the other way)

Last edited by Etherealz : 02/21/08 at 10:01 AM.
#3010SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Sguz
First thx for your reply.
In fact i have a Skull and in fact just look at "Quantz" (Nihilum) and what do you see: a TLC togehter with a Skull... But you are right, TLC isn't good for a 2/48/11. I just wanted to list the 4 Trinkets.

Anyway, i am still using Crusade, but only because the Hed hasn't dropped for me yet (Damned roll luck).

I was wondering, if a permanent Crusade Buff (80 DMG, +27 Basedmg vs. Head) would make more benefit with IV, Flamecap, Skull, etc in comperison to the 53 Basedmg of Hex (and averange 88,2, if it is used on CD).

Last edited by Sguz : 02/21/08 at 10:14 AM.
#3011SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Sguz: What another mage wears on armory is proof of nothing other than his logging out wearing it. He could be wearing it to farm, to look hot, to PvP, due to a missclick when selecting his Riding Crop, or in fact to throw dust in the eyes of all the people who use "Nihilum do it so it must be good" as an excuse for theorycrafting. Back when encounters were still being learned, logging off with missleading gear was a prime way of keeping competition tight during the race for the first kill. There is also the possibility anyone (not refering to Quantz specifically of course) is an idiot.

TLC is Horrifically bad for Fire. Icon is way ahead of it.

It's a toss between Head and Icon. If you can (a) keep Head on CD permanently and (b) pair it at least once with something (Which will probably be BL as you're better off pairing IV with Skull) then it'll outweigh Crusade. This is assuming Crusade does not switch off, because if it does you either have to 5xSc to ramp it up (which will be a massive DPS loss) or wait 22-30sec to get it's full benefit from Fireball.

Etherealz: Lhivera's doesn't output relative values correctly given 2.4 GCD and furthermore only calculates relative values given a certain Cycle it choses, which may not reflect the best choice. Vontre's is a lot more complex and accomplished for simulating Arcane in this respect hence you're probably working with a big error margin when you compare your results with Roywyn's, making the comparison rather pointless.
#3012SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Kaili View Post
It seems like the Cast Sequence for Fire (2/48/11) is either wrong, displaying wrong or I'm a tard (one of the 3).

But it displays as :

Fire
Scorch
Scorch
Scorch
Fireball
Fireball
Fireball
Continues Fireball until end.

Is this intended by you ?
This is the optimal cast rotation for a fire mage who has another lesser geared fire mage who is forced to keep up scorch...which is what we do. I only cast scorch if i see the timer go to sub 2 seconds.
#3013SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
The current wording of Emberstorm is "Increases dmg dealt by YOUR FIRE SPELLS" so you're right in that it's a wording change. However, it does not include any descriptor of the gain. I'd expect any scorch-like effect to read:

"Emberstorm: Increases lalala, and your X SPELL has a Y% To cause the Z DEBUFF on target which Increases All Fire Damage Taken By N and lasts M Seconds"

I don't think "damage of all fire spells" really means it's the new lockscorch. More than likely a case of bad vocabulary selection.
Well, it might be the why blizzard is taking away stacking everything.

I really hope the non-stacking hex/skull is simply a bug though.
#3014SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
It won't scorch if you selected the option to use another mage to do the scorching for you...
#3015SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Vontre
The scorch thing is a bug, I'll get a fix up. It should be of minimal impact.

[e] Hotfix has been posted

Last edited by Vontre : 02/21/08 at 2:13 PM.
#3016SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Maddmage
I have what I believe to be an interesting observation (observation with TC using Vontre's spreadsheet to be precise):

So it is a fairly commonly accepted fact that before the spell hit cap, nothing is worth more than having spell hit on gear until it hits that 16%. However, while using the spreadsheet to compare between different gear sets, it seems that this is not always the case?

The two subsets I am comparing is between using [Mantle of Tirisfal](with glowing nightseye/potent noble topaz)/[Vindicator's Silk Cuffs](with potent noble topaz), and [Mantle of the Elven Kings]/[Focused Mana Bindings].

The difference between the first pair and the second is: -7 spell dmg; -17 spell crit; +37 spell hit. Also, the second pair puts me at 123 spell hit (roughly 10%), I am currently 40/0/21, so with the bugged EP, it puts me at roughly 16% spell hit. Now, here is the interesting part. As far as the Frostbolt spam theoretical numbers go, with the first pair I am at 1496 dps and 448710 total dmg; but with the second (spell hit capped) pair I am at 1479 dps and 443626 total dmg. So I am confused as to why would my dps/dmg DECREASE when I am using gear that hit caps me versus gear that's almost 40 spell hit away from the cap.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Last edited by Maddmage : 02/21/08 at 2:16 PM.
#3017SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Phenom Z
Long time lurker, first time poster here...

From my lurking, I know the general consensus here is that arcane sucks, compared to fire specs, even with 2 pieces of tier 5. I've seen biased arguments both sides, from arcane mages showing skewed WWS results to fire supporters assuming the world is always perfect and in this peachy existence fire will always outperform arcane and assume that if a player is a supporter of arcane, he should be committed. It's really a bunch of crap, especially on a quality forum such as this, which is a place of salvation for those like me who won't touch the WoW forums.

At any rate, here's my unbiased, mostly un-flasked/fooded, never power-infused, 1 shadow priest and 1 shaman partied WWS reports from a recent SSC run. I just acquired my second piece of tier 5 a little over a week ago, so my experience in raiding with this spec is very shallow and I still have a lot of room to improve my dps and improve my gear gems and itemization. I think there's only 1 other fire mage in most of these boss fights, and 2 fire mages on Morogrim. Both of these guys are really good players and when we were all fire, we would usually be right next to each other on the damage meters. As you can see I'm starting to pull away with my new spec. Maybe when we gear up more and start getting tier 6, fire will overtake arcane again. But, for the time being it appears to me that arcane is superior with 2-piece tier 5 against tier 5 bosses.

This WWS report is to my knowledge unbiased and single-parsed. You can sift through to find a way to discredit it because we all know arcane mages can't outdps equally geared fire mages in any fair boss fight, right?

Last edited by Phenom Z : 02/21/08 at 4:55 PM.
#3018SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Grai
Was playing around on PTR, and discovered that Veins and Arcane Power will not stack anymore. If you do one after the other, they overwrite one another, rather then saying "you can't do this yet".

Testing AP and Lust now, if I can find a friendly shammy.
*edit* Yea, they still stack. Veins will pop if you trigger it while lust is up, but no casting time difference, just a wasted CD. This is why I wanted to test AP and Lust

This patch is looking worse and worse.

Last edited by Grai : 02/21/08 at 6:00 PM.
#3019SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Joq
@Phenom Z:
Arcane is viable at Tier 5 because of 2pc T5. I don't think there's an argument against using arcane for this level, as I've seen good results from mages in my guild using it at the same level you are (5/6 SSC). The argument is against people who claim arcane is still viable at full T6, when it just isn't because it doesn't scale as well as fire or frost when you get to that gear level. 2pc T5 becomes then either a crutch for your main nuke with comparatively bad stats, or you get better stats and lose what kept your bad scaling up.

The annoyance is directed at people who come in and claim arcane is competitive at T6 with no evidence or skewed WWS, and (as far as I know) any comments directed at arcane in T5 are of a joking nature (eg fire is better for Al'ar than arcane).

And after looking at the WWS, you don't have a fair comparison with your fire mage. He looks like he's suffering from not having a shadowpriest, so it is, in the end, a biased parse.

@Grai
*jaw drops*
#3020SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Maddmage
Originally Posted by Grai View Post
Was playing around on PTR, and discovered that Veins and Arcane Power will not stack anymore. If you do one after the other, they overwrite one another, rather then saying "you can't do this yet".

Testing AP and Lust now, if I can find a friendly shammy.
*edit* Yea, they still stack. Veins will pop if you trigger it while lust is up, but no casting time difference, just a wasted CD. This is why I wanted to test AP and Lust

This patch it looking worse and worse.
WHAT THE EFF?!?! I honestly want to know the reasoning behind this change (well, not even this new unannounced nerf, but the non-stacking IV/BL in the first place). Now I would like to say that we have some good raiding mages in my guild, yet we're nowhere close to significantly topping the meters (rogues have that spot generally); so this must not be due to mages being "zomg so OP!!!11!!" in PVE situations. Sounds to me like it's yet another one of those changes that is accommodating PVP, because we all know every single arena team has a mage and a shammy for that IV/BL burst. GG Blizzard, GG.
#3021SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3darrenan
Have the spell damage coefficients for Fire Ward and Frost Ward been published anywhere? I've searched this site, wowhead, thottbot, wowwiki, can't find this information anywhere.
#3022SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
More updates to the simulator. On the backend I changed how the program stores data to reduce database usage, so let me know if any problems come up because of that. I also added the ability to link your page to other people. Every time you change settings, the url automatically changes to a long version that can be linked anywhere to show the same results.

For example, this should display my comparison between fire, arcane, and warlocks:

http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...4d33859d25645d
#3023SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Grai
In follow up to my last post re: Veins and AP, it seems that other PTR'ers found this change as well and have since posted. Blizzard has responded:

We are hoping to have this fixed on the PTR soon, but currently Icy Veins and Arcane Power should stack.
It is indeed a bug. Return to your regularly scheduled Arcane Spec theorycrafting.
#3024SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mathris
@PhenomZ

Your fire mage is doing way too much scorch to do good dps.

On lurker he did 29 scorch compared to 55 fireball but for this fight is kinda normal since he has to stack scorch on lurker after every dive because he's the only fire mage.

On Leo he did 14 AB, 33 FB and 38 scorch which is definitly not the best ratio of spells for a deep fire mage but again this fight is not the best to use travelling spell such as fireball because there's a lot of aggro reset. He also had to kill his inner demon which is probably why he used AB and lost dps at the same time.

Same thing on karathress too many scorches for a deep fire build. 60 FB compared to 47 scorch.

On Morogrim the ration FB/scorch is better 71FB compared to 21scorch somehow he never used flamestrike/blastwave/dragon breath for aoe.. he used blizzard probably for imp blizzard to help control the murlock.

I personnaly dont think this WWS proves arcane is better than fire when the deep fire mage did not play is build correctly (because of skill, how the fight work or group setup). Deep fire build is all about spamming fireball not half fireball and half scorch.

Since he was the only fire mage in the raid (except morogrim) he probably never got CoE (which he shouldn't) but you had CoS (i hope) which is 10% less dps for him right there.
#3025SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
More updates to the simulator. On the backend I changed how the program stores data to reduce database usage, so let me know if any problems come up because of that. I also added the ability to link your page to other people. Every time you change settings, the url automatically changes to a long version that can be linked anywhere to show the same results.

For example, this should display my comparison between fire, arcane, and warlocks:

http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...4d33859d25645d
Check these stats Vontre. http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...84e5825ab6b215

It seems your spell selection logic has some problems with high spirit regen and reduces the use pots/gems/evo for some reason.
#3026SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Etherealz: Lhivera's doesn't output relative values correctly given 2.4 GCD and furthermore only calculates relative values given a certain Cycle it choses, which may not reflect the best choice. Vontre's is a lot more complex and accomplished for simulating Arcane in this respect hence you're probably working with a big error margin when you compare your results with Roywyn's, making the comparison rather pointless.

I mentioned in my post that it does not incorporate 2.4 gcd specifically, and furthermore both rowyn and I were working a with 2/48/11 build. The only reason I mentioned Lhivera's script was to compare directly with roywyn - so I fail to see why my comparison is pointless. I was simply pointing out that stat equivalence should be using fully buffed stats.
#3027SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Shawn
Originally Posted by Grai View Post
If you do one after the other, they overwrite one another, rather then saying "you can't do this yet".
It's the same with IV and Heroism. Of course it was already announced in the patch notes but I expected them to simply not stack even when they're both active. When I activeated IV on PTR today I would simply not get any buff from Heroism at all. I can only cross my fingers and hope that Blizzard will reconsider this 'fix'.
#3028SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Check these stats Vontre. http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...84e5825ab6b215

It seems your spell selection logic has some problems with high spirit regen and reduces the use pots/gems/evo for some reason.
Yeah, thanks for this. I think the logic is written too conservatively and isn't burning hard enough early on. I'll take a look at it tomorrow.
#3029SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
I mentioned in my post that it does not incorporate 2.4 gcd specifically, and furthermore both rowyn and I were working a with 2/48/11 build. The only reason I mentioned Lhivera's script was to compare directly with roywyn - so I fail to see why my comparison is pointless. I was simply pointing out that stat equivalence should be using fully buffed stats.
Perhaps I worded wrongly: I was refering specifically to the value of haste. Given Lhivera's values haste for GCD<1.5 sec your equivalence for haste is skewed.
#3030SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Joq View Post
The annoyance is directed at people who come in and claim arcane is competitive at T6 with no evidence or skewed WWS, and (as far as I know) any comments directed at arcane in T5 are of a joking nature (eg fire is better for Al'ar than arcane).

And after looking at the WWS, you don't have a fair comparison with your fire mage. He looks like he's suffering from not having a shadowpriest, so it is, in the end, a biased parse.

@Grai
*jaw drops*
You can only reach 4p t6 bonus when killing illidari council, but what really make the difference is not only this bonus, it's the sunwell stuff with tons of haste , when you gonna get 250+ passive haste. So yes, I will switch in sunwell, when I'll have my 4p t6 and the tailoring chest. To me, no reason to switch before and loot the crappy t6 spaulders or something like that.
#3031SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gaunt
@PhenomZ

I lurk this threads a lot also, and i rarely if at all see people bash arcane. The general consensus when it comes to specs in this game should be play what you enjoy.

Btw fire has more lee-way that arcane with longer firing range and 70% push back resist, hence your comment about fire supporters living in some idealist environment is not justified.
#3032SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
The idealism has nothing to do with fire, gentlemen. It has to do with pure theorycraft. Theorycraft is not about "what if" it's about optimum realistic feasibility. Things aren't all peachy and rosy for any spec but "non-peachy" examples are irrelevant; You may be picked as the first doom from Azgalore. You may get two Carrion Swarms in a row. Who cares? You don't spec frost specifically so you can Cold Snap -> Iceblock the second one do you?

Comparissons are only of merit between optimum setups; on a perfect day, what will arcane do vs. fire, where "perfect" does not mean statistics' biggest fudging of all time, DMF buff, chain bloodlusts or PIs, it means realistic though favourable conditions. In current 2.3 there is little to no proof that arcane is competitive with fire, and that's that. What happens at T5 level has been documented and analyzed and we all know that yes, you can perform at T5 with arcane for a multitude of reasons but your pwning damage meters on Morogrim and Karathress are irrelevant because once you're on the T6 bandwagon fire is undoubtably in the lead.

I've posted before: I honestly don't get why Arcane mages are so defensive and bitter about it. Every week there seems to be some arcane mage who shows up with "y'all got it wrong and you gave arcane a bad stick" and it's -always- some crap WWS with sub-par fire mages, with arcane-favouring conditions, with no CoE, gear difference, group difference, etc etc etc. From parsings with 1:1 scorch-fireball, to firemages with 108 hit rating, to Spellfire + 2/5*T5 vs. 4/5*T4. Don't want your WWS picked appart with a fine-tooth-comb and shown to be bullshit? Don't post it and claim it to be otherwise then. This isn't the Tax Man's office, we don't read WWS parsings to embarass people because we're mean-hearted fat-cats, we read WWS in order to better our understanding and double-check (again) that there isn't something we're missing.

The only arcane parsing that has shown up in the last months worth any merit at all has been Kavan's. It was judged, examined and proven to be true and honestly fascinating. I pingponged a dozen PMs to Kavan about it and his contributions have spured this spate of Arcane research for 2.4 that Roywyn, Galzohar, Vontre and others are doing now, so your impressions that EJ is "arcane-bashing, fire supremacy" is unfounded and irrelevant. Even manly said he'd respec the instant it was proven to be superior and I believe him.

Please also note, I'm not aiming any of my words at Phenom Z specifically or any other poster. I honestly think you arcane gentlemen and ladies out there need to re-think your attitudes. With few very notable exceptions the attitude of arcane posters seems to be defensive at the least and sulking at the worst. Why is it we never get Frost mages show up with "y'all are wrong" posts?

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 02/22/08 at 7:53 AM. Reason: How could I forget you Galz?
#3033SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rustyshrapnel
That's because us frost mages are too busy having buttloads of fun with our spec to bash anyone else. Not to mention it's kind of silly bashing specs that do out-perform us on damage meters more often than not, unless we work really hard and know exactly what we're doing to maximize frost potential.

However, I was chugging some numbers through Vontre's DPS sheet the other day in the quest for personal optimization given my current gearset and I came up with some interesting values for the 2/48/11 spec. I posted here in Vontre's thread with the numbers I was getting, in case you guys want to look at them. I'm pretty sure I was just doing something wrong or interpreting something wrong, since to me it looks like arcane was coming out on top in all my gear calcs regardless of the spec I was modeling.
#3034SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Note: All the tests have been done on the live realms.


Since AB rotation cast times were buggy, I decided to check [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] as well, as I've been using that for frost for a while. <insert random whine about caster trinkets from raids>

Seems that when chain casting frostbolts, the first cast after the crit that procs it won't get the haste bonus.
It doesn't proc "fast enough" to effect the next cast when chain casting.
When spamming scorch at 1.38s cast time (some haste) - leaving a 0.12s cast gap due to GCD, it also didn't activate fast enough to affect the next cast

So, if only affects 2 casts for frostbolt, and one for fireball. Can most likely affect 2 casts for fireball once you get past ~20% passive haste.


I did test the [Mystical Skyfire Diamond], and it correctly affects the next cast.
So, I don't think it's an issue with Quartz (it gets the data from the server anyway), and the listed numbers are correct.


Seems I've been using a junk trinket for a few months now. Dang. At least it's nice for AE spam come 2.4.



[Edit]: Could anyone check if it works that way on the PTR as well? I'll try that later, but I don't know if EU PTRs in the US with a 400ms ping are reliable to test with ...

[Edit]: True, could be that "next spell" mechanics are different. I remember reading some fixes on "Netherwind Focus" on "Nature's Grace" (druid -0.5s cast after a crit talent) until they worked properly.
Makes me really curious about MSD mechanics on the PTR (beside the fact that it's junk now).

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/22/08 at 8:53 AM.
#3035SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
It's most puzzling that MSD will correctly work yet ATOI won't. One would expect two similar effects to work in the same way. Perhaps it's because MSD has a "next spell" descriptor rather than a "you gain" one. Possibly the later delays somehow in being processed?

The 1.38 scorch is quite interesting in that respect, 0.12sec is plenty of time and you'd expect that much time-gap to be signifficant enough to process the buff gain. Possibly the spell's "what buffs is player wearing?" query goes through as soon as you que the spell meaning that even if it delays due to the stopcasting fix or waiting for the GCD you're still technically not getting new buffs because they haven't applied yet.

All in all, it's looking like any random-proc item is losing a lot of value if there's doubt about their operation.
#3036SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Rustyshrapnel View Post
However, I was chugging some numbers through Vontre's DPS sheet the other day in the quest for personal optimization given my current gearset and I came up with some interesting values for the 2/48/11 spec. I posted here in Vontre's thread with the numbers I was getting, in case you guys want to look at them. I'm pretty sure I was just doing something wrong or interpreting something wrong, since to me it looks like arcane was coming out on top in all my gear calcs regardless of the spec I was modeling.
You had 2T5 on, which is huge for Arcane. Also, if I read the numbers correctly (1.6k DPS, 480k damage), Vontre's was set to a 5 minute fight, 300 seconds. A short fight means that you spam AB a lot.
If you increase the fight duration, you'll see the numbers of arcane decline slowly.

Arcane will also fall further behind when you get 4T6. You'll have to downgrade gear to keep 2T5, which will make you lose 4T6.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/22/08 at 9:24 AM. Reason: I fail at numbers :(
#3037SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rustyshrapnel
The fights were modeled to the default 300 seconds (5 min) fight duration. I increased the duration to 8 minutes (480 seconds) and fire popped right to the top. I'll pay more attention to durations of our average kills in BT/Hyj so I can better assess these builds. Thanks Roywyn!
#3038SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Perhaps I worded wrongly: I was refering specifically to the value of haste. Given Lhivera's values haste for GCD<1.5 sec your equivalence for haste is skewed.
Yes I mentioned this specifically in my original post. You've said nothing I didn't already.
#3039SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Thalur
Hi folks, I've been playing around a bit with Vontres new tool (Magegraph), and there are some things I don't understand in the cast sequence, perhaps you can help me.
When I put in the Icon as a trinket, the effect timing shows its usage... once every minute: (always the first shown)
13.22: Icon of the Silver Crescent
75.57: Icon of the Silver Crescent
136.1: Icon of the Silver Crescent
198.36: Icon of the Silver Crescent
261.32: Icon of the Silver Crescent
Doesn't it have a 2-minute CD? Or am I missing something here?
Also, Icy Veins seems to be used once every 90 seconds, and the effect of cold snap on it is somehow ignored (on a frost build):
49.83: mage_Icy_Veins
141.54: mage_Icy_Veins
234.75: mage_Icy_Veins
I suppose I'm missing something here about how the simulator works... would appreciate if you could give me a short lesson :)
#3040SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
It's most puzzling that MSD will correctly work yet ATOI won't. One would expect two similar effects to work in the same way. Perhaps it's because MSD has a "next spell" descriptor rather than a "you gain" one. Possibly the later delays somehow in being processed?

All in all, it's looking like any random-proc item is losing a lot of value if there's doubt about their operation.
At least haste procs, spell dmg buffs should not be affected with ping <1s since they are calculated at the end of the cast.

But I don't think it's a problem of procs, for me it seems that that the client just waits for the confirmation of the buff from the server until such buffs affect spells casting times.
The problem with ATOI seems the same like Arcane Blast ramp ups: You start the casting of the next spell (client side) before the old one is finished on the server and its proc or AB ramp up is processed. So when the client gets the info from the server about a haste buff the casting of the next spell is already startet and cast time doesn't get recalculated.

I've seen the same problem with Icy Veins, when I start casting immediatly after activating IV, the first cast seems not get its cast time reduced. Can anybody else confirm that. (And post the mod for Quartz wich shows total cast time?)

However there are some effects wich don't wait for a confirmation from the server like the mentioned MSD, Netherwind Focus and of course POM.
#3041SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Thalur
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
I've seen the same problem with Icy Veins, when I start casting immediatly after activating IV, the first cast seems not get its cast time reduced. Can anybody else confirm that. (And post the mod for Quartz wich shows total cast time?)
Can't confirm that. I have always used a macro to do that, and the first cast always benefits from IV. Here is the macro:

#showtooltip Icy Veins
/cast Icy Veins
/use 13
/cast Frostbolt
Just tested again on live, Quartz shows 2.1s cast time for the Fb immediately after IV.
#3042SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Kadgar, I'm not sure it's a matter of Ping. If you notice Roywyn's data MSD proc is processed immediately which either indicates it's only needed client-side and not server-side or there's some deeper mechanics or maths-handling issue going on.

As for IV, I'm curious: do you consistently not get IV processed on the first spell if you quicly press/click it? I've never used IV outside of a macro and perhaps it's the nature of info-packet sent to server of the macro that's causing this. If you're having trouble distinguishing on Fbolt or Fball, experimentation on Pyroblast will make it a lot clearer as a 20% haste on 6sec is deffinitely more distinguishable than 20% on 2.5sec.

Etherealz: You seem to be offended for whatever reason. This was not my intention and I do apologize.
#3043SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Cryic
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Check these stats Vontre. http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...84e5825ab6b215

It seems your spell selection logic has some problems with high spirit regen and reduces the use pots/gems/evo for some reason.
Not sure if some of the buffs are overlapping from my previous builds and your builds or your just going balls out with buffs, but the link above gives me both Mana Tide + Totem of Wrath. I can't see that happening! Also shows 3 piece spellstrike + 4 piece t5 +4 piece t6 bonus.

I do have a question for you Kavan: Have you done any number crunching with the [Pendant of the Violet Eye] trinket with the 2.4 deep arcane specs?

Last edited by Cryic : 02/22/08 at 11:17 AM.
#3044SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3f1reburn
I put Kavan's stat equivalences (1.014 int = 1.462 spi = 1.544 dmg = 1.922 crit rating = 1.679 mp5 = 2.393 haste , based on tier 5 gear level) in the lootrank calculator, the Pendant scores quite high, but keep in mind lootrank doesn't take the procs of trinkets into account.
#3045SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Clearly the static buff is more valuable than either Icon or Hex head given Kavan's assumptions. The use however is quite worthless as it doesn't scale with anything. Back in 2.2 AM spam it would be good for about up to 750 mana per use, and that's assuming old MSD-AM spam, so it's safe to assume it'll be a good deal less mana nowadays and arguably a lot more insignifficant in 2.4 given passive regen hits the sky. The question remains what relative value do you place on the Use ability of trinkets. I find it hard to believe that a Hex-head sync'd once at start of encounter and once at 6m with IV+AP on AB spam (and twice just mashed as soon as it's CD is up) isn't enough to push it's value furher than the rather paltry Pendant.

The new JC BOP trinket however, makes a very interesting prospect. Passive intellect (not to mention a dump of stamina... Is it me or is JC muscling in -again- on Engineering trinkets?) and spellpower on use. Arguably one of the better choices for mages of the Kavan-style arcane variety.
#3046SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Personally, I find it funny/sad that mage TC involves working around bugs. Elemental Precision giving 6% hit to frost and AB debuff not quite working as intended. It is sad to say, but ultimately this affects TC, and ultimately imbalances spec comparison to favor one spec or another for something that has got nothing to do with the spec at hand.
#3047SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Vontre
Originally Posted by Thalur View Post
Hi folks, I've been playing around a bit with Vontres new tool (Magegraph), and there are some things I don't understand in the cast sequence, perhaps you can help me.
When I put in the Icon as a trinket, the effect timing shows its usage... once every minute: (always the first shown)

Doesn't it have a 2-minute CD? Or am I missing something here?
Also, Icy Veins seems to be used once every 90 seconds, and the effect of cold snap on it is somehow ignored (on a frost build):

I suppose I'm missing something here about how the simulator works... would appreciate if you could give me a short lesson
[e] This was a bug, I just hotfixed.

Last edited by Vontre : 02/22/08 at 1:50 PM.
#3048SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
RTycho
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Kadgar, I'm not sure it's a matter of Ping. If you notice Roywyn's data MSD proc is processed immediately which either indicates it's only needed client-side and not server-side or there's some deeper mechanics or maths-handling issue going on.
My thought on it is a combination of two effects (in terms of MSD vs. IV).
1. Activation: MSD relies on a proc, which would be determined by the server and sent to the client, activating the haste. IV, on the other hand, relies on the client sending the activation to the server, and the server then sending back that you get haste.
2. Buff vs. Spell+: MSD also gives the single next spell haste, which may simply be a "Whatever, give it to the spell" thing, while a buff from other effects require the server to process the effect and the giving of the effect to the particular player. Just like when self-buffing AI/MA or whatever, it sometimes takes ~.5s from clicking to it actually displaying, simply because of processing.

Those two effects combined are my beliefs on this. Granted I could be completely idiotic/wrong on this, but that's just how my head relates the ideas. Hope it helps some.


Ed: Messed with the calculator some, and it's treating SCB as a trinket, rather than a mana gem use (popping it instantly). Also, how is SUC calculated in that?

Last edited by RTycho : 02/22/08 at 2:19 PM.
#3049SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Leialyn
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
http://www.magegraf.com/
It seems there are no managems included yet. And the Serpent Coil Braid also gives 225 spelldamage every 2min for 15sec.
#3050SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3RTycho
Mana gems are included, they're just currently done separately from SCB.
#3051SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Queuetip
Originally Posted by RTycho View Post
My thought on it is a combination of two effects (in terms of MSD vs. IV).
1. Activation: MSD relies on a proc, which would be determined by the server and sent to the client, activating the haste. IV, on the other hand, relies on the client sending the activation to the server, and the server then sending back that you get haste.
2. Buff vs. Spell+: MSD also gives the single next spell haste, which may simply be a "Whatever, give it to the spell" thing, while a buff from other effects require the server to process the effect and the giving of the effect to the particular player. Just like when self-buffing AI/MA or whatever, it sometimes takes ~.5s from clicking to it actually displaying, simply because of processing.

Those two effects combined are my beliefs on this. Granted I could be completely idiotic/wrong on this, but that's just how my head relates the ideas. Hope it helps some.


Ed: Messed with the calculator some, and it's treating SCB as a trinket, rather than a mana gem use (popping it instantly). Also, how is SUC calculated in that?
I think you are looking too far into it. Anything that is activated on cast (MSD / Clearcasting) or by the user (Hex Trinket / IV) will take effect immediately. Anything that that is activated on spell hit (ATOI / AB debuff / Sextant) has to travel from server which is where it is activated to user. In that time a new spell can start casting without the benefit of those procs. In most cases spell damage buffs like sextant will still be seen in the numbers, because they don't get considered until the actual cast takes place. Haste, on the other hand, affects the start of the cast which will already have executed by the time the buff reaches the user.
The only possible fix I can see for this is to dynamically change cast speed depending on incoming buffs during cast. This may or may not be a welcomed change. You'd actually get your X seconds of haste, but no squeezing in extra casts at the end of the buff. A solution to AB debuff might be to simply apply the debuff on cast regardless of what happens to the spell (resist, evade, etc.), but that may bring in more problems.
#3052SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Not sure if some of the buffs are overlapping from my previous builds and your builds or your just going balls out with buffs, but the link above gives me both Mana Tide + Totem of Wrath. I can't see that happening! Also shows 3 piece spellstrike + 4 piece t5 +4 piece t6 bonus.

I do have a question for you Kavan: Have you done any number crunching with the [Pendant of the Violet Eye] trinket with the 2.4 deep arcane specs?
I didn't put much thought into those buffs. I just clicked on Vontre's link. Before when I was importing my armory stats I always got strange results for arcane spec so I was a bit surprised to see it work ok for that stat set. I just imported my armory then without changing any buffs to see if it was fixed and that's what I linked.

From the numbers I'm looking at for 2.4 it looks like Pendant of the Violet Eye is a a good trinket. I'd put it right next to Hex and TLC. It's better for short fights, TLC winning on longer. I never had one so I'm not sure if I'm making the right assumptions. I'm assuming it can stack indefinitely, stack disappears at 20 sec, each AM tick procs it. If any of this isn't true then it's a bit less good.

For anyone that is interested I'm porting my spreadsheet model to Rawr. I'd say it's in alpha state right now, most things work, just have to add some more complex cycles and more trinket effects. You can get it at Rawr - Home. It's not in a public release yet, so you'd have to compile from source if you have Visual Studio. I guess I could upload the binaries if someone wants to do some alpha testing.
#3053SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Maddmage
Can someone explain something to me?

I used the magegraf for the first time today, but have been using the spreadsheet for a while now. However, according to the spreadsheet, my Frostbolts (40/0/21 spec) has 1500 DPS while using [Quagmirran's Eye] and 1475 DPS while using [The Lightning Capacitor]. However, according to magegraf, my arcane/frost spec has a 1561 effective DPS using QE and 1711 effective DPS using TLC. Is the graph assuming that I would be using 2T5 when I am specced 40/0/21? Whereas the spreadsheet knows exactly which pieces of gear I am using?
#3054SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
From the numbers I'm looking at for 2.4 it looks like [Pendant of the Violet Eye] is a a good trinket. I'd put it right next to Hex and TLC. It's better for short fights, TLC winning on longer. I never had one so I'm not sure if I'm making the right assumptions. I'm assuming it can stack indefinitely, stack disappears at 20 sec, each AM tick procs it. If any of this isn't true then it's a bit less good.
It's capped at 20 stacks (420 mp5). It used to proc from every AM tick (6 total per cast), and I'm quite sure they removed that in the MSD/TLC adjustment patch.
I had it for a while, but DE'ed it when it became useless.

I only remember that trying to drink to full in Hyjal with a 15k mana bar was futile ...
#3055SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
It's capped at 20 stacks (420 mp5). It used to proc from every AM tick (6 total per cast), and I'm quite sure they removed that in the MSD/TLC adjustment patch.
I had it for a while, but DE'ed it when it became useless.

I only remember that trying to drink to full in Hyjal with a 15k mana bar was futile ...
In that case it's only about as good as Icon. And yes drinking with 15k mana is an art, you have to sneak every sec you drop out of combat to drink and often refresh so that you get full 30 sec of drinking while in combat.
#3056SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
When you drop combat, swap serpent-coil-braid, eat a max rank gem, swap back dps trinket, then drink.
Before a boss in hyjal, as soon as youre oom in the wave before the boss, invis -> go drink.
#3057SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mahonri
The reduced cast time buff to warlocks incinerate appears to be part of the next ptr build. This means ~10% boost to warlock fire dps. Warlocks are beginning to TC dps changes to incinerate spamming locks as a result of this change and it looks like the damage will be comparable to shadowbolt spamming. Possible effects to mages of locks going fire include:
-All fire damage locks and mages = 13% CoE over 13% CoS when available.
-Shadow priests reduced to 10% CoS and maybe no CoS if CoD is more than 10% boost to one shadow priest's dps
-Arcane Blast rotations not quite as attractive due to CoS dropping to 10% or possibly 0% with only two locks.
#3058SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kiklerakos
And maybe they won't let coe off anymore since it will affect their own dps ;-)
#3059SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I'm not sure thats realistic. Why would a warlock go fire spec given that it has pretty much the same dps as shadow spec (minus no fire-dmg-only gear) and no raid synergy? Maybe the new lifetap changes will make them consider firespec for the better dpm, but somehow I doubt that's adviseable given that that would imply less heals/mana from the shadow priest.
#3060SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3scottemad123
The fear of that supposed ISB nerf is whats causing the all the TC
#3061SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
No it's not. The confirmation of 10% haste buff from talents to Incin is what's causing it. That, and fire's 5% more damage income from Misery and Scorch rather than Misery Shadow Weaving. And a further 10% from talents.

It will be extremely hard to model the DPS shift due to the odd nature of ISB. It would make sense if the shift coincides with the alleged "your ISB only affects your dmg", as then we'd see: (a) No more non-CoE raids, (b) more mage utility, (c) reduction in SP utility as Firelocks are more efficient and SP mp5/damage go down.

Notice how cunningly SP I5SR regen goes up at the same time that (possibly) their DPS (and hence VT mp5) go down. Everything falling neatly into place like so many jigsaw pieces randomly tumbling to the floor in the right order.

One thing I honestly don't get though... the majority of the game's classes have a "reduces cast time by 0.x sec" talent. It's the staple "improve spell" talent. Why in God's name is Incin getting a 10% haste buff instead of a 0.25sec time reduction? Is this force-injecting lesser utility? Because 10% haste on a 0 haste spec will be the same as 0.25s reduction but as haste from gear increases it loses value compared to a flat -0.25s does it not?
#3062SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
vokzhen
I was under the impression (assumption) that the talent would be taken into affect before any other modifiers, since that's how talents are now (iFB, whichever one, for example); in either case, unless I'm mistaken there's no difference between -10% combined with 10% haste if the haste is applied first or the -10% (both net 2.04545 cast time). It also leaves room for a little bit of scaling, if Blizz decides to bump it up to a 3-sec cast or something.

Potential spriest damage nerfs suck, we've said for ages that we'd gladly drop VT to 3-4% in order to get more raw damage output. In Sunwell gear we're capped off about 1850dps in theory, while it appears a fire mage will be a full 700dps higher >.<

EDIT: Wait, yea, I did/understood that wrong. More haste being stacked means the talent is worth less and less. A straight -25sec would have netted 2.0227sec cast, in my example.

Last edited by vokzhen : 02/23/08 at 1:41 AM.
#3063SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
Something odd is going on with the magegrah simulator. With only changing one trinket, Darkmoon -> Crusader the dps is jumping from 2225 to 2836.

http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...55b18861e938fd
to
http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...4e62fd80454ddc
#3064SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Vontre
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Something odd is going on with the magegrah simulator. With only changing one trinket, Darkmoon -> Crusader the dps is jumping from 2225 to 2836.

http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...55b18861e938fd
to
http://www.magegraf.com/index.php?ha...4e62fd80454ddc
Looks like a Lightning Capacitor glitch. Thanks for beta testing this thing everyone, by the way, I do appreciate it. =)

[e] Lightning Capacitor was incorrectly returning mana. This has been hotfixed.

Last edited by Vontre : 02/23/08 at 2:24 AM.
#3065SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etrius
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Looks like a Lightning Capacitor glitch. Thanks for beta testing this thing everyone, by the way, I do appreciate it. =)

[e] Lightning Capacitor was incorrectly returning mana. This has been hotfixed.
Hello Vontre!

Is it possible that you add the Scryer's Bloodgem to the trinket selection in your simulator?
I'm still in need of some spell hit rating so i'm bound to using this trinket.
#3066SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Rawr.Mage is ready for some public beta testing.

What it is:
  • It is an optimizer. Given the stats, buffs, talents and fight information it will optimize spell selection and cooldown stacking to maximize total damage done.
  • It models 5 second rule. Mana regeneration is dependent on exact timing of spell sequences.
  • It balances between Mana Potions and Destruction Potions and between Mana Gems and Flame Caps. It can balance between using Evocation and dpsing.
  • When you import your character from armory it will load all gear and talents. If you match the buffs from armory in Rawr then the displayed stats will match those on armory. If you find any discrepancies let me know, but keep in mind that it is a 2.4 model, so not everything will match.

What it is not:
  • It is not a simulator. The results will not be 100% accurate. While most on use effects are accurately modeled, most proc effects are averaged out.
  • It is not a discrete optimizer. When it has to balance for example between mana gems and flame caps it will make gradual transition, meaning that it might tell you to use half a mana gem. Use common sense when interpreting this kind of results.

How does it work:
  • It is using LP (Linear Programing). It describes a number of constraints to model mana consumption and cooldown stacking. It then uses an LP solver to optimize total damage done given those constraints.

Known issues:
  • Not all on use effects are modeled at the moment. If your favorite item is missing let me know and it will be added.
  • Sometimes you might notice that the cooldowns are stacked in an impossible way. It is very hard to model all the relationships of cooldowns because of restraints of the LP model. If you find something that looks strange let me know and I'll do my best to try to find a fix.
  • Currently it includes only fixed cycles (in respect to given stats/buffs, if for example haste changes the cycles will adapt). It does not currently include dynamic cycles that change based on passive procs such as switching to AM on clearcasting. I might add some special cases if there is demand, but probably no general framework.

Installation:
  • You first need to install Rawr b11.
  • If you had previous installations then you should delete ***Cache.xml files to force new xml files with new data to be generated.
  • Extract Rawr.Mage.zip in your Rawr location and overwrite Rawr.Base.dll.

Rawr.Mage Download
Rawr b11 Download
#3067SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Cryic
Kavan: Will people need to manually import in all the gear? When I fired it up, looks like all the optional gear was still druid gear. Either way, much thanks for your work.

Edit: Nevermind, played around some more and found the Load possible upgrades from WoWhead


Edit2: Although I can not find a way to add additional gems to the program. I would like to play around with socketing some +int gems for a Deep arcane build for 2.4. And the new Haste gems for Deep fire would be fun too!

Last edited by Cryic : 02/23/08 at 10:31 AM.
#3068SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Vokzhen: SPs are not pure damage classes. There are a few clear distinctions between (let's say) hybrid damage dealers and pure damage dealers. The latter can only deal damage irrespective of spec and (technically) have (a) more damage potential and (b) an aggro wipe. While I have no intention to get into a "your class should do this" argument, I honestly believe that the bigest boon a SP brings is mp5, Shadow Weaving and Misery.

It would seem slightly too much cash on one pony if being a non-pure damage class you offer raidbuffing much in excess of a warlock's and add competitive, top-tier dps to that. However, I do agree your game mechanics are dull, unoriginal and uninspiring, as well as your scaling rather bad. You need a bit of a "rethink" more than a change, but I think you'll have to wait for 3.0 for that.

Other News: New PTR build includes the following breath-taking changes:

IV now does the haste thing and adds 100% interrupt resist for it's duration instead of 10% extra frostbite.
Imp. Blink now causes you to gain a buff for 2/4sec which reduces the chance you're hit by melee/spells by 25%. It's cost is also reduced to a shattering 224 mana. The graphic and sound effect is the same as when you channel Invis: A little swoosh and a semi-translucency.

Apparently, Life Tap will also be changed to be a fixed % of player health into mana. MMO Champ states 16% health, so napkin math would show it won't change much at all for top tier locks, unless I'm missing something fundamental. (it does gain 80% shadow doesn't it?)

Edit: Now that I saw it again, it said "converts 16% max life into 16% max mana" if this is the case, it's a monster nerf. It would mean locks in fact lose Life/Mana ratio when they spec demonic embrace. How horribly ironic.
#3069SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
If you get a % of your health into mana it means it'll actually scale with health rather than with mana which is a good thing (more HP = less lifetaps needed). If it's a % of heatlh to a % of mana, though, that means a higher HP lock will take more damage for the same mana...
#3070SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
IV now does the haste thing and adds 100% interrupt resist for it's duration instead of 10% extra frostbite.
Really nice news for some events like ROS and Gurtogg Bloodboil fel rage... Especially for 40/0/21 :o
#3071SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Yea galz. It puts locks into a rather curious position where their LT will only scale with Int. Which for their gear, doesn't go up much at all. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is fantastic. Because aside of SP and Life Tap there's no other mana-regen mechanic that scales. And given mana consumption over time doesn't change for, well, anything, it does seem rather "consistent" that mana sources shouldn't scale either.
#3072SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raiste
the new improved blink sounds great, but it's 21 pt arcane talent. Not sure even with the molten armor change and this, fire would be viable over frost in pvp given the snare of frost is so critical against a melee heavy pvp environment. Though certainly worth testing 33/28 PoM Pyro/scorch spamming build on PTR with the 13 sec blink 4 piece bonus and 4 secs of 25% avoidance every time your blink thru this.

The new t6 gear has stam back on it which is nice but why oh why did they add it at the cost of +hit mostly instead of the stupid spirit. I really hope by the time WoTLK comes out they either make spirit help DPS or just remove it from our gear entirely. It frustrates me to no end to basically wear items 2-5 ilevels below what they should be when compared to e.g. warlocks.
#3073SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Kavan: Will people need to manually import in all the gear? When I fired it up, looks like all the optional gear was still druid gear. Either way, much thanks for your work.

Edit: Nevermind, played around some more and found the Load possible upgrades from WoWhead


Edit2: Although I can not find a way to add additional gems to the program. I would like to play around with socketing some +int gems for a Deep arcane build for 2.4. And the new Haste gems for Deep fire would be fun too!
To add a gem you can do the following (or to add any item actually). Tools->Edit Items..., click on Add..., enter item id (this is the number you would see in wowhead link (for example 32204 for +10 int gem) and that's all. It gets items from armory so for things that are not live yet you would have to enter manually. Just enter the id as before, Rawr will tell you it can't find the item and will ask you if you want to create a blank item. Do that and fill in all the values.

For the future releases I'll try to include an item cache with most mage related items.
#3074SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3hypetech
Originally Posted by Raiste View Post
the new improved blink sounds great, but it's 21 pt arcane talent. Not sure even with the molten armor change and this, fire would be viable over frost in pvp given the snare of frost is so critical against a melee heavy pvp environment. Though certainly worth testing 33/28 PoM Pyro/scorch spamming build on PTR with the 13 sec blink 4 piece bonus and 4 secs of 25% avoidance every time your blink thru this.

The new t6 gear has stam back on it which is nice but why oh why did they add it at the cost of +hit mostly instead of the stupid spirit. I really hope by the time WoTLK comes out they either make spirit help DPS or just remove it from our gear entirely. It frustrates me to no end to basically wear items 2-5 ilevels below what they should be when compared to e.g. warlocks.
If you have a spirit priest in your raid, spirit already helps your dps
#3075SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Yea galz. It puts locks into a rather curious position where their LT will only scale with Int. Which for their gear, doesn't go up much at all. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is fantastic. Because aside of SP and Life Tap there's no other mana-regen mechanic that scales. And given mana consumption over time doesn't change for, well, anything, it does seem rather "consistent" that mana sources shouldn't scale either.
This change, in its current state is likely to result in locks meriting a shadow priest over mages in a typical 5-6 minute fight. I don't know why you would consider this a good thing.

I do find this post interesting, though, given how Master of Elements scales.
#3076SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3vokzhen
Pintofbrew: I know, I kinda like complaining though :P I just don't like that our utility comes with a 30% DPS loss.

It really seems like Blizz is trying to level the playing field through nerfs. The LT change is a big nerf for destro, especially shadow since it's less efficient. The damage gap between spriests/afflic locks and other casters is being lowered by the haste changes while forcing mages (to some extent) and especially locks to gem for hit rating.

hypetech: It helps dps, but very, very poorly. With the change to Evocate, Blizz should have reitemized mage gear with better stats. Especially since they seem so intent on making Arcane nonviable for raiding, they are really the only spec that benefits from spirit in any way.
#3077SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BrTarolg
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
This change, in its current state is likely to result in locks meriting a shadow priest over mages in a typical 5-6 minute fight. I don't know why you would consider this a good thing.

I do find this post interesting, though, given how Master of Elements scales.
Technically, there is very little merit for *any* mages in the raid, perhaps bar one for food, water and portals, and sheep for trash (though if you dont care about DPS, then you can always stick a warlock to succubus on trash)

Best possible situation would be to have one mage provide all these things just before the boss, and then kick him out for a shadow destro warlock for the bosses.
Mages take up a curse slot, and provide inferior dps, aswell as scaling worse than warlocks, and having less hp, aswell as eating SP slots

The reason why there are mages in raids, is because
a) not everyone except knows this
b) raid leaders don't like to alienate a whole class
c) its hard to get 8 well skilled people of one class, as opposed to 8 from 2 classes to choose from
#3078SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Anedris
Related to c), very few guilds have damage meters that actually look like what they're "supposed" to look like (for example we have an elemental shaman who will frequently out-DPS all the other casters on any encounter without significant pushback).

A lot of trash would also be an awful lot more painful without mages (and extra time spent on trash means less time available for bosses). And mages can do some things warlocks can't do (spellsteal, decurse, and root things, notably).

There is a way to min-max for any given encounter - for Teron you could run one warlock, one survival hunter, 5 healers, a feral tank, 4 enhance shammies, 4 DPS warriors (one arms, three fury), and 9 rogues. It would be a terrible lineup for Naj'entus or Bloodboil of course, but it would make Teron die really fast...
#3079SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by BrTarolg View Post
Technically, there is very little merit for *any* mages in the raid, perhaps bar one for food, water and portals, and sheep for trash (though if you dont care about DPS, then you can always stick a warlock to succubus on trash)

Best possible situation would be to have one mage provide all these things just before the boss, and then kick him out for a shadow destro warlock for the bosses.
Mages take up a curse slot, and provide inferior dps, aswell as scaling worse than warlocks, and having less hp, aswell as eating SP slots

The reason why there are mages in raids, is because
a) not everyone except knows this
b) raid leaders don't like to alienate a whole class
c) its hard to get 8 well skilled people of one class, as opposed to 8 from 2 classes to choose from
Well, that's arguably true, but I don't see how the warlock changes affect that. Either you lose your spriest entirely to the locks, or you retain the spriest who now does 20% less damage due to lack of CoS and ISB since all the warlocks went fire.

There was a great list somewhere in this thread about the tradeoffs for your class between dps and regen (ie swap Destro Pots > Mana pots first, then Flame Cap > Mana Gems). If memory serves, evocation was at the middle of this list, and evocation now provides similar mana returns to lifetapping without endangering the caster.
#3080SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Yeah, I had that list made. Should have asked for a link in the first post. (Page 72 of this thread)

1) Mana Pots - 5.27 mp5/dmg
2) Mana Gems - 3.70 mp5/dmg
3) Evocation - 2.86 mp5/dmg
4) Talents - ~2 mp5/dmg each: Clearcasting (instead of IV), Mage Armour instead of Molten
Mage Armour is estimated with the 2.4 changes (very gear dependant), Elemental Precision is much more valuable now with little hit on gear.

Evocation is pretty much on par with untalented Life Tap now for efficiency, 9k mana over 10s vs. 1.4k mana over 1.5s.
Both get the same benefit from haste.
Life Tap has the health cost and may lead to gib-danger in high random damage scenarios.
Evocation can be interrupted, can't be cast on the run, and has a cooldown.

It all depends on the situation really.

Life Tap on Council can be tricky. Evocation on Teron followed by random nuke spam will net you a whole 1.8k mana, AFK for a drink while waiting to get mana back.
I'm very tempted to make an IV+Evocation macro against those annoying interrupts. Will definately use that when tanking Council.


With pots/gems/Evo, mages will last for 4-5 minutes of straight nuking.

Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
I do find this post interesting, though, given how Master of Elements scales.
MoE scales with crit, which has a pretty low DPS/itembudget return. I've gained maybe 5% crit from starting gear until now, and will lose some crit again in Sunwell I think.
It's 9% mana reduction at 30% crit (greens/blues), 13% at 44% crit (geared and buffed).
Honestly, I couldn't care less if they made a flat reduction. (The fire AoE cost would suck though, but that's not out topic).

I'd probably prefer that since getting a streak of bad luck means that you do low damage and don't get mana back.



Life Tap scaling has changed a lot. But that doesn't mean that the sky has fallen. Or that changed cannot be adjusted.
If the coefficient changed from 15% to 17% mana, Life Tap shouldn't be too different from it's current with the 20% haste you can't avoid from Sunwell gear.

[Edit]: With "scaling coefficient" i meant the percentage of max mana gained from life tap.


[Edit]:
Checking Leulier's warlock DPS spreadsheet with Sunwell gear, raid buffs, totem, Destruction Warlocks go from 2211 (2.3.2 mechanics) to 2243 (GCD change) to 2175 (GCD + Life Tap change). 2% loss from mechanics. Mages lose around 1% from removed cooldown stacking.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/24/08 at 8:21 AM.
#3081SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Just an update on Rawr.Mage. I added talent and mage armor comparisons, dps uptime, scorch maintaining, interrupt model and ABAMx3+Sc with AM on clearcasting as an example of dynamic cycle. Same download location.
#3082SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raencloud
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Life Tap scaling has changed a lot. But that doesn't mean that the sky has fallen. Or that changed cannot be adjusted.
If the coefficient changed from 15% to 17% mana, Life Tap shouldn't be too different from it's current with the 20% haste you can't avoid from Sunwell gear.
What coefficient of life tap are you talking about for next patch. According to the latest notes, LT won't be running on a coefficient at all anymore. The way I'm understanding the new mechanic is a straight conversion, you lose 26% of your maximum life and gain 26% of your maximum mana (independent of the warlocks HP). If this is the case, that means 2 things: 1) in terms of mana returned per tap, warlocks will be getting a buff across the board and 2) they will be losing significantly more hp per tap. This is according to the warlock I talked to today who told me he gets around 1800 mana per tap live right now, and 26% of his mana pool is easily 2500+. He did not seem too concerned at all about the change and it would seem they would need a shadow priest even less now (just a big heal after a tap). Am I reading this change incorrectly?
#3083SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3BrTarolg
Actually, thats a good point. Exactly how is this a nerf to warlocks at all?

Raid warlocks have more mana points than HP points, so now you get a *better* ratio of health to mana conversion than previously.
This is more likely, a pvp nerf, where warlocks will more likely have more hp than mana.

One really key thing about lifetap though is that it cant be interrupted and it can be cast whilst moving which is a huge boon. If a fight has *any* break time at all, or *any* times where you are not DPSing, then you can simply save yourself a lot of time by life tapping then, since your DPS would be zero at that time anyway.
#3084SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
you lose 26% of your maximum life and gain 26% of your maximum mana
Where are you getting 26%? It's 16%.
#3085SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by vokzhen View Post
Pintofbrew: I know, I kinda like complaining though :P I just don't like that our utility comes with a 30% DPS loss.

It really seems like Blizz is trying to level the playing field through nerfs. The LT change is a big nerf for destro, especially shadow since it's less efficient. The damage gap between spriests/afflic locks and other casters is being lowered by the haste changes while forcing mages (to some extent) and especially locks to gem for hit rating.

hypetech: It helps dps, but very, very poorly. With the change to Evocate, Blizz should have reitemized mage gear with better stats. Especially since they seem so intent on making Arcane nonviable for raiding, they are really the only spec that benefits from spirit in any way.
I believe you're wrong. You make a number of statements which are based on how you interpret events but I believe you aren't seeing the bigger picture. SP and Affli isn't being "nerfed" because of haste changes, simply a new mechanic is being introduced that hasn't been used ever before and it seems to be affecting certain specs more than others. In the same way that Armor Pen isn't a "nerf" for Enh Shaman because Rogues benefit more. Already haste has been modified to take into account instants so within less than 4 months of haste being introduced it affects your DPCT already. The fact that you gain less than a direct-cast class is not intended to nerf you, it's simply a side-effect of a new different mechanic. Just because both DOT and DD end up on the same damage meter doesn't make them identical in rights, abilities or mechanics.

Gemming for hit-rate? So what? What's the problem? By having lower hit-rate on items it gives people with high hit from talents the opportunity to not cap out. Frost mages in T6 were capped out without trying, even Fire mages were capped out with optimal gear. What's the difference between 10hit on an item and a slot which can be a 10hit gem? You see being "forced" to slot Hit as a bad thing but that's being petty. Even slotted to hit in most slots the 2.4 epics blow 2.3 content to bits for the most part.

The change to evocate was a much needed modification in terms of consistency and pvp. I won't advocate pvp changes affecting pve but doesn't anyone else think swapping spi weapons a little bloody stupid? It's clearly not an intended mechanic and not atall smart. The change was well made and I'm happy for it. Everyone seems obsessed with removing spirit from mage gear, choosing the easy way out. Well no, thanks. If you remove spirit from gear, that realistically leaves only priests and druids with any interest in the stat at all. Does anyone else see this as dumb? Think of it like this: The game will have 5 base stats of which one applies only to 2 of 9 classes, and even then only to half their specs. Kinda odd, isn't it? I want to keep spirit and I want it reworked into something useful and beneficial. I don't want all cloth to be stamped from the same mould and have to compete for it with everyone. I'd like to see both Mages and SP gain from spirit gear, even if it's a spec-specific gain and I want to see the damn stat made useful.

This ties into the main reason I answered your post. You claim "intent on making Arcane nonviable for raiding". You have no evidence for this. When BC-arcane was conceived it was totally impossible to tell if it was raid-viable or not and to all intents and purposes it was perfectly fine. Since then, it has received no nerf (unless you're particularly picky and point to the Evo change, but again, this was not an arcane nerf but a non-intended-use fix). Everyone thinks 2.3 was an arcane nerf, you're totally wrong. What 2.3 was, was a fix for a badly-implemented bug introduced with 2.2. In 2.2 AM was made to proc-per-pulse and so created the MSD-TLC-ATOI-AM combo we all tried, which was blatantly item abuse. Someone ran numbers back then and discovered that without MSD, in order to reach MSD values you needed an additional 350 spellpower. Does it seem logical that one gem is worth so much? Of course not. If this had been discovered by during testing, clearly, it would have never made live but it wasn't and we had a month or two of merry machine-gun. 2.3 was not an arcane nerf, it was (like Evo) a change to make the game more consistent and "correct". There has never been any evidence that Blizzard wants to make Arcane "non-raid viable". On the contrary, I see exactly the opposite: T5 in itemization and boni is totaly arcane-geared, the spirit change affects pretty much only arcane, the change to Arcane Meditation in 2.3 affects only Arcane, the haste->GCD affects arcane more than fire and the increase to the AE Damage cap affects Arcane the most. If anything I'd say Blizz is trying to make Arcane the "Big Spender, Big DPS, AoE king" spec.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 02/24/08 at 6:47 AM. Reason: Most likely failed attempts at clarification.
#3086SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
While I'm in general agreement with you about spirit, if what we're getting in 2.4 is the "major overhaul" that we were promised, then it should be fairly clear that spirit is never going to be made into a truly desirable DPS stat, and as such, I'd like to see it removed from my gear. With the exception of Enh Shaman T6 pieces, no other class has such a large portion of their item budget spent on a stat that would be generously described as mediocre. As I said, I agree that the whole stat is a bit silly as is right now, but I'm not going to hold out on a blind hope that it's going to made any less useless in the foreseeable future.
#3087SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raencloud
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Where are you getting 26%? It's 16%.
I am getting 26% from the information posted on WoR in their latest undocumented changes, however I have heard reports that it does not seem to be giving what's listed, so now I'm not sure if that's a bug or if they incorrectly wrote the tooltip. I guess 3 things could happen:

1) 26% hp to 26% mana
2) 26% hp to 16% mana
3) 16% hp to 16% mana

It seems that number 2 is occuring atm, which would be a nerf for warlocks that have under 11250 (since most report ~1800 mana per tap live right now). At least in a raid setting, at 16% I believe most warlocks will be close to this number as to not hurt them too much.
#3088SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raencloud
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
While I'm in general agreement with you about spirit, if what we're getting in 2.4 is the "major overhaul" that we were promised, then it should be fairly clear that spirit is never going to be made into a truly desirable DPS stat, and as such, I'd like to see it removed from my gear. With the exception of Enh Shaman T6 pieces, no other class has such a large portion of their item budget spent on a stat that would be generously described as mediocre. As I said, I agree that the whole stat is a bit silly as is right now, but I'm not going to hold out on a blind hope that it's going to made any less useless in the foreseeable future.
I very much enjoy seeing the spirit gear out there. First of all, according to Kavan's numbers posted a while back, 1 point of spirit is slightly better than 1 point of damage for arcane. Second, if you remove all spirit from gear (I'm specifically referring to the "useless" spirit gear out there that has int/spi/stam/dmg/crit on it), they have 3 dmg options to itemize, hit, crit, or dmg. Haste isn't an option, as there are already stam/int/dmg/crit/haste gear out there, so making 2 nearly identical pieces would be pointless. Hit is an option, but there has to be SOME items without hit for people that don't need it (ie arcane). Crit is too overpriced IMO, and would overall hurt the item, and if it's added to damage, affliction locks and SP are going to be all over it.

Currently, the biggest problem with caster loot is that fire/frost/destruction locks gear EXACTLY the same, and no use has been found for all the spirit/stam/int caster gear thats out there that seems underbudget compared to items without spirit. Thus we are constantly competing over items. If arcane speccing pans out, you will finally see uses for all this wasted gear, and there will be nearly no competition for the gear either, because mages will be the only ones wanting that style of gear, and I see absolutely nothing but good from that.
#3089SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3vokzhen
Pintofbrew:

I said Blizz lowered the damage gap - they did. The changes to haste increased the damage of DoT's (or rather, allowed more filler via Flay/Sbolt), and the lower hit rating on Sunwell gear means that mages and locks need to save a few gems for hit while spriests can continue to ignore it (though those few afflic locks still out there are kinda screwed). The gap has been lowered.

I can understand your points about spirit. I want to see it made viable, but as it stands, it's not, and pretty much wasted. Though, to be fair, weapon-swapping for Innervate still exists, as does using things like the T5 priest trinket to grossly inflate its effect.

As for Arcane... I guess I can see both sides. They haven't nerfed it directly, but during the item fix they also didn't do anything to keep it viable compared to Fire at T6 levels. (And as a side note, was AM actually changed, or just the items? I was under the impression AM was always proc-per-pulse, but the MSD bug was not only inflated in value but in turn inflated the value of other items).

For Life Tap, what I've heard is that 26% is a display error. It's 16% health to 16% mana, which is a fairly major nerf and makes it more likely that firelocks start popping up since it's more mana-efficient.
#3090SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Raencloud
Originally Posted by vokzhen View Post
As for Arcane... I guess I can see both sides. They haven't nerfed it directly, but during the item fix they also didn't do anything to keep it viable compared to Fire at T6 levels. (And as a side note, was AM actually changed, or just the items? I was under the impression AM was always proc-per-pulse, but the MSD bug was not only inflated in value but in turn inflated the value of other items).

For Life Tap, what I've heard is that 26% is a display error. It's 16% health to 16% mana, which is a fairly major nerf and makes it more likely that firelocks start popping up since it's more mana-efficient.
Arcane Missiles was changed in 2.2 to be a pulse as opposed to 1 single channeling affect so that you could not continue shooting people when they run out of range or out of LOS, and in turn created it's ability to stack with so many proccing items that didn't have cooldowns.



16% life tap is not as big a nerf as you think. Most raiding warlocks are easily at 10k+ mana pools, and 16% of 10k is 1600 mana. Most warlocks are saying they get 1800 mana per tap right now, so in 2.4 any warlock with 11250 buffed mana will being seeing the same life taps, they will just take more health, which won't be a huge deal. I don't really think warlocks will be hurting from this change as much as people are making it out to be.

--Talking to the locks in my guild, they don't plan on respecing fire unless it actually does more dmg than shadow will, including any affects it may have on the dps of shadow priests.
#3091SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
While I'm in general agreement with you about spirit, if what we're getting in 2.4 is the "major overhaul" that we were promised, then it should be fairly clear that spirit is never going to be made into a truly desirable DPS stat, and as such, I'd like to see it removed from my gear. With the exception of Enh Shaman T6 pieces, no other class has such a large portion of their item budget spent on a stat that would be generously described as mediocre. As I said, I agree that the whole stat is a bit silly as is right now, but I'm not going to hold out on a blind hope that it's going to made any less useless in the foreseeable future.
We were most certainly not promised a "major overhaul" and it has been said before that there will be no serious revision before WOTLC. With changes pending I see your claim at making spirit void until it's fixed unreasonable. What are you asking for? Remove spirit now because it's not needed, but three months down the line randomly insert it again because the stat gets an overhaul? I agree that we're wasting budget but there is simply no feasible solution to mitigate that issue until spirit is patched up. If this was 5 months ago, yes, I'd campaign for spirit to be removed, but it ain't and I find it unreasonable now given (a) this is not a patch which is designed to overhaul gear (b) there is an expansion soon which will overhaul spirit.
Originally Posted by vokzhen View Post

I can understand your points about spirit. I want to see it made viable, but as it stands, it's not, and pretty much wasted. Though, to be fair, weapon-swapping for Innervate still exists, as does using things like the T5 priest trinket to grossly inflate its effect.

As for Arcane... I guess I can see both sides. They haven't nerfed it directly, but during the item fix they also didn't do anything to keep it viable compared to Fire at T6 levels. (And as a side note, was AM actually changed, or just the items? I was under the impression AM was always proc-per-pulse, but the MSD bug was not only inflated in value but in turn inflated the value of other items).
Weapon swapping for innervate is still an issue and is still idiotic, however having 10% of the WoW population regularly rely on a mechanic which will either return 2k mana or 15k mana depending on if you quickswap two Spi weapons is a lot sillier than having innervate, which is almost exclusively used on other classes, suffer the same problem. The priest trinket to inflate the effect is a perfectly normal use of the trinket. That and switching on OO5SR time are very logical uses of it and nowhere near as gimicky as a Whacking Stick of Spirit with lvl 60 spirit enchant on and a Channelers Wand of Spirit.

You're still interpreting a fix of broken item mechanics as an arcane fix. Arcane has never been nerfed in the entirety of BC. Not Once. Arcane only received one buff in that AM procced "on hit" effects 6 times instead of once and another buff in Arc Med regenning 30% passively instead of 15%. The freak 2.2 AM spam was unintended and a clear missuse of bad mechanics. Do you see it logical that after the items are corrected to work in a fashion that is accepted the rest of the spec is then subsequently buffed to correct the difference?

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 02/24/08 at 5:44 PM.
#3092SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
There's a very simple fix for all this spirit on items problems. Blizzard should add more tier sets for different mage schools. Let there be spirit on arcane sets and not on frost and fire.
#3093SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Agreed, the people here claiming spirit is ok are saying that relative to arcane specs. I'm deep fire now and since I generally do get CoE, I won't be changing to arcane in 2.4. I always use Molten Armor and my time outside FSR is probably never more than 10%, if not near 0%. As such, the spirit on my gear is a complete waste right now, and I'd much rather see it either removed outright or at least lowered in favor of more stamina and intellect. Mages have been the lowest hp class for all of BC, generally by a wide margin, and I don't think swapping from spirit for more stamina is unreasonable to ask for.
#3094SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vhad
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
There's a very simple fix for all this spirit on items problems. Blizzard should add more tier sets for different mage schools. Let there be spirit on arcane sets and not on frost and fire.
But at that point of customization, you'd want different spell dmg schools too, and we'll have FSW and SF situation again.
#3095SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gumibear
Originally Posted by Raencloud View Post
Arcane Missiles was changed in 2.2 to be a pulse as opposed to 1 single channeling affect so that you could not continue shooting people when they run out of range or out of LOS, and in turn created it's ability to stack with so many proccing items that didn't have cooldowns.



16% life tap is not as big a nerf as you think. Most raiding warlocks are easily at 10k+ mana pools, and 16% of 10k is 1600 mana. Most warlocks are saying they get 1800 mana per tap right now, so in 2.4 any warlock with 11250 buffed mana will being seeing the same life taps, they will just take more health, which won't be a huge deal. I don't really think warlocks will be hurting from this change as much as people are making it out to be.

--Talking to the locks in my guild, they don't plan on respecing fire unless it actually does more dmg than shadow will, including any affects it may have on the dps of shadow priests.
16% of about 11k raid-buffed mana vs. a 580 + (0.8 * 1687 raid-buffed shadow damage) for me. 1760 in 2.4 vs. 1930 before 2.4.

You may see more fire warlocks than you think. I would normally have about 33% to crit in a raid. 3 Warlocks using shadowbolt at that crit rate can get about a 65% ISB uptime. A single Destruction Warlock at that crit rate can keep up 50% ISB up time. An Affliction Warlock can still manage 30%.

For raid DPS purposes, it will make sense for a 3 Warlock raid to have one Warlock that uses Shadowbolt while the others use Incinerate. The ISB returns on the first Warlock are a lot higher than the others. The one SB-using Warlock still has some fluff talents like Nether Protection and Soul Leech to drop for Emberstorm should a situation arise where his ISB debuff isn't worth the loss of personal DPS. A 2 Warlock raid should probably be 2 Incinerate users with CoE and CoR up though, assuming both are Destruction.

What this amounts to is CoE gains some value and it's less likely than you think for the malediction Warlock to use CoE. If raiding Warlocks adapt to these changes and you keep one Shadowbolt-using Warlock, Shadow Priests don't see a significant loss of damage compared to what the Incinerate-using Warlocks and Fire Mages gain.

I wouldn't mind if Mages decided to go complain about Emberstorm and say 10% haste is stupid and you want a fire version of ISB though.
#3096SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Finkum
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
But at that point of customization, you'd want different spell dmg schools too, and we'll have FSW and SF situation again.
It certainly isn't necessary to have school-specific damage in order to differentiate arcane and frost/fire tier sets. An arcane set would want very high int, high spirit, low hit, low - middling crit and haste, and (very) high damage. The frost/fire tier would want medium int, no spirit, high hit, balanced haste and damage, and some reasonable amount of crit.

You'll notice that the priest damage tier uses generic +damage, despite being used almost exclusively by shadow priests and thus with one school of magic only. I don't think Blizzard will make the mistake of school-specific damage gear for anything other than ring/neck/other fluff slots again.
#3097SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Anedris
Given that the priest DPS set also has spell crit on it, I'm pretty sure Blizzard deliberately mis-itemizes gear. Mage gear doesn't have to be balanced against (read: be as good as) warlock gear. All that needs to be balanced is the damage output of mages and warlocks (such that they are roughly interchangeable in a raid, as it seems they are intended to be and as they generally are - though sometimes you want more of one and sometimes more of the other). Blizzard could make mages scale better than warlocks and then give mages access to only subpar gear to keep them roughly equal (though this would seem a strange way to go about it, but ultimately it wouldn't much matter).

Now, none of this is to say that mages and warlocks are balanced at the moment - but warlocks are getting their own round of tuning and we have no idea at present how things will settle out.
#3098SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3JasonX
Originally Posted by Gumibear View Post
I wouldn't mind if Mages decided to go complain about Emberstorm and say 10% haste is stupid and you want a fire version of ISB though.
A fire version of ISB will seal the fate on all other non-fire specs, just like what destro locks are right now.
#3099SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3goodolarchie
I have to agree with Pint on the spirit argument. Half the crowd wants it removed for better stat itemization and the other half needs it for AB spam. The problem is even if our only REAL option for spirit - Arcane Meditation- were moved to be a 3rd tier talent to be in line with Intensity/Meditation, its still not accessible to fire mages. It would have to be a 2nd tier talent, opening possibilities of an 8/42/11 build... then perhaps rework clearcasting? The arcane tree's viability seems to rise and fall with every slight whim of blizzard's talent / item tweaks. I think blizzard has an idea with what they want to do with the tree - High DPS at the cost of low DPM, but it would be nice to see some tenacity. I'm hoping the theorycraft and sunwell fight mechanics can support an AB/frosbolt build as you all outlined.
#3100SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Can we please quit with the "I want spirit off my T6" arguments? The vast majority of us are not arcane and are suffering because of it, we all know it, we all would like it. It's absolutely adamantly clear that (a) there is no game-design logic behind removing a stat which is already used only by 3 classes from one of them (b) Spi is getting a substantial overhaul in WOTLC which is (c) just around the corner. Especially when it has been announced by blizz that (d) there will be no substantial class-changes until then, and certainly (e) no item overhauls. Particularly ones which directly affect the one spec which is receiving buffs and benefits so monumentally from it.

Can you immagine? Patch notes 2.4 "spirit now massively increases regen based on int-dependent formula, meaning high-int classes with spirit gain massively. Spirit removed from all mage gear." Does this seem logical to you? Games are not designed to cater for your specific preference, they're supposed to cater for the designer's conceptualization. "but nobody specs arcane" is a great argument, but it's not a valid reason to remove arcane or it's supporting gear, it's a reason to buff it correctly. It's being done in the now-familiar baby steps and maintaining spirit is one of the steps.

We know we'll change in 5 months time, we know spirit will change in 5 months time. It's kinda obvious that just because we like it Spi won't magically disappear from gear for a few months and reappear after that isn't it gentlemen?
#3101SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Stuff from the PTR:

[Band of the Eternal Sage] is now a 10 second buff. They fixed it finally.
[Mystical Skyfire Diamond] is 320 haste for 4 seconds. It still *DOES* affect the first cast after it procs.
[Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] still does *NOT* affect the first cast after it procs.

Still looking for a Combustion/Icy Veins macro without /stopcasting that not bug out the Combustion coldown timer.

Last edited by Roywyn : 02/25/08 at 7:40 AM.
#3102SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
stuf (post 3085)
I agree with most of your points, but Blizzard also hasn't really done anything to make arcane viable for raiding.
Sure 2.2 AM was overpowered because of item abuse, but the 2p T5 bonus is the same way overpowered that TLC, MSD etc. where in 2.2.
Where is arcane viable actually? In T5 content with T5 gear. Why - because of an overpowered 2p bonus and the fire and frost immunity bosses. So arcane is actually only viable in/with bugged content. (and for people reaching lvl70 wich <600 spell dmg for some weeks till they get gear)

About the spirit: The main problem is, that spirit and int don't add spell dmg for casters like str and agi add ap for meeles.
I'm not sure if Blizzard ever can fix this problem which is now over 3 years old. They have already changed the agi>ap conversion for Hunters, so something like that is possible and the release of BC would have been a good time for that.
We'll have to wait for the WotLK beta to see how Blizzard wants to solve the manareg mechanic.

For now I agree that spirit should be made useful instead of removing it, but there are 2 problems:
1. Warlocks manareg relies on converting health into mana and having some healing functionalities (more HP talent, Healthstones, Life Tap, set bonus, fel armor, ...). So their manareg works fine (at least in pve) - they only need a little more stamina on their gear because of their talent and this stamina has a cheap item budget.
Mages manareg relies on spirit and that costs just too much item budget. The arcane tree is int focused, but spirit is much more useful in terms of manareg with the 2.4 formula. To make spirit on gear really viable (at least for arcane) we would need some arcane talents which actually do something with that spirit (like arcane mind also increasing spirit, mind mastery based on int+spirit and add a talent wich converts spirit to crit so spirit gear can be without crit - useful for spriests too).

2. Problem: The spirit on our sets is only viable for one spec. We would need 2 different sets as someone already mentioned and I don't see Blizzard doing that.
The only solution for that would be some good talents easy reachable in the arcane tree, or spread out some spirit->[someting useful] talents in all 3 trees.

The problem with the arcane tree still remains, over the last 3 years the arcane tree was either mandatory (evo+imp. cs+instant ae), useless or only viable with item abuse (including 2p T5), immune bosses or unjustified nerved coefficients.
Also the little tricks with AM+<some cast> for a tick OO5SR and AB casting with stacked (reduced) casting time but not stacked mana cost, are in the same category as the old MSD,TLC, ... tricks - not really intended by the developers.
All the changes you list at the end of your post are not done for arcane, they are general changes for many classes and specs.
If anything I'd say Blizz is trying to make Arcane the "Big Spender, Big DPS, AoE king" spec.
Really? Nothing has changed for AM scaling and should AB spam really be the future of mage raiding? Arcane has only one AoE spell and no real buffs for the other AoE spells. (Sure the cap gets increased by 50% but that only shows how bad that cap is actually and how stupid the concept of a fixed cap is. All the arcane talents buffing AE already work even with the lower cap (more crit chance, more crit dmg).
I'd like to see arcane getting what you've written, but right now I don't see Blizzard really doing the needed actions for.

PS: Anyone know what's the reason that some caster classes/speccs get 10% spell hit for free reducing the need for hit on gear towards 0 and other classes/specs only get 3%. That totally jumbles caster itemization.


EDIT:
Can you immagine? Patch notes 2.4 "spirit now massively increases regen based on int-dependent formula, meaning high-int classes with spirit gain massively. Spirit removed from all mage gear." Does this seem logical to you?
I'd rather call it high-spirit classes with int gain massively.
As useless the "remove spirit from mage sets" is with WotLK on the horizon so understandable is it. This whish is not born with the 2.4 PTR notes, it exists much much longer. Mages live the whole addon with the problem that we are wearing gear which is a whole tier worse than other classes gear. The reason this topic gets big now is that blizzard reduced a barely useful stat (stamina) from all T6 sets leaving back an even more useless stat (spirit) on the gear. Which very directly and painfully shows the itemization problem. And while removing spirit totally from the new T6 items might not be wise in the long term, with a reduction of spirit by ~50% on that 3 pieces I only would see advantages.

Last edited by kadgar : 02/25/08 at 9:03 AM.
#3103SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Maledict
Originally Posted by kadgar View Post
PS: Anyone know what's the reason that some caster classes/speccs get 10% spell hit for free reducing the need for hit on gear towards 0 and other classes/specs only get 3%. That totally jumbles caster itemization.
Without want to sound hysterical, it's because when the game first launched Blizzard had absolutly *no* idea how to gear for casters at all. They were very much in the EQ mindset of "more mana is more damage for mages, like strength if for warriors" - that's a paraphrased quote from Tseric back then. Look at the -to mana cost items in the first version of the game, or the molten core class sets. Or the fact that spell hit as a stat wasn't even introduced until BWL, where it appeared on a whole two items (Trinket and bracers).

I'd bet a large amount of money that Blizzard would like to lower the 10% hit talents to 6% or lower, but they simply aren't ready to do that after everyone has geared around the 10% cap. My guess would be that in WotLK, the talents get changed, as they really do hamper itemisation for casters on a massive scale, and it's already messed up enough as it is.
#3104SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
I never implied arcane has been changed sufficiently or satisfactorily. I am aware AM has not changed at all barring the proc-per-pulse. Why do you see AB spam as a bad choice in terms of "future of raiding"? It's useless in PvP, it's hopeless in solo, it's extremely intensive in 5-mans where the mana cost causes massive down-time drinking so I see no problem in making it very "needy" in exchange for it dominating PvE Raid content. Do you really think AB spam is so bleak a future? As though Fireball spam or Frostbolt spam is somehow better? Unless there's some unforseen massive change in the oven, I see a 2/5*T5 talent appearing deep in the arcane tree in WOTLC, or at least some rework to make it competitive without it, obviously.

You say AB-rotations are unintended, I completely disagree. They've been around since forever and are not in any way gimicky; they don't rely on item abuse or ability abuse but simply mesh rotations exactly like an SP, or an Affli does. If it truly was not intended by devs then the AB debuff would last 15 or 30sec, just like Winter's Chill or Imp. Scorch. 8sec neither makes sense nor is consistent with the intention of having it up and maxed out asap, like W.Chill or I-Scorch.

You state spirit has no use, short of flat regen. I disagree that it should have additional functionality; When a stat affects everyone, like say Stamina, it makes sense that classes that function fundamentally more stamina-based than others get some modifier to it. So that gives us Warlocks and Warriors each having a Sta modifier. When a stat affects only 3 classes to begin with (priests, mages, druids) and two of them get a substantial modifier to the stat to begin with, then is there really a point to give the 3rd one too? The spirit change as it stands already seriously inflates spirit's value for us in 2.4. Scaling with sqrt(int) means we gain a lot more mana from a given amount of spirit if we stack lots of Int (and personally I'd prefer if we only had one stat we wanted to pump) than if we stack clean spellpower. Int currently in 2.4 for arcane gives: More manapool than in other specs, more crit than in other specs, more mp5, spellpower, more mana from Evo and increases the value of spirit. Depending on how you simulate your arcane, int is very competitive with spelldamage and in certain scenaria has been proven to be worth 1.5spell damage per point. With Spi coming in a very, very respectable 0.59dmg equivalent I think we can't complain about spi being underpowered. With this output spi is almost as good as crit.

Of course, I'm not claiming by any means that spi or indeed int is valuable in anything other than arcane. Including an integrator talent in each tree relating to spirit would be silly though, we hardly have talents to integrate Int which out of all the stats is clearly the one which is more "magey" in one tree and I see no reason to integrate spirit into fire, given it's regen is purely MoE or frost, given it's regen is not needed. Other than desire to see value from a stat on gear there is no other realistic reason to do so.

You find a problem in that arcane has only one aoe? DB, CoC and BW are all utility spells and ones with cooldowns at that. They are AoE in that they affect multiple targets based on range but they are not AoE in that they are a fundamental source of damage in an AoE scenario. Essentially the only AoE which can do the bulk of our work is Flamestrike, Blizzard, and AE. "Arcane has only one AoE spell and no buffs for other AoE spells" you say. Please elaborate as to why you find this a problem. AE is currently the AoE DPS of choice, increasing it's cap 50% and giving it benefit from haste will make AToI-IV-AE spam utterly destroy SoC.

Lastly, what do you mean "why do some classes get 10% and others 3%"? Would you rather we all had the same talents and needed the same gear? Just because you're cloth doesn't make every cloth drop the same for everyone, and that's one of WoW's biggest successes. Variety and disparsity between classes/spec mean that a multitude of gear can be catered for with subtle but clear differences. Why does Emp. Fireball get 15%coef. and Empowered Frostbolt 10%coef. and 5%crit? Variety. Difference. It's what keeps this game with 10M players and Lineage II with less than 300k.
#3105SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Why do you see AB spam as a bad choice in terms of "future of raiding"? It's useless in PvP, it's hopeless in solo, it's extremely intensive in 5-mans where the mana cost causes massive down-time drinking so I see no problem in making it very "needy" in exchange for it dominating PvE Raid content. Do you really think AB spam is so bleak a future? As though Fireball spam or Frostbolt spam is somehow better?
No, Frostboltspam is not really better, but just AB spam is even more monotone and boreing than frostboltspam.
I'd rather like to see AB rotations with some flexibility with the filler spells and the number of stacks to be the future.
And I'm not very happy that best gear for Arcane spec includes 2p T5.

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
You say AB-rotations are unintended, I completely disagree. They've been around since forever and are not in any way gimicky; they don't rely on item abuse or ability abuse but simply mesh rotations exactly like an SP, or an Affli does.
You understood me wrong, AB rotations are fine. The small tricks we get advantages from are not intended. AB-AB-AB-AM-SC-AB in this rotation the last(=first) AB gets reduced casting time without increased mana costs if the timing works. This is one trick, the OO5SR tick after an AM is the other one.

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
When a stat affects only 3 classes to begin with (priests, mages, druids) and two of them get a substantial modifier to the stat to begin with, then is there really a point to give the 3rd one too? The spirit change as it stands already seriously inflates spirit's value for us in 2.4. Scaling with sqrt(int) means we gain a lot more mana from a given amount of spirit if we stack lots of Int (and personally I'd prefer if we only had one stat we wanted to pump) than if we stack clean spellpower. Int currently in 2.4 for arcane gives: More manapool than in other specs, more crit than in other specs, more mp5, spellpower, more mana from Evo and increases the value of spirit. Depending on how you simulate your arcane, int is very competitive with spelldamage and in certain scenaria has been proven to be worth 1.5spell damage per point. With Spi coming in a very, very respectable 0.59dmg equivalent I think we can't complain about spi being underpowered. With this output spi is almost as good as crit.
I don't say spirit is underpowered, but its item budget is too high(probably for the other classes to). And yes, int actually buffs a lot of things which already goes too far for me in 2.4, this leads to extreme high int values and manapools which take forever to drink to full.
But if spirit shall has a future on mage gear, mages and spriests will share cloth gear and they have different priorities on stats, which could be easily solved with such talents.
Again we have to wait for the WotLK changes with spirit and spirit buffing manareg only is ok for arcane specc.
But if we'll still only have 1 mage set in the future, there is some need to justify spirit on mage gear for not so mana hungry mage speccs and there I'd like to see some additional uses for spirit which also would give us more flexibility in itemization and gemming.

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Of course, I'm not claiming by any means that spi or indeed int is valuable in anything other than arcane. Including an integrator talent in each tree relating to spirit would be silly though, we hardly have talents to integrate Int which out of all the stats is clearly the one which is more "magey" in one tree and I see no reason to integrate spirit into fire, given it's regen is purely MoE or frost, given it's regen is not needed. Other than desire to see value from a stat on gear there is no other realistic reason to do so.
There is a major difference between int and spirit for fire and frost speccs. (let's neglect the int>crit conversion for a moment)
Int for fire and frost has a similar role than stamina has. You wouldn't gem or enchant it if you have alternatives, but you can't live completely without it and in general more is always better, although you can't say how much you really need.
Spirit for fire and frost speccs is a complete waste, if you could trade 200 spirit for 10 spell dmg, fire and frost mages would do it.
At the end there is the question if you want to have 1 mage gear (set), or do you want 2: 1 with spirit, 1 without. I want only 1 set, but then spirit must either have a value for all mage speccs or spirit mustn't be on that set.
I agree that int is more the "magey" stat, but that leads to the removal of spirit from mage gear again ...

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
You find a problem in that arcane has only one aoe?
No, but "THE AOE Tree" should have a bit more to offer for AOE than just one spam spell with maximized dmg. AoE for me not only consists of dmg, but also of utility and control, especially since other classes don't have such abilities. Their AoE spells are only dmg, so AoE control is one of the niches for mages. If mages should be AoE Kings we need more than just dmg. AToI-IV-AE has some cd involved and I can already see the nerv bat incoming to the AToI trinket ...


Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Lastly, what do you mean "why do some classes get 10% and others 3%"? Would you rather we all had the same talents and needed the same gear? Just because you're cloth doesn't make every cloth drop the same for everyone, and that's one of WoW's biggest successes. Variety and disparsity between classes/spec mean that a multitude of gear can be catered for with subtle but clear differences. Why does Emp. Fireball get 15%coef. and Empowered Frostbolt 10%coef. and 5%crit? Variety. Difference. It's what keeps this game with 10M players and Lineage II with less than 300k.
Diversity is fine, but in this case it has a huge impact on itemization and the itemization failed with too much mandatory hit on items (T6). With the 2.4 items the situation looks better, but you probably have to socket hit and if you then want to respecc to arcane you would have to regem your equipp, which can't be intended. Hit is a very special case, since its use is very hard-capped at a easily reachable value and Blizzard should be more careful here.
#3106SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Doroteasenjk
Arcane is not "The AoE Tree". Yes, it has the most powerful, low-threat AoE. Mages are the masters of magics (my plural). When you need control, you have Frost Nova or Blast Wave or Improved Blizzard; when you need damage, Arcane Explosion is your friend.

Diversity means that different classes/builds value items differently. Some issues with stat allocation are getting fixed on the PTR, and more issues will be fixed before it goes live. Whenever you respec, you certainly will have to reconsider all of your gems and enchants to keep from wasting points; it's a fact of life. When I get a new piece of gear, I budget about 250 gold to get new gems and enchants and replace some gems; more if a metagem is involved.

This diversity and "inventory management" is part of what makes the game fascinating, and keeps it interesting after more than three years. It allow me, with my arthritis and 55-year old reaction times, to be very competitive with the 18-year olds on many fights because the extent of my preparation is so deep. Having linear formulae and clear delineations is extremely rare (the three-line graph from a year ago that Lhivera published). Being able to understand, at least intuitively, the simultaneous equations that make up proper gearing appeals to both the game player and the math nerd in me.

Item abuse: the 2-piece Tier 5 bonus does not involve item abuse. The increased damage is paid for with increased mana cost, much like Arcane Power. The abuse that PoB refers to is when the epiphenomenal consequences drastically exceed expectation; when you move into geometrical or exponential increases in power with only a small set of steps. The AM/MSD situation made you "God like" for seconds at a time; it was hardly intended. The 2-piece T5 set bonus is definitely intended, and although it may synergize with other talents and items (AP), it is hardly unexpected by anybody looking at or playing with the talent.

Last edited by Doroteasenjk : 02/25/08 at 11:44 AM. Reason: Reference to Item Abuse
#3107SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zalath
It would make sense for mages to have the same hit requirement for all speccs. It would encourage people to test new builds. Giving each class the same +hit goal to reach does not mean that all of a sudden every caster is the same, but it does prevent the feeling of people being locked to a specc. Paying a few gold to respecc is fine. Changing rare gems hurt more, but is still acceptable, but if you have to get new epic gems to overwrite other epic gems just because the latest patch note gave this or that specc a small advantage?

Why not switch Arcane med. with one of the tier one talents? Fire and frost would then have at least some use of their spirit, and if the switch is made with Arc Sub you also increase the diversity between the speccs since arcane would then clearly be better at AoE. You could of course remove spirit from the hard points of gear and encourage people to socket for it, by say giving arcane a talent that doubled or even tripled spi from sockets, but then we would have the issue of some gems being useless for other specs again.
#3108SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Doroteasenjk
Respeccing is serious business. It will cost you 50 gold for the respec, 20 gold for the spells (2.4 might change that on a respec, the wording is not clear), and regemming and reenchanting to balance things out. However, you will spend quite a lot any time you get new gear.

You should consider using a web tool, such as Search Results for " ctprofile.net ", or an in game tool, such as WoWEquip, to test drive new gearing and see what you can achieve for balancing of stats.

Blizzard now makes the PTR a well-defined preamble to any patch release. While they may have unfortunate troubles with character copies, those are usually temporary and are solved before the patch goes live -- they have to be as the copy and update process use much the same code as upgrading a character when a patch is released.

So, make sure you use one or two of your character copy slots for loading up a character with all of the gold, gems and enchants you can to check out a new spec. Oh, and make sure and test a little of the content to pay Blizzard back for the use of their test facilities.
#3109SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Kadgar: The AOE tree does have much to offer. In getting your 11 frost points to get IV you can simply spec Ice Shards and result in a much higher CoC damage output. Arcane arguably has much higher crit rate than frost unless you're nova->shatter but it's rather clear that two GCD in order to force a crit is a DPS loss compared to an AE->CoC. Very high utility AoE is the Fire tree's business, nobody said Arcane had any kind of utility. Indeed, you'll notice arcane has the least in terms of utility. None of the spells have pushback protection, none have range increase, and barring Slow (and technically counterspell and poly) none offer any utility whatsoever. While fire and frost offer slow, freeze, DOT, stun and daze. Arcane was never about anciliaries.

Zalath: No it would not make sense to have the same hit req for all specs, too many of you are obsessing over making the class a one-gearset-fits-all, with stat equivalencies accross the board, I'm sorry but I simply disagree with that. One of Arcane's benefit, and affliction's for that matter, is it's high hit-from-talent makes it very good value early on when hit is sparse and sorely needed, with this benefit less apparent later on. I find it thankfully refreshing that not every damn piece I wear is perfect for everything and that sacrificing adaptability in order to excell in one spec/playstyle/setup is a good thing. How amazingly monotonous and boring, not to say horribly competitive would it be if there was an automatic best-in-slot item ranking irrespective of spec/class? Can you immagine only one set of shoulder pads being the best for Affli, Destro, SP, Arcane and Fire?

Why not switch Arc Med with a tier one talent? Because it's too powerful to be a tier 1 talent, simply. Why not switch Molten Fury with Imp. Scorch so Frost can get it too? Because it's a Tree-Defining ability. Same with Arc. Med.
#3110SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
Is there a need to ever re-gem to hit? Aren't there enough hit items that are better than it's upgrades if not hit maxed such as:

Cowl of the Illidari High Lord > Helm of Arcane Purity
Chronicle of Dark Secrets > Heart of the Pit

So that you can just switch gears if you want to mess around with hit? This is definitely the case in live.
#3111SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Doroteasenjk
The gems allow you to adapt what you have to what you need. The stats that are important to you can be placed where you need them, as your spec and gear requires. The flexibility of this aspect of the gearing process provides a depth to the game.

Very few people have the luxury of a complete alternate gear set of similar iLevel. In your case, you assume there is nobody not doing post Tier 6 content, and that all drops have fallen to them. This is patently false on so many levels.
#3112SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
It's not just at the T6 vs post-T6 level, although that's what a previous poster was fretting about. And from a optimization point of view, the max gear is what matters and there won't be hit gems as of now.

There are enough flexibility when upgrading from the previous tier / obtainable hit items to new no-hit items that if you just keep the outdated hit gear, you shouldn't have to re-gem. Ex.

Robes of Rhonin > Robes of the Tempest
Belt of Blasting > Anetheron's Noose
Mana Attuned Band > Eternal Sage/Ancient Knowledge
Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy > Eredar Wand of Obliteration
Ashyen's Gift > Violet Signet of the Archmage

Besides, if you are raiding with an elemental shaman, and she is able to keep totem up for you about 30% of dps time, spell damage becomes more valuable than hit for a very easily obtainable 113 hit (alliance). Considering that some fights the shaman can do this 100% and sometimes 0%, it makes a very compelling case to have gears to switch around (unless you switch gems between bosses) anyway, making hit gems redundant.
#3113SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3zurmagus
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
And given mana consumption over time doesn't change for, well, anything...
Hello, my name is haste. Have we met?
#3114SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Beadazl
Hoping for some quick Theorycraft confirmation. I've been content for months to simply glean all the information on these boards, but ever since 2.3, Lhivera's Calculator has been telling me that my highest (realistic) sustained damage spell rotation is Fireball, instead of the expected Fireball Scorch Rotation. I can only assume I'm using the calculator incorrectly - but for the life of me I don't see what i could be doing wrong. Is it possible that this is in fact the case, that my relatively mediocre T4/T5 gear has created a strange situation? I'm importing my stats, attaching relevant buffs and food and pure death, etc, leaving out all other class dps buffing, since we are short on support classes, then comparing classic fire and IV fire builds. [edit] and manually adding my uber 42 spell haste.

I suppose I'm looking for confirmation mostly on how to use the calculator since I pretty much base all of my gear selections on it, and I would be quite dissapointed if I'd been doing it wrong all this time. But was interested if anyone else might have noticed this abnormality. Anyways, sorry if this is the wrong thread for this, I'm often confused as to what is an appropriate line of discussion, and here's the dps parse as the calculator reports it:

Dmg/Sec Spell/Rotation Threat/Sec
1,447.12 Fireball (< 20% health) 1,302.41
1,431.16 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 (< 20% health) 1,288.05
1,314.28 Arcane Blast / spammed (< 20% health) 788.57
1,240.34 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF avg'd 1,116.31
1,207.24 Fireball 1,086.51
1,192.64 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 1,073.37

1,095.24 Arcane Blast / spammed 657.14
965.10 Scorch 868.59
753.89 Pyroblast 678.50
674.66 Arcane Blast / single cast 404.79
649.02 Arcane Missiles 389.41
566.20 Frostbolt 566.20
#3115SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
why did you expect fireball scorch? scorch is just there for the debuff, if you let someone else scorch debuff for you, the results would be that pure fireball is better dps
#3116SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Beadazl
Originally Posted by Ginkgo View Post
why did you expect fireball scorch? scorch is just there for the debuff, if you let someone else scorch debuff for you, the results would be that pure fireball is better dps
Ah, so you are saying the calculator is including the 5 stack scorch debuff in its calculations, that makes sense, and I suppose I should have figured that out. It just seems odd that it uses different language for the debuff existing in the top 3 outcomes when incorporating the Molten Fury Time into the equation, but omits pointing out that the debuff is up in the two lines I have highlighted. Thanks. [edit] Actually I suppose it doesn't really show any difference in language, but is odd that it assumes its presence when reporting jut fireball spam. All makes sense now though.

Last edited by Beadazl : 02/25/08 at 4:13 PM.
#3117SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Maddmage
Using Vontre's spreadsheet to compare [Collar of the Aldor] (with MSD and 12 spell dmg gem) and [Cowl of the Grand Engineer] (with 3x 12 spell dmg gems).

As far as the spreadsheet goes, the T4 helm is about 20 dps higher than the Cowl doing Frostbolt spams using a 40/0/21 spec. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. With the gems I'm using in the helms. Using the Cowl over the T4 one would mean that I'm giving up 4 spell crit rating and 3% spell crit dmg, but gaining 36 spell dmg instead. Is the 3% spell crit dmg really that much better than 36 spell dmg?

Thanks ahead for any help/clarification.
#3118SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Maddmage
Oh, one more question. I'm using 40/0/21 with 3/3 in EP (so with the bug that's 6% spell hit to frost spells). From playing around with the spreadsheet for a while, why does it seem that the benefits of spell hit kinda "tops off" at around 13% (~90 spell hit rating)? When it should be at the commonly accepted 16%?

It seems that after hitting the 90 spell hit rating mark with gear, any more gear that has spell hit in it (and thus lower spell dmg and crit rating than a similar piece of gear without hit) will always drop my DPS/dmg done. This kind of debunks the whole "16% or bust" rule no? At least for 40/0/21?
#3119SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
If your rotation is not completely frostbolts, than the extra hit is not helping your arcane spells since you have arcane focus.
#3120SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Maddmage
Originally Posted by Ginkgo View Post
If your rotation is not completely frostbolts, than the extra hit is not helping your arcane spells since you have arcane focus.
I'm going to assume this is an answer to my question?

I have two different spell rotations set up for comparison. One is just spamming frostbolts, the other is using an AB/Frostbolt rotation. With the question I was posing, it is in both cases that anything above 90 spell hit is having a negative effect on my DPS.
#3121SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
Are you sacrificing too many of the other stats for spell hit?
#3122SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
The problem with spirit on mage gear extends far beyond the arcane vs fire mage spec debate; it effects end-game raiding in general. With BC raiding, it's clear that Blizzard designed encounters based on the assumption that casters and healers would have unlimited mana. In terms of balancing, this change was necessary. If casters did not have unlimited mana, then the classes that did not rely on mana for their roles (ie: rogues and warriors) would be far superior in longer fights. If you were to buff casters/healers so that they would be more effective in shorter fights, then melee classes would be completely removed from these short encounters. Changing encounters to an unlimited mana situation was necessary for the evolution of end-game raiding.

However, Blizzard currently in a bind in regards to spirit. First, spirit is designed to be a mana-regeneration stat. It provides very limited benefits aside from that (no increase in survivability and minor boost to healing/+spl if you have divine spirit). Second, spirit in its current state is a far inferior form of mana regeneration when compared to shadowpriests and mana pot spam. Finally, the most daunting issue is that even without the buff in spirit, most casters/healers can fight at unlimited mana given shadowpriest and mana pot spam. Therefore, in order to make spirit a competitive stat, Blizzard needs to do at least one of three things:

#1: Make spirit give additional benefit (similar to what they did for healing perhaps: +1 spirit gives +1/3 spell damage)
#2: Allow for a way to convert additional mana into additional DPS (ie: arcane blast) or additional healing.
#3: Increase the mana consumption/mana regeneration requirements for a fight so that casters and healers can no longer maintain unlimited mana with just shadow priests and mana pots.

If you think about it, none of these changes can be easily made or implemented without greatly effecting other aspects of the game. The easiest thing to do is probably #1, to make spirit give an additional benefit(s). However, Blizzard would then need to balance the additional benefit received by spirit classes (priest, druids, and mages) with non-spirit classes (shamans, paladins, and warlocks). Currently, arcane mages are the only class that can take advantage of the extra mana regeneration provided by the spirit buffs, so this would need to be extended to other classes. Point #3 may be the most difficult to implement, as that would bring into discussion mana-using classes vs non-mana using classes in raids.

As a final note in regards to mages, if Blizzard does intend to make Arcane the dominant end-game PvE raiding spec, then the question remains of what to do with fire. In terms of PvP/arena, fire is still inferior to frost in terms of both survivability and burst. Although 33/28 will receive a buff via improved blink and molten armor, it's doutbful whether this will overcome the benefits of the WE. In terms of heroics/10 mans, fire is the worst amongst the 3 trees because of its reliance on ignite. Mobs would die too fast for a deep fire spec to be ideal in these instances. Fire would basically turn into what arcane is right now: a dead tree. The best situation for Blizzard is to buff the arcane tree enough to make it the ideal tree for running heroics and 10-mans and keep fire as the dominant PvE end-game raiding tree. Frost will continue to serve as the best PvP/arena spec and will also serve as an alternative raiding spec.
#3123SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Maddmage
Originally Posted by Ginkgo View Post
Are you sacrificing too many of the other stats for spell hit?
Not at all (at least I don't think so).

For example (and this leads back to the first of my posts for today). I am swapping between [Collar of the Aldor] and [Cowl of the Grand Engineer]. Using the Collar I have 92 spell hit from gear (have CSD and Glowing Nightseye in the Collar). Using the Cowl I have 108 spell hit from gear (have 3x 12 spell dmg gems in the Cowl). However, using the Cowl takes my Frostbolt spam DPS down by 20 and Frostbolt/AB spam DPS down by 16. If anything I think I'm gaining dps stats using the Cowl, but it seems going over that ~90 spell hit mark tanks my overall DPS.
#3124SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
Originally Posted by Maddmage View Post
Oh, one more question. I'm using 40/0/21 with 3/3 in EP (so with the bug that's 6% spell hit to frost spells). From playing around with the spreadsheet for a while, why does it seem that the benefits of spell hit kinda "tops off" at around 13% (~90 spell hit rating)? When it should be at the commonly accepted 16%?

It seems that after hitting the 90 spell hit rating mark with gear, any more gear that has spell hit in it (and thus lower spell dmg and crit rating than a similar piece of gear without hit) will always drop my DPS/dmg done. This kind of debunks the whole "16% or bust" rule no? At least for 40/0/21?
There never was a "16% or bust" rule. Hit is like every other stat in that it has a ratio between it and other stats based on your current stats. It just so happens that it has the highest returns, which is why most people try to cap it. For example you'll have lower dps wearing Ashyen's Gift and capping hit vs wearing Ring of Ancient knowledge and needing 21 hit.
#3125SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Bisbus
Probobly a silly question, but does anyone know if the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond meta gem gains any ground with arcane in 2.4 over the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond?
#3126SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Bisbus View Post
Probobly a silly question, but does anyone know if the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond meta gem gains any ground with arcane in 2.4 over the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond?
Nothing relating to mechanics of either gem changes, CSD should still be ahead.
#3127SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Beska
What are the numbers of the arcane/frost spec that's looking to be top dog in 2.4? I've never specced into anything similar and I don't know where to start with it.
#3128SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
There is no chance in hell Insightful will ever compete with anything, let alone CSD. Insightful is barely better than Swift Starfire Diamond. The jury is still out on whether CSD is better than the new "14crit rate 2%int" meta but it's extremely unlikely CSD is dethroned as the DPS choice.
#3129SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3lunaire
Please have a look at this spec and compare dps with deep frost

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator


Question:
If you have another deep frost mage in the raid who is putting on Winter's Chill. Would it be a better and by better I mean a higher dps choice to go the arcane frost spec at a +spelldmg of 1250 (raid buff) and buffed int of 700 (with this spec)?
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator


What I've thought so far:
First things first: Ignore Winter's Chill effect because another mage is going to be putting that up for me. It seems that This spec scales better with intellect and full raid buffs give a great benefit mainly because of MOTW and BOK which both increase int. However you lose out in the DPS scaling for spell damage because now we don't have Empowered Frostbolt. The arcane side of the tree with Arcane Instability and Arcane Potency give (average) a 6% crit increase which can off-set the 5% crit you get from Empowered Frostbolt (leaving +1%crit to this spec is comparison). The only problem I can't seem to calculate with my stupid brain is with the above +dmg and int, does the gain from Spell Power, PoM, Mind Mastery, Arcane Power exceed the gain from Empowered Frostbolt, Arctic Winds and the Water Elemental? You probably don't have to worry about Ice Floes + Cold Snap = Shorter Icy Veins CD because, even without the talent, it is enough to do one extra Icy Veins per boss fight.


Reason for talents spent that might need explanation:
The reason for only 2 points in Elemental Precision is because I hear that you get an extra +1%spell hit per point spent in that talent for Frostbolts. And the only 2/3 Frost Channeling is going to be balanced with a subtlety enchant on my cloak. Cold Snap is to use Icy Veins more frequently.


Please no replies to this questions with silly answers like "pft arcane frost is sub-par fullstop blabla". Please give a calculated mathematical answer.. I would really appreciate it.... as this has been on my DPS hungry mind for a long time.

Oh and mind mastery would go along well with the new 2.4 Metagem which is about to come out.
#3130SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinborn
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Why not switch Arc Med with a tier one talent? Because it's too powerful to be a tier 1 talent, simply. Why not switch Molten Fury with Imp. Scorch so Frost can get it too? Because it's a Tree-Defining ability. Same with Arc. Med.
I would have to say that Arcane Power (or Spell Power) is the tree-defining ability in arcane. Perhaps placing Arcane Meditation in the 2nd tier, trading spots with Magic Absorbtion. That way fire has to give up a bit to get 8 points in arcane for it.

The reason mages want 1 set of gear that does it all is because we only get ONE set. This isn't vanilla wow anymore. We can have 2 sets of gear. Hell give affliction locks a 2nd set even. They get one for arena right?
#3131SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gand
Originally Posted by Zalath View Post
Paying a few gold to respecc is fine. Changing rare gems hurt more, but is still acceptable, but if you have to get new epic gems to overwrite other epic gems just because the latest patch note gave this or that specc a small advantage?
As I am currently switching back and forth between 2/48/11 and 40/21 these days, I find this very true. What I would love to see is buff food for casters equivalent to melee's [Spicy Hot Talbuk] to help avoid the constant regemming when trying out new specs.
#3132SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mithr
Hi all,

I follow this thread since a long time but this is my first question. I'm Mithr, a french mage currently working on Kael Thas. Here is my profile : The World of Warcraft Armory

I often use the Lhivera's theorycraft tool in order to chose my gear and to improve my dps, but one thing surprises me.
Among all the dps cycles used by this tool, i don't see any cycle based on (fireball*2+fireblast) with refresh scorch when needed.
In my mind, the (fireball*2+fireblast) cycle does a little more dps (but is much less mana efficient) than the (fireball*8+scorch)and i try to use it whenever i can (with shadow priest + shaman in my party).

As i don't see this cycle in the Lhivera's calculator i asked myself if it is really the best cycle for dps? (cause of lag after casting a fireblast?due to the gcd you can't start casting sooner as i used to do thanks to quartz).

Please could you brief me about the difference between this 2 cycles and why (fireball*2+fireblast) is not in the Lhivera's calculator? (perhaps he forgot it but it is very unprobable).

Thanks for your answers, and excuse me if i did some mistake, i'm not yet fluent in english so don't hesitate to correct me^^
#3133SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
This is due to an ignite bug where if you crit with Fire Blast after a crit Fireball in your Fireballx2 Fire Blastx1 rotation, there's a chance one of the ignites won't register, which hurts considerably.. At least that's my reasoning.

For the re-gemming, please see my post on the previous page why there is no need to re-gem to hit.
#3134SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mithr
Very fast answer

i ever heard about this ignite bug, but i thought it was very rare and i didn't look after this problem. How often this bug take effect? I'll try to go to Dr Boom this evening but if anybody ever know it would be nice
#3135SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
Please report your test!

I'm interested since I'm thinking after the 2.4 haste changes, it might be feasible again, even though at a 35% crit rate and 1.545 pre-ignite modifier, that's approx .35*.35*.4*1.545 = 7.5% loss, so even if the bug occurs at a 10% rate, that's still a .75% dps loss which is hard to overcome.
#3136SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Setia
Also, at full T6 level of gear, full Fireball spam becomes straight-out better DPS than using Fire Blast.
#3137SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3RoboStac
As far as I'm aware, the ignite bug happens if you cast a fireblast and it crits while the fireball is in mid-air. See the rolling ignites thread for more information.

Beyond that, fireblast scales very badly compared to fireball (no scaling with haste, 0.42 damage coefficient compared to 1.15, no T6 bonus).
#3138SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
With the haste changes assuming top gear, Fire Blast will be ~100 dps better than Fireball, and so the rotation will be ~25 more dps without the bug
#3139SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
I believe latency is the real killer for having fireblast in your normal rotation.
#3140SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
Doesn't the new changes to client-server casting minimize that effect? Just spam that G15 macro
#3141SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pony
mithr je pense que la reponse que tu cherche c'est que le fireblast scale moins bien que la fireball avec le spellpower Lhivera ne l'a peu etre pas inclus pour cette raison et aussi pour le bug qui a ete mentionner juste avant. Sur une optique endgame le spam fireball est beaucoup plus rentable que fireballx2 fireblast voila.

( sorry for the french but i couldn't find the word to explain it clearly to him )
#3142SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3ogotaï
weapon

Hi,

I'm little bit lost with the haste. My talent are 2/48/11. For you which weapon is more "powerfull"

Fang of the Leviathan or Blade of Twisted Visions

If it's the Blade of Twisted Visions, it s going t keep is advantaage with the 2.4 patch?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Ogo
#3143SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vannik
Originally Posted by Ginkgo View Post
This is due to an ignite bug where if you crit with Fire Blast after a crit Fireball in your Fireballx2 Fire Blastx1 rotation, there's a chance one of the ignites won't register, which hurts considerably.. At least that's my reasoning.

For the re-gemming, please see my post on the previous page why there is no need to re-gem to hit.
The probability of a fireball crit to fireblast crit with a 33% crit rate is 1/9. And if it happens it's not guaranteed to disregard the crit. If your fireblast does noticeably more damage than your fireball, then I'd say to keep it in your rotation unless you're going to be moving. On the first add I would save fireblast so I could do damage while getting in range for the next fireball. The thing that I think would be worse on your DPS is if you move without being able to use fireblast. That's just wasted dps time.

I almost forgot: Latency shouldn't be too big of an issue with the spell casting system implemented. The big thing is to watch if you have any haste gear on so that you're not overlapping rotations.
#3144SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Luniare all you've posted is well known and has been known since BC came out. The 40/0/21 spec is not a new invention. Information further about it can be found on [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread . 2/3 Frost Channeling because of "cloak enchant" is not a valid excuse, though you may argue that if you cycle AB with Fbolt it is less needed. The same stands for 2/3 Ele Pre. There is only one excuse not to spec full Ele Pre and that's you're capped out with it on one less point. The point of speccing it isn't to reach 4% with only two points, it's to reach as much as possible without surpassing the cap.
#3145SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3sambjo
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Luniare all you've posted is well known and has been known since BC came out. The 40/0/21 spec is not a new invention. Information further about it can be found on [Mage] Sweet Informational Thread . 2/3 Frost Channeling because of "cloak enchant" is not a valid excuse, though you may argue that if you cycle AB with Fbolt it is less needed. The same stands for 2/3 Ele Pre. There is only one excuse not to spec full Ele Pre and that's you're capped out with it on one less point. The point of speccing it isn't to reach 4% with only two points, it's to reach as much as possible without surpassing the cap.
If you're doing blast/bolt rotations there's no reason to even want arctic reach over ele precision or frost channeling since blast is limited to 30 yards. And arcane blast or not, you want frost channeling maxed. The only floater points are ele precision depending on your hit.

40/0/21 vs 10/0/51:
Yes, 40/0/21 has higher frostbolt dps than 10/0/51 when you're leeching WC from another mage. However, depending on how water-ele-friendly an encounter is, 10/0/51 can be the better choice.
#3146SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
in 2.3

Then again if the encounter isn't elemental friendly there shouldn't be a 10/0/51 mage to leech off of anyway, not to mention in practice there's no real reason to be 10/0/51 over 2/47/11+1, and therefore no real reason to be 40/0/21. And if you're optimizing your DPS based on some suboptimal choices of your raid members that's really something I wouldn't like to be a part of discussing
#3147SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Alcyon
Originally Posted by ogotaï View Post
Hi,

I'm little bit lost with the haste. My talent are 2/48/11. For you which weapon is more "powerfull"

Fang of the Leviathan or Blade of Twisted Visions

If it's the Blade of Twisted Visions, it s going t keep is advantaage with the 2.4 patch?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Ogo
Twisted Visions is currently better (as haste is better than crit) but less "safe" as haste increases your mana usage and it has no stam. Next patch, however, Twisted Visions gains a bunch of stam and even more +dmg at the cost of a bit of haste so it becomes even better than it currently is.
#3148SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tifordin
I have a question with regards to Molten Fury -

In a typical 25-man raid against a boss with a large amount of HP (in excess of say, 4mil) what percentage of fight length is the boss likely to be under 20% hp for? Obviously if a single mage's DPS was negligible alongside the other DPS in the encounter, then the boss would be in execute range for roughly ~20% of the fight length. However if there are one or more fire mages (out of 8-10 DPS classes) then the time that the boss spends in execute range is going to drop below 20% of the total fight length. Is this drop going to be negligible (eg. drop to 18% time) or is it fairly significant? Would it make a bigger difference for a 10-man raid?

Trying to establish the best way of modelling time spent in Molten Fury execute range for a time-based fight :P
#3149SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Wether it being significant or not depends on warriors executing, fire mages and bloodlust usage. If all your blooslusts are being used <20%, fire mages or not the last 20% will last far less than 20% of the duration. With no bloodlusts and only 1 warrior and 2 fire mages in the raid, though, it'll be much closer to 20% of the time (but still under of course). Note that I'm not looking at people dying affecting this as you're just as likely to die yourself and gain nothing out of those last 20%, as you are likely to be alive with other people dead gaining more from that last 20%.
#3150SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Celani
@Lunaire. Ignore the arctic reach. You need to be inside 30 yards for AB anyway, which is a key part or your rotation. The extra point in elemental precision is never wasted. That's 25.2 points of hit rating (2% hit for frostbolt) that can go into something else, like haste or damage, and 2% more efficiency on frostbolt. With 126 hit rating, you are capped for both arcane and frost this way. I'd also swap out of Magic Absorption and put those points into Magic Attunement, which will benefit the raid substantially on a number of fights.

Last edited by Celani : 02/27/08 at 7:49 PM.
#3151SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
The general conscencus amongst most TC I have seen so far is that the execute range accounts for 15% of the fight duration.
#3152SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by manly View Post
The general consensus* amongst most TC I have seen so far is that the execute range accounts for 15% of the fight duration.
Only if you're full raid is alive.

But with the nerf to our trinkets not stacking anymore on the ptr, has Icon/Hex lost any power to it? I know we've lost our whole real power to do huge numbers, specially with IV and BL/Hero not stacking anymore, but do we lose that much more dps by the no stacking trinkets?
#3153SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Prod
You could get around the faster execute range by nicely asking your shaman to BL late, and save your cooldowns. Your effective damage output in <20% health was greater than 20% of your damage, even if the duration was shorter. But with these recent changes, I doubt that would be so anymore. So yes.
#3154SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
You could get around the faster execute range by nicely asking your shaman to BL late
Ask nicely? No, just tell him if he wants to raid then do as the group wants.

But you missed what I was asking really. Since we can't stack Icon/Hex with Skull anymore, do Icon/Hex lose a lot of their usefulness?
And at the same time, how much of an impact is not having IV being able to stack with Bloodlust/Heroism going to make? Specially on the trinket cooldown usage side.

Do we want to stagger cooldowns even more now with the upcoming changes?
#3155SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I'm not sure I can answer that, last I tested on PTR they were still stacking together despise the notes. What didn't stack was AP and IV.
#3156SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
As of Sunday (our last PTR raid), Skull+HSH were not stacking together. That may have changed in the past few days (who knows, really), but it was definitely the case for me on Sunday.
#3157SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cookinator
I'm a Frost Mage, 10/0/51 with 1019 damage with Robe of Hateful Echoes. This week i picked up both that robe and the Robe of Departed Spirits from ZA. I know haste is good and is normally better than damage, but how much damage? Gemming Robe of Hateful echoes with +12, +9, +9 spell dmg, which chest piece would be better in yall's opinions?

Armory link: The World of Warcraft Armory
#3158SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Cookinator View Post
I'm a Frost Mage, 10/0/51 with 1019 damage with Robe of Hateful Echoes. This week i picked up both that robe and the Robe of Departed Spirits from ZA. I know haste is good and is normally better than damage, but how much damage? Gemming Robe of Hateful echoes with +12, +9, +9 spell dmg, which chest piece would be better in yall's opinions?

Armory link: The World of Warcraft Armory
[Robe of Hateful Echoes] with 30 +damage in gems versus [Robe of Departed Spirits]?

As Frost I typically use 1 crit = .6 +damage and 1 haste = 1.1 +damage for the purposes of eyeballing items. With that in mind, and with the gems you chose, I'd say Hydross' robe slightly edges out the ZA robe.

That said, I view both as step-ups on the way to getting Vashj's robe, [Vestments of the Sea-Witch], which will blow both out of the water and help you shuffle around some hit.

And again, I was merely eyeballing it. You may want to check out Theorycraft-o-matic or Vontre's spreadsheet for a better idea.
#3159SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
As of Sunday (our last PTR raid), Skull+HSH were not stacking together. That may have changed in the past few days (who knows, really), but it was definitely the case for me on Sunday.
Yeap, as of tonight still not stacking. This and the IV not stacking change are going to hurt soon.


Ok, going to make this big and bold:
This is the Theory Craft thread, not the help me thread.


The help me thread is here: [Mage] Help me please?
#3160SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Not that I encourage people to exploit bugs or anything, but the stats bug is still alive on the PTR right now. This is a great opportunity to test theorycraft with values that were not possible before (read: 1 million+ spell damage kind of values).

I'm not too sure what to test except for cap values of stats, but crit does goes all the way up to 100%+, and you sitll get 1% resist on all mobs, as expected. Spell haste has definately no cap. If anyone gets a good idea of what is worth testing for future knowledge, please post it up asap for this unique opportunity that we will probably never get again.

Also, make sure to spec 5/5 mind mastery as you will absolutely need that talent to get high spell dmg.

EDIT: if someone could, please record your int/spi and mana regen, so that we can validate the currently used int/spi regen formula.
#3161SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akuman
Here's what Whitetooth from Ratingbuster got apparently.

From Intellect -> Spirit Conversion on the PTR : Theorycrafting HQ

Originally Posted by Bluephantom View Post
(0.001+(SPI*0.009327*(INT^0.5))*5 = MP5 OO5SR
So if you have 500 int and 200 spirit you get

(0.001 + (200*0.009327*(500^0.5))*5 = 208.56 mp5
#3162SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Hate Monkey
Ok, so I think I'm on to something here, and that's a big I think.

So with the changes to the ability to stack trinkets gone, is it now best to activate your highest on use trinket first, nothing else (Flamecap is ok), cast Fireball 3 times, scorch(I know bad practice), hit IV, Combustion, then 2nd trinket and any remaining cooldowns outside of getting a bloodlust.

For this to work out, need about 4% passive haste to work correctly, BT or ZA ring+bracers

0 Trinket+Flame cap
3 Fireball hit
6 Fireball hit
9 Fireball hit
10.5 scorch hit+IV+Combustion
12.8~ Fireball hit
15.1~ Fireball hit
17.4~ Fireball hit
19.8~ Fireball hit
20 Pop 2nd trinket(assume Skull)+rest of cooldowns+destro pot+(~~berserking for Trolls)
~~1.7s cast Fireballs till berserking+IV off (10.5s of Fireballs, 6 total)
~~2.6s cast Fireballs till Skull off (7.8s of Fireballs, 3 total, 1.3s of scorch, 1 cast) 19.6s
~~1 Last Fireball under Skull effect, total time elapsed 42.2 seconds~
1.95s~ Cast fireballs till IV off (11.7s of Fireballs, 6 total)
2.6s~ cast fireballs till Skull off (5.2s of Fireball, 2 cast, 1.3s of Scorch, 1 cast) 18.2~s
1 Last fireball under Skull effect, total time elapsed 40.8 seconds~

Reminder: These numbers are not 100%, and there might be an extra fireball in there, or 1 less.

edit: Fixed the numbers, separated berserking numbers from non-troll numbers.

Last edited by Hate Monkey : 02/27/08 at 5:52 AM.
#3163SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Cornelium
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
5% haste ~ 79 haste rating. Using magegraph (since I can't be bothered to do all the calculations again) with the same gear, I get the following for comparison.
+79 intellect => +3.3% DPS
+79 crit rating => +2.7% DPS
+79 spirit => +1.8% DPS
+91 (79*1.15) damage => +3.5% DPS
+79 haste rating gave me +3.8% DPS in my calculations.

I ran the haste on magegraph again, +79 haste gave me +3.2% damage and 1144 more mana at the end which can be used for another +0.3% DPS.


Now I'm really curious which stat is so much better than haste.
I'm a bit ignorant about maths, but probably you should compare stats basing yourself on itemlvl points (which i ignore), rather than the sheer numbers. As far as i know, crit costs quite more than other stats, while haste costs less. Example: if a random item with itemlevel 100 has got 100 spelldamage, the same item will not have 100 spell critical strike rating in another shape, nor 100 spell haste rating. Anyone can understand this easily by looking at gems, which have the same ilvl: 12 spelldamage compares to 10 spellcrit. Which is roughly 17% less.
And while i'm on it, anyone knows a reliable source of each stat's itemlvl comparison?

EDIT: Yeah i only read when i see there's 5ish new pages of comments. Not a big fan of forum-refreshing hence why the late replying.

Last edited by Cornelium : 02/27/08 at 6:42 AM.
#3164SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Cornelium View Post
I'm a bit ignorant about maths, but probably you should compare stats basing yourself on itemlvl points (which i ignore), rather than the sheer numbers. As far as i know, crit costs quite more than other stats, while haste costs less. Example: if a random item with itemlevel 100 has got 100 spelldamage, the same item will not have 100 spell critical strike rating in another shape, nor 100 spell haste rating. Anyone can understand this easily by looking at gems, which have the same ilvl: 12 spelldamage compares to 10 spellcrit. Which is roughly 17% less.
And while i'm on it, anyone knows a reliable source of each stat's itemlvl comparison?

EDIT: Yeah i only read when i see there's 5ish new pages of comments. Not a big fan of forum-refreshing hence why the late replying.
He did exactly what you suggest. And you also have already answered your own question in your post - Gems.
Take the epic Hyjal BT Gems you see that all ratings and base stats (excluding stamina) have the same item budget - 10 (spell) crit rating / 10 defense rating / 10 (spell) haste rating / 10 hit rating / 10 agility / int / 10 spirit ...
#3165SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cornelium
I was under the impression they vary, tho. Which is why i ask.
For example.
Red rare gem: 9 spelldamage. Yellow rare gem: 8 spellcrit. Crit is worth 88,88%.
Red epic gem: 12 spelldamage. Yellow epic gem: 10 spellcrit. Crit is worth 83,33%.
#3166SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sengiratolom
Considdering the regen changes and a 40/0/21 spec i made a possible template using 2pt5 and 4pt6

70 Human Mage

(note that the neck doesn't have a socket even though it should, adding another 10 int pre talents/bok= 17 int)

wich with the new meta [Ember Skyfire Diamond] would result in 1060 ish int for humans raidbuffed and +/- 1100 for gnomes

allowing long periods of arcane blast spamming and regening mana by spamming frostbolts, but i wonder how that would compare to a similarly geared fire mage (who ofc would use molten armor and dmg gems instead of int) in overall dps
#3167SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Cornelium View Post
I was under the impression they vary, tho. Which is why i ask.
For example.
Red rare gem: 9 spelldamage. Yellow rare gem: 8 spellcrit. Crit is worth 88,88%.
Red epic gem: 12 spelldamage. Yellow epic gem: 10 spellcrit. Crit is worth 83,33%.
According to Roywyns post: 1 rating / base stat = 1,15 spell dmg.
Rare gem: 8*1,15 = 9,2
Epic gem: 10*1,15 = 11,5
The rest is rounding.
#3168SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Grai
Originally Posted by Sengiratolom View Post
I'm not really sure what you expect us to get out of this. You've made a mage in a "perfect group" with shadowpriest, elem sham, and moonkin. Also, a retadin. Then, you've taken what you percieve to be the best gear and stacking int/spirit when (at least I haven't seen) it hasn't been proven that those stats outweigh stacking spell dam yet. It's highly unlikely that a mage will find themselves in this ideal setup, or with a need for as much int/spirit as you're suggesting.

You're suggesting a mode of theorycraft (post 2.3 - 40/0/21) that's already been examined in this thread, and I'm not sure what you're contributing to the discussion. Yes you've got a big mana pool and lots of regen. But while things are still on the PTR, looking at the gear this way is kind of redundant.

Find some earlier posts by Kavan that outline what you're suggesting. They back it up with some solid and interesting TC too.

[Mage] TC after 2.3
[Mage] TC after 2.3
[Mage] TC after 2.3
#3169SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Sengiratolom
i didn't include a retri pala in the template.

but now back to the topic:

the point of posting a template with int stacking to the point i have is to allow longer arcane blast spam, wich indeed has been discussed earlyer, the TC you linked is what gave me the idea for the template.

Even though the tc about int/spi hasn't been proven yet it seemed like an interesting change + finaly making use of the spi on our gear.

i was wondering what other TCers here thought of said profile

Last edited by Sengiratolom : 03/12/08 at 7:59 PM.
#3170SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Akuman View Post
Here's what Whitetooth from Ratingbuster got apparently.

From Intellect -> Spirit Conversion on the PTR : Theorycrafting HQ

So if you have 500 int and 200 spirit you get

(0.001 + (200*0.009327*(500^0.5))*5 = 208.56 mp5
No look, I know thats the formula the TC has. I don't really care about what TC predicts -- the problem of a lot of TC we have is that it was tested only under the possible available scenarios. Currently on the PTR you can test with 1 million intellect and 1 million spirit if you will -- it allows you to see if our TC is accurate or not.

For example, this could be used to know far more precisely the formula used for spells downranking (ie: test with 200k spell dmg).
#3171SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ginkgo
Originally Posted by Cornelium View Post
I was under the impression they vary, tho. Which is why i ask.
For example.
Red rare gem: 9 spelldamage. Yellow rare gem: 8 spellcrit. Crit is worth 88,88%.
Red epic gem: 12 spelldamage. Yellow epic gem: 10 spellcrit. Crit is worth 83,33%.
It's .855 according to wowwiki
#3172SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Grapeape
2.4 badge Gear question

Has anyone done the math behind what gear choices will be best out new badges items in 2.4?

Gear progression Kara,GL clear ZA 5/6

I was thinking for me Robe,Pants (Crit) and ring would be best place to start. Still hoping for Hexblade from ZA or S2/S3 blade.


Thanks in advance
#3173SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Guys can you please, please, for the sake of all that's Holy NOT post questions concerning what your spec/gear/guild/raid need? This is the TC thread and in case it eludes you, TC Stands for Theory Craft, not Information Center.

If you've got Questions for the sake of all of us, direct them to [Mage] Help me please? Not in here. It's getting seriously tiring and annoying reading this endless line of people who are under the impression their loot optimization is a worthy matter of Theorycraft interest.
#3174SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Aegrus
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Currently on the PTR you can test with 1 million intellect and 1 million spirit if you will -- it allows you to see if our TC is accurate or not.
From a purely mathematical, data analysis standpoint I think this is a very important point. Any formula in the game that TCers would like to back calculate, until now, has been limited to calculations involving the 0-1000 orders of magnitude. For linear formulas with known inputs you obviously only need two points to nail down the internal calculation, for more complex calculations having access to data orders of magnitude higher than that mentioned above is a huge advantage. It still leaves the complexity of figuring out what inputs the function takes and what general form it has but at least you'd have more than adequate data available. I'm not much of a TCer so I can't really add more specifics to the discussion but I'm hoping someone out there will take advantage of this opportunity for the benefit of the rest of us lazys.
#3175SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
xiaoxin21
They have been new additions to the PTR mainly for gems and alchemy.

Notable additions for mages include +6spell/+5haste pyrestone.( A good substitute for spinels)

They also added a better epic versions of the Alchemist stone that gives +54hit (!) and 40% effect on pots.
Wearing that, skull and the 50 hit staff can nearly account for all the hit you ever need.

I am wondering how would this affect mages in 2.4, and how the new pyrestone compares with spinel.

Last edited by xiaoxin21 : 02/28/08 at 12:31 AM.
#3176SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3CHeeSY-CrAfT
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...elepicgems.jpg

Quick Lionseye > Reckless Pyrestone > Runed Crimson Spinel at t6 gear level?

A lot of the Sunwell loot has red and yellow sockets all over the place, so mixing and matching the pyrestone and lionseye might be in favor I'd guess.
#3177SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Copernicus
Haste is only barely better than +dmg for deep fire at Tier 6 gear levels. At lower gear levels, it's worse than +dmg.

Haste gems are good enough that it's sometimes worth it to try to match gem bonuses now. But it really comes down to an item-by-item basis and evaluation. [Mantle of the Tempest], for example, is going from +24 dmg -> +10 dmg, +10 haste, +7 stamina. So a trade of slightly less than 4 damage for 7 stamina.

Yellow -> Reckless Pyrestone
Blue -> Forceful Seaspray Emerald
Red -> Crimson Spinel

After checking... it's actually closer than I thought. But it's really heavy spreadsheet math to check if 10 haste can beat 12 spell damage.

Last edited by Copernicus : 02/28/08 at 2:16 AM.
#3178SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Jarlyn
I'm likely not going to re-socket my existing T6 with haste gems. I don't think it's worth destroying existing spinels for the haste gems, and I'm going to be looking to replace most of the existing T6 with Sunwell gear anyway. With shoulders in particular, [Amice of the Convoker] is going at the top of my list, since T6 shoulders are a really weak piece right now.

[e] grammars

Last edited by Jarlyn : 02/28/08 at 2:24 AM.
#3179SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Etherealz
Originally Posted by CHeeSY-CrAfT View Post
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...elepicgems.jpg

Quick Lionseye > Reckless Pyrestone > Runed Crimson Spinel at t6 gear level?

A lot of the Sunwell loot has red and yellow sockets all over the place, so mixing and matching the pyrestone and lionseye might be in favor I'd guess.
As of now that would be the case, but once in full sunwell gear you'll have 300+ haste on your gear at which point they become pretty much equal with favor put on spinels in red sockets for nothing else but mana efficiency.


Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
They also added a better epic versions of the Alchemist stone that gives +54hit (!) and 40% effect on pots.
Wearing that, skull and the 50 hit staff can nearly account for all the hit you ever need.
If you instead gemmed for 54 hit - you would sacrifice approximately 65 spell damage, which seems like a lot less than you would sacrifice for a trinket slot. If the new alchemy trinket had spell damage instead it would likely be viable for an arcane mage.

Last edited by Etherealz : 02/28/08 at 4:38 PM.
#3180SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3CHeeSY-CrAfT
Yeah, I don't think it's probably necessary to re-gem current gear, however I do think that once we start to get new pieces, particularly in Sunwell, where the majority of the gem slots are red and yellow with nice spell damage socket bonuses, that we can use more a variety of the Lionseye for yellow sockets and the Pyrestone/Spinels for reds.

Thoughts on putting the Reckless Pyrestone or the Runed Crimson Spinel in something like [Sunfire Robe]?
#3181SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
I think the Reckless Pyrestone over the Quick Lionseye. You've got to value haste at 1.2:1 (or better) to spell damage to make the Lionseye strictly better than a normal Spinel, and my personal preference puts that as a bit high. I'm not completely sold that the Pyrestone is purely better than the Spinel either, however it's close enough that I'm willing to use it given the high demand for Spinels.
#3182SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3CHeeSY-CrAfT
The numbers are obviously going to be different for different setups, but yes, with the current setup I have, I have haste valued in the vicinity of 1 haste = 1.3 spell damage.
#3183SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Celani
I'm definitely putting a reckless in the T6 gloves; 5 haste and 8 damage (with socket bonus) is easily better than 12 damage. This goes for the boots, belt, and bracers as well (all +2 damage bonus). On anything piece with only yellow/red sockets with a socket bonus that isn't stam, a reckless will beat a RCS in the yellow slot. I don't think the haste gems can make up for the lost damage on anything with a yellow and blue sockets (shoulders, chest, LoCE, Cowl), as I'm seeing a need for haste to equal 1.2 damage or more, and I don't see that happening. I don't like the green haste/stam gem at all; a GSA will always be better. But yeah, the reckless will alleviate the spinel crunch considerably.
#3184SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by CHeeSY-CrAfT View Post
The numbers are obviously going to be different for different setups, but yes, with the current setup I have, I have haste valued in the vicinity of 1 haste = 1.3 spell damage.
You also have to consider the mana aspect of haste.

- A spinel is 12 damage flat.

- A lionseye is 10 haste. ~13 damage for you for DPS purposes. But you'll also drain your mana a bit faster. 10 haste is ~0.64% haste, with fireball spam and some haste gear, procs, hero/IV, that's -5 mp5.

Can you nuke through a fight with molten armour, no evocation, no gems, no pots?
I can't, unless the fight is incredibly short. Unbuffed, I burn through my mana in a minute and a half. With raid buffs and a shadow priest, this becomes 3-4 minutes, then I have to use pots/gems (primairy choice for pure DPS, see the quoted post from page 72).

If you use mana potions, -5 mp5 is a ~1 damage loss. For mana gems, it's 1.2 damage, for Evocation 1.8-2 damage.

So, for your setup, they even out. They're at least close enough that there is no clear winner.
In doubt, I vote for damage over haste, for better scaling of future haste gear.
Gemming for colours became appealing now. Or, you can actually gem other things than spinels now which may have a 1 month queue for your guild.


Come Sunwell with all the passive haste, the relative value of damage rises/of haste decreases a little bit. Not much, ~10% less when I checked.
This won't really change the grand scheme. If you check different sheets/sims, they all yield slightly different results. DPS wise, the 3 gems with dmg and/or haste don't differ much, they're in the error margin of TC.
Personally, I'll most likely socket spinels in reds, and dmg/hit pyrestones in yellows. Should get me to the hit cap and and get the most out of sockets.

There is finally some choice. Not just "spinel spam or bust".


Originally Posted by Celani View Post
I don't like the green haste/stam gem at all; a GSA will always be better. But yeah, the reckless will alleviate the spinel crunch considerably.
We actually have a shadowsong amethyst queue as well since not all our healer are spinel spammers.
So, the haste/stam seaspray emerald is a quick and cheap way of activating a CSD meta.
#3185SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
As of now that would be the case, but once in full sunwell gear you'll have 300+ haste on your gear at which point they become pretty much equal with favor put on spinels for nothing else but mana efficiency.




If you instead gemmed for 54 hit - you would sacrifice approximately 65 spell damage, which seems like a lot less than you would sacrifice for a trinket slot. If the new alchemy trinket had spell damage instead it would likely be viable for an arcane mage.
Don't forget the secondary effect: It's good for 35mp5 given chain pot-spam. Granted, 35mp5 and 54hit are still a ways off hex head but it's substantially closer.
#3186SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3CHeeSY-CrAfT
While it is true that pre-2.4 it is extremely difficult to maintain my mana pool for very long, and that haste will do nothing but accelerate the process, mage armor in 2.4 use becomes more and more appealing.

The list compiled earlier, ranking mage armor in the lower tiers of efficiency in terms of mana options only analyzes from a personal level, I believe.

On a fight like Brutallus, for example, where the duration of the fight is close to 6 minutes of non-stop nuking, I was able to sustain my mana through gems/potions/evo and mage armor without a shadowpriest.

Basically what I am trying to get at is the necessity of a shadowpriest for mages in 2.4. Given the changes to regeneration, where mage armor gives something more along the lines of 120mp5 without arcane talents, my selection is based on raid DPS, not personal DPS.

The trade-off boils down to a shadowpriest in the group, doing around 1400 DPS, or an added mage, doing around 2000 DPS. While I haven't crunched the numbers quite yet, I suspect that using mage armor for a 600 rDPS gain is beneficial.
#3187SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Perhaps Roywyn can have another look at the excelent +mp5/spell ratio given a selection oh int/spi values. Clearly Mage armor is the loss in PvP so it'd make plenty of sense if at least it was a competitive choice in PvE. Arguably it'll increase in relative value but will it be a good trade-off or not remains to be analyzed.
#3188SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Etherealz
Using the following buffed stats (sunwell gear) using my own mana efficiency spreadsheet (4 piece tier6)
Spell Damage	Spell hit	Spell haste	Spell Crit	Int	Spirit	 Evoc Swap 
1650	           164	        350	          330	       650	400	  +73

Fight length 6 minutes
For a 2/48/11 spec I get something to the order of:

Mana Gain	   Mp5	        Dps Loss	 Mp5/Dps
Super Mana pots	  100.00	  20.17        	  4.96
Mana Gems	  100.00          27.62	          3.62
Evocation	  140.00	  45.20	          3.10
Mage Armor	  178.35          55.21	          3.23
My spreadsheet makes the comparison between flame caps vs mana gems, destruction pots vs mana pots.
Keep in mind that it does not incorporate using destruction pots with veins or lust for the comparison. Evocation is calculated as popping it at the last cast of an Icy veins however. Evocation is also calculated as wearing molten armor, that is it would gain slightly less from oo5sr if you were to wear mage armor.

As to the shadow priest argument. If your shadow priest is doing 1400 dps that translates into 350 mp5(correct me if I'm wrong on that number). That, for ease of figuring is equivalent to mage armor + evoc on a 6 minute encounter. The dps loss from those 2 things is about 100. Even with three mages benefiting, ~300 dps gained - The shadow priest falls short. The raid still needs one shadow priest for the debuff, however looking at this I would say the argument turns to which group sees the most dps benefit - warlocks vs mages.

Last edited by Etherealz : 02/28/08 at 5:13 PM.
#3189SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Wasn't it 40 mp5? (40% of 100)

Anyway you won't really get the full mp5 benefit if you're not chain chugging super mana potions, and if you have enough mana in a certain fight you should use a destruction pot instead of one of the super mana pots, reducing the benefit of the trinket. However since for maximizing DPS the first thing you should do to increase your mana, most likely, is to use mana potions, so it's *almost* safe to assume it actually does give the full mp5 bonus of chaning potions. Just beware of short enough fights where this won't be valid ("short enough" meaning that you don't need to use any mana regen ability other than mana potions and passives (totem/sp/raidbuffs) and still don't need to pot on *every* cooldown).
#3190SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
OK this is a pre-emptive post to get people to all think the same way and avoid rambles of discussions over nothing.

About the new gems
---------------------------

Personally, I am quite happy about the new gem cuts.
[Quick Lionseye]
[Forceful Seaspray Emerald]
[Reckless Pyrestone]

However, I believe a lot of people are doing the wrong TC about them. I don't think we should attempt and compare [Quick Lionseye]/[Runed Crimson Spinel] in the same way i think we shouldn't compare [Reckless Pyrestone]/[Runed Crimson Spinel]. Whether or not one is better than another is a wash, and current TC is arguably not precise enough to tell one apart from the other. But regardless, I realise you could add 50 dmg to your best gear, and 50 haste, compare the results, and gem accordingly, and I agree with the underlying approach. However, fight duration, raid dps, shadow priest (new) dps (-> increased MP5) is not factored in. We do not know what those values are. As such, we can't really come out with a real answer that means something. Furthermore, we don't know about how fire destro locks will turn out, and group/raid composition. Will COS be available to the shadow priest ? Will COE be available to mages ?

We don't know.

As long as you understand that every piece of haste you pick will imply a non-increasing DPM whereas a +dmg gem will increase DPM, then you're good. I believe comparing gem to gem is futile. In my view, their purpose is totally different.

I believe the real DPS gain from the new gems will come from socket bonuses.

No more +12 dmg spam everywhere. No more (skipping?) a yellow socket and put a red in it, and screw the socket bonus. Those new gems offer true DPS increase on yellow slots, which the old gems simply weren't.

With this said, here' the simple rule of thumb I plan to use myself.
red socket = [Runed Crimson Spinel] (with the notable notice that [Reckless Pyrestone] is close enough to call it a wash -- go for whichever)
yellow socket = [Veiled Pyrestone] until hit cap, then [Reckless Pyrestone]
blue socket = [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst] (with the notable notice that [Forceful Seaspray Emerald] is close enough to call it a wash -- go for whichever)

EDIT: of course, if the socket bonuses include 2+ blue sockets, then don't go for it. And of course, all of this assumes the standard model of (+2dmg/matching socket) (+5dmg / 3 matching sockets)
#3191SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.4.1
Roywyn
As requested, I'll do a repost if this for patch 2.4.
That means I'll adapt most things to sunwell gear level, and use OOCmp5 = 5*0.009327*sqrt(int)*spi for the new spirit regeneration.

Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Mana vs. Damage

"But there is no mana issue!" - Well, there is, but in a more subtle way. Can you spec out of all mana talents, use flame caps, destruction potions, molten armour, no evocation and still last through a fight? Maybe with a very good shadow priest on a short fight.
But what if you don't get one, or if the fight is rather lenghty?

There are quite a few means of recovering mana, but which one to chose in which situation?
Let's take the following scenario:

A deep fire spec as base, Icy Veins, no Clearcasting, Fireball spam, Sunwell gear.
1650 spell damage, 300 spell crit, hit capped, 350 haste, 650 intellect, 330 spirit, with AI, GotW, BoK,Wrath of Air totem, flask, food, weapon oil. No racials, no Divine Spirit.

This setup (which is about the best you can get from gear seen so far) gives a bit more than 22% haste. With Icy Veins and 1 Bloodlust over 6 minutes, we have 2.33s average cast time. Or 2.15 Fireballs every 5 seconds.

That makes our regeneration while not casting 1.19*spirit per 5 seconds.
Including BoK, every point of intellect increases our regeneration while not casting by 0.352 mp5.

So, that's 392 mp5 while not casting, 65 mp5 more with Divine Spirit. 10% more for humans, 2.5% more for gnomes.

This setup has 11700 base mana. Switching from Sunflare/Heart (20+21int) to a Golden Staff (54+3*10+30int) adds 73*15*1.1 = 1205 mana, making 5 ticks of Evocation return 9679 mana.


I take a 6 minute boss fight, uninterrupted casting. That way, you can use your 2m CDs 3 times, or 3m CDs 2 times. That fight length is a multiple of these cooldowns, so nothing can get a benefit from cooldown coming up early.
The actual length of the fight shouldn't matter too much to the model, but I think that one is a pretty decent model.


How much is spell hit worth?

With Sunwell gear, you'll end up below the hit cap. You'll gem some hit or dmg/hit gems in yellow slots, and gem for damage or haste in the remaining sockets.
Since damage and haste gems are roughly equal there, I'll just assume that every +hit you get from talents will make you drop +5 hit on a gem for +6 damage on a gem. So, every free +1 hit rating is worth +1.2 damage that you can by regemming.

Thus, 1% hit ~ 12.6 hit rating ~ 15.1 damage equivalent.


How much are other stats worth?

On average, one Fireball costs 350 mana with Elemental Precision, Pyromaniac, Master of Elements. No Clearcasting.

According to Vontre's sheet, 1 crit rating ~ 0.86 damage, and it adds 0.124 mp5 from MoE.
Also, 1 haste rating ~ 1.12 damage while costing -0.37 mp5.

That means socketing 5 crit over 5 haste gives you 2.47 mp5 at the cost of 1.3 damage.

1 intellect ~ 1.1*22.08/80 crit (with BoK) ~ 0.3036 crit ~ 0.26 damage and +0.0376 mp5 just from the crit.
With BoK, we also get 16.5 mana, or 0.2292 mp5 from the initial mana pool. Evocation adds another 0.1719 mp5.
It also adds 0.352 mp5 while not casting.

1 spirit grants 1.309 mp5 while not casting. And 0.11 damage with improved divine spirit.


Regarding talents and talent choices

Taking Arcane Meditations means you lose Elemental Precision, Arcane Concentration means you lose Icy Veins. A fire spec needs 42 points to maximise PWF, Critical Mass, Fire Power, Pyromaniac, Combustion, Molten Fury, Empowered Fireball.

To get Clearcasting and Icy Veins, one would lose more in fire talents than the Tri-Spec gains.



Talents

Elemental Precision
3% hit translates to 37.8 hit rating or 1.2*37.8 = 45 damage. 3% cost reduction is 12.75 mana less per cast, or +27.5mp5.

Icy Veins
20% haste for 20s every 180s => 2.2% haste averaged. With +22% base haste, we go from 122% speed to 1.022*122% = 124.684% speed, 2.684% haste more, or ~42 haste rating.
Thus, Icy Veins ~ 47 damage and -15.5 mp5.

Arcane Concentration (Clearcasting)
Saves ~40 mana per cast, or +86 mp5.

Arcane Meditation
Returns 30% * 392 mp5 = +118 mp5 while casting.

Master of Elements
Assuming 40% crit chance, it saves 425*30%*35% = 51 mana per cast, or +110 mp5.


Armour/Evocation

Mage Armour returns 30% * 392 mp5 = +118 mp5 while casting.

Molten Armour gives 3% crit ~= 68 crit rating ~ 58.5 damage and +8.4 mp5 from Master of Elements.

Evocation with 2T6 gives you 75%*12905 = 9679 mana at the expense of 10s cast time. That means a 9679mana/6min = +134 mp5 at the cost of 10s/6min = -2.77% haste ~ -43.6 haste rating ~ -49 damage, +16 mp5.

So, using Evocation is a +150 mp5, -49 damage change.

Note that these numbers do not change with more passive haste rating on gear. Passive haste will speed up your evocation and your spells in the same manner, and you still lose 10s of your hasted effective 360s*122% (haste) cast time.

You can use Evocation in the last moment of Heroism or Icy Veins, to reduce the channeling time, and cheat some more duration out of your Heroism/Icy Veins buff.
This is in most cases not practical to do. In a 6 minute fight, you can use your Icy Veins twice. Once very early in the fight and then when the mob hits 20%. You want to use Evocation (if at all) around 50%-25% though, to make sure you have full mana in the execute phase. It just doesn't seem to match into a time frame.

Same with Heroism, which should be used under 20%. You don't want to waste that time on Evocation.


Consumables

Mana Potions return +100 mp5, or +140mp5 with the Alchemist's Stone (few mages are alchemists though).
Destruction Potions give 120 damage and 2% crit for 15 seconds on a 120 second cooldown. That's +19 damage and +0.5mp5 from Master of Elements.

Mana Gems return +100 mp5, or +125 mp5 with the Serpent-Coil Braid.
Flame Caps give 80 fire damage for 1 minute on a 3 minute cooldown, or +26.6 fire damage average.

This does however change when you use those comsumables with your other cooldowns.
Heroism, Icy Veins, Combustion, Molten Fury, Skull/Hex make up for 14% of our damage.
At 40% crit rate, Combustion adds on average 1.23 crits per use.


Stacked Cooldowns

Stacking a Destruction Potions with Icy Veins and Combustion and Skull looks like as follows.
+20% haste, +12.3% crit damage (+15.5% crit), +9.1% Skull haste.
Stacking those and reducing it by 14% (the use of cooldowns averaged) yields a +29% increase over averaged out use.

Stacking Molten Fury and Bloodlust in addition (the value of Combustion goes down to +9.5% due to more haste), the value of a Destruction Potion is increased by +96% over averaged use.


Stacking Flame Caps with Icy Veins, Combustion and Skull looks like as follows.
+20% haste, +10.1% crit damage (+12.6% crit), +9.1% Skull damage for 20 seconds.
Stacking those is a +44.14% increase. Averaging it out over 1 minute isn't much better than the averaged numbers over the whole fight. Hm, differences are too small there to compare them properly.
Meh, would have to redo about every calculation to fix that, can't be bothered. I'd estimate a ~10% benefit from stacking Flame Caps with Icy Veins, Combustion and Skull.

Stacking Molten Fury and Bloodlust in addition (the value of Combustion goes down to +7.8% due to more haste), the value of a Flame Cap is increased by +120% for 20 seconds, then +56% for 20 seconds (Molten Fury and Bloodlust) and +20% for the last 20 seconds (Molten Fury).
Averaged over 1 minute, it's +65.3% from Flame Caps, or +45% over the averaged use.



Elixirs and Flasks

A Flask of Pure Death adds +80 fire/frost damage, a Flask of Supreme Power adds +70 damage.


An Elixir of Major Fire/Frost Power adds +55 fire/frost power.
An Adept's Elixir adds +24 damage and crit, or +44.6 damage and +3 mp5.

So, at 0.29 mp5/dmg, Adept's Elixir is cheap to make but not worth it for pure power. Might be useful for AE spam with TLC and AToI when hovering at the AoE damage cap.


An Elixir or Major Mageblood adds +16 mp5.
An Elixir of Draenic Wisdom adds +30 intellect and spirit. Thats +7.8 damage (and another +3.3 damage with Improved Divine Spirit) and +8 mp5 from crit and the mana pool, +5.2 mp5 if you use Evocation. It also adds +50 mp5 while not casting, or +15 mp5 with Mage Armour.

So, Draenic Wisdom beats Mageblood when using Evocation and Mage Armour, a Flask will beat Elixirs when not using Evocation or Mage Armour.
Elixir of Draenic Wisom and Major Fire/Frost Power when using Evocation and Mage Armour yield +28 mp5 at the cost of -17.2 damage, or -12.9 damage with Improved Divine Spirit.


Trinkets

Icon of the Silver Crescent averages at +69 damage, Hex-Shrunken Head at +88 damage, an ideal DM:Crusade is +80 damage.
Thus, I'll just assume a static +80 damage trinket to compare the other two mana trinkets to.

The value of the stone and braid very much depends on the other trinkets you have, so take the comparison to a +80 damage trinket just as a rough guideline.


Serpent-Coil Braid gives 30 crit rating, 12 hit rating, 25mp5 and 225 damage for 15 seconds every 2 minutes.
12 hit ~ 14.4 damage, 30 crit ~ 25.8 dmg, +3.7 mp5.
This adds up as +68 damage and +29 mp5 in total.

The braid does have one significant disadvantage though.
Flame Caps have a 3 minute cooldown, so they will be paired with Combustion/Icy Veins. Mana Gems have a 2 minute cooldown, so the braid proc will usually not be synchronised.

You also can't use your mana gem right at the start, so the braid can be quite a bit harder to handle when it comes to proper cooldown management. And will most likely lose damage from not stacking cooldowns.


The normal Alchemist's Stone gives +15 to all stats and 40mp5. That's +4 damage from intellect, +1.6 damage from spirit if you have IDS, 248 raw mana, 434 mana with evocation (6.03 mp5 averaged), and +0.5mp5 from crit.
It also adds +25 mp5 while not casting.

Seeing that it's will only be useful when you run OOM with all other mana sources used, the best use of the trinket will total +5.6 damage and +54 mp5 while casting with mage armour.

The Redeemer's Alchemist's Stone is a +40 damage, +40 mp5 trinket.

The Sorcerer's Alchemist's Stone is a +63 damage, +40 mp5 trinket.


Blessings

Blessing of Wisdom gives you +41mp5 or +49.2mp5 if talented.

Blessing of Kings gives you ~30 spirit and ~60 intellect.
The intellect adds +15.6 damage, +2.26 mp5 from crit, 900 mana, or 1575 mana with Evocation (+22 mp5)(and some spirit ticks), +24mp5 total.
The increased stats also add +52.6 mp5 while not casting, or +15.8 mp5 while casting with mage armour.



Summary/Comparison

This is a list of choices you can make to maintain your mana.
It's ordered by efficiency, by the amount of mp5 you gain per point of sacrificed damage.

1) 5.27 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Potions over Destruction Potions gives you +99.5 mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.
(Drops down to 4.09 mp5/dmg with Combustion, Icy Veins, Skull, 2.69 mp5/dmg with Bloodlust, Molten Fury on top.)

2) 3.70 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Gems over Flame Caps gives you +100 mp5 at the cost of -27 damage.
(Drops down to 2.55 mp5/dmg with Combustion, Icy Veins, Skull, Bloodlust, Molten Fury.)

3) 3.06 mp5/dmg - Evocation gives you +150 mp5 at the cost of -49 damage.

*) 2.69 mp5/dmg - Using a Mana Potion over Destruction Potion with Combustion, Icy Veins, Skull, Bloodlust, Molten Fury yields +33 mp5 at the cost of -12.3 damage.
*) 2.55 mp5/dmg - Using a Mana Gem over a Flame Cap Combustion, Icy Veins, Skull, Bloodlust, Molten Fury gives you +33 mp5 at the cost of -13 damage.

*) 2.41 mp5/dmg - Serpent-Coil Braid gives you +29 mp5 at the cost of about -12 damage. (Additional damage loss from cooldown desynch.)
7) 2.35 mp5/dmg - The Sorcerer's Alchemist's Stone gives you +40 mp5 at the cost of -17 damage.

8) 2.17 mp5/dmg - Arcane Concentration instead of Icy Veins yields +102mp5 at the cost -47 damage.
9) 2.02 mp5/dmg - Arcane Meditation instead of Elemental Precision yields +91 mp5 at the cost of -45 damage.
10) 1.89 mp5/dmg - Mage Armour gives you +110 mp5 at the cost of -58 damage.
11) 1.90 mp5/dmg - Socketing Potent Pyrestones over Reckless Pyrestones (crit over haste) yields +2.47 mp5 at the cost of -1.3 damage per gem.

12) 1.63 mp5/dmg - Elixir of Draenic Wisdom and Major Fire Power offer +28 mp5 at the cost of -17 damage when using Evocation and Mage Armour.

13) 1.27 mp5/dmg - Using Drums of Restoration over Drums of Battle gives you 142 mp5 at the cost of 112 damage.

14) 1.00 mp5/dmg - The Redeemer's Alchemist's Stone gives you +40 mp5 at the cost of -40 damage.

15) 0.72 mp5/dmg - The Alchemist's Stone gives you +54 mp5 at the cost of -74.4 damage with mage armour.
16) 0.64 mp5/dmg - Talented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings with mage armour gives you +10 mp5 at the cost of -15.6 damage.



This means if you're min-maxing to the extreme, you'd chain mana potions as first priority, and mana gems as second priority.
Using Evocation is a clear third priority, using mage armour or respeccing to 10 or 18 arcane are next best choices afterwards.
The Serpent-Coil Braid and Sorcerer's Alchemist's Stone are in that league as well. They depend on your other trinkets, your hit on gear and your stackable cooldowns.

Redeemer's Alchemist's Stone, the normal Alchemist's Stone and choosing BoW over BoK are poor choices for mana regeneration.
They might not even be worth it if you run out of mana without them, it's a very close call there.


Changes since 2.3.2

So, what's different now?

Spirit regeneration was buffed by around 50%, making mage armour and arcane meditation better.
The abundant spell haste increases overall mana consumption, but also amplifies the benefits of cost reduction talents.
The lack of spell hit on gear increases the value of spell hit talents, and hit on some special items of interest.

I re-read everything again and corrected some typos, and it should be mostly correct now.


[Edit]:
Your mana consumption of fireball spam is 148 mana per second, or 740 mp5.
That means you'll run out of mana without any regenereation in 80 seconds.

For a 6 minutes fight, your initial mana pool can be represented by 162 mp5 (11700 mana spread over 6 minutes).
If you can get a shadow priest (375 mp5 at 1500 DPS), then potting and gemming will get you through the fight (737 mp5 totaled).
Without one, you can use evocation and mage armour for 260 mp5, leaving you 115 mp5 short, or 8280 mana.


[Edit]:
04/02/08 Added crit gems vs. haste gems.
03/02/08 Added elixirs vs. flasks.
03/02/08 Added cooldown stacking for potions/caps.

Last edited by Roywyn : 04/03/08 at 7:36 AM.
#3192SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Roywyn: there are item IDs for new alchemist stones, one that gives 54 +hit and the other 40 +damage.
#3193SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
It's safe to assume the 40dmg one is not intended as a dps caster item; all the stones have 54 item-points worth of buff. 54 defense, 54 spell hit, 54 melee crit. The one which technically has 40 spell is strictly 119 heal (and thus 40 spell).
#3194SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
warlocks vs mages.
The shoddy theorycrafting I did puts warlocks -50 to -80 DPS w/o the benefit of S. Priest, Mana Tide/Spring, or JoW compared to having all of those or vs. current Live behavior. I haven't seen anyone estimate it higher, and TCing warlocks put it lower. Additionally VE is a (probably pretty trivial) way to restore Warlock health . . . I do remember from Patchwerk that optimizing healing led to huge DPS gains by allowing more DPS in the raid, which is where I'm (hoping) my guild can jack up DPS for Brutallicus.
#3195SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Etherealz
Current lifetap on the PTR is 20% mana. For easy numbers lets put up a 10.5k mana pool, 2100 mana per tap. Assuming that with the shadow priest the warlock still ends the fight with no mana, or has to tap during the fight - we can say that the 350mp5 from the shadow priest is coming directly out of life tap gcd's. 350*6 = 2100 so the warlock saves one lifetap every 30 seconds. With the new GCD mechanics and full sunwell gear as with the mage calculation (350 haste)each life tap takes 1.5/(1.222) = 1.23 seconds or 4% of their dps time. If the shadow priest is giving the mage 100 dps then the warlock needs to be doing 2500 paper dps to match their benefit. From that it appears as if both groups gain near the same benefit, however if something goes wrong the warlock can always lifetap. The mage without mana is pretty useless.

Edit: I guess more practically since it works out to relatively equal benefit, The players who perform better should get the priest.

Last edited by Etherealz : 02/28/08 at 8:57 PM.
#3196SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
I hate to take the conversation off topic, but I have a question. Arcane blast tooltip is this

Arcane Blast Rank 1
195 Mana 30 yd range
2.5 sec cast
Blasts the target with energy, dealing 648 to 752 Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the casting time is reduced while mana cost is increased. Effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 8 sec.

1. If you stack enough haste to get the first blast to 2 seconds, will the subsequent casts drop it by 1/2 second effectively take it to 1 second on ptr?

or

2. Does game look at it as a new spell and does the calculations on the fly? I cant answer this on live because it hits the gcd of 1.5.

If #1 is the way it is going to work with haste are the mage calculators already adjusting for this?
#3197SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3xiaoxin21
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
I hate to take the conversation off topic, but I have a question. Arcane blast tooltip is this

Arcane Blast Rank 1
195 Mana 30 yd range
2.5 sec cast
Blasts the target with energy, dealing 648 to 752 Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the casting time is reduced while mana cost is increased. Effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 8 sec.

1. If you stack enough haste to get the first blast to 2 seconds, will the subsequent casts drop it by 1/2 second effectively take it to 1 second on ptr?

or

2. Does game look at it as a new spell and does the calculations on the fly? I cant answer this on live because it hits the gcd of 1.5.

If #1 is the way it is going to work with haste are the mage calculators already adjusting for this?
Quite sure you can test it on live. The spell hits the GCD on live, however the tooltip will reflect the cast time even if it is <1.5sec.
#3198SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Hard to say. AB spell debuff states "apply aura: flat modier -334" so that's 0.334sec off the cast time irrespective. Arcane Blast - Spells - World of Warcraft As such I'd expect it to be irrelevant with haste, that is, haste doesn't compound it's effect.

If it did, stacking haste would produce an rather steep DPS output for a truly epic waste of mana.
#3199SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
It's a flat reduction irrespective of haste. Using the skull + 120ish passive haste as a simulation of what it would be like kitted in full Sunwell gear, my AB casts went 2.1 -> 1.8 -> 1.5 -> 1.2s.

As a complete aside, Bloodlust + IV is still stacking on the PTR. *crosses fingers*
#3200SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Prom
Originally Posted by manly View Post

I believe the real DPS gain from the new gems will come from socket bonuses.

No more +12 dmg spam everywhere. No more (skipping?) a yellow socket and put a red in it, and screw the socket bonus. Those new gems offer true DPS increase on yellow slots, which the old gems simply weren't.

With this said, here' the simple rule of thumb I plan to use myself.
red socket = [Runed Crimson Spinel] (with the notable notice that [Reckless Pyrestone] is close enough to call it a wash -- go for whichever)
yellow socket = [Veiled Pyrestone] until hit cap, then [Reckless Pyrestone]
blue socket = [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst] (with the notable notice that [Forceful Seaspray Emerald] is close enough to call it a wash -- go for whichever)

EDIT: of course, if the socket bonuses include 2+ blue sockets, then don't go for it. And of course, all of this assumes the standard model of (+2dmg/matching socket) (+5dmg / 3 matching sockets)
This was exactly my point yesterday in our guild forums.
The great thing about reckless pyrestone is that it's perfect for socket matching.
It's comparable to dps with Crimson spinel and superior to potent pyrestone.(don't know if i'll be using the lionseye at all)
Ofc it helps that most new gear is full of yellow/red sockets.
But we should get a significant boost by using reckless pyrestone in yellow,spinel in red + the socket bonus, instead of spamming spinels all over the place.
#3201SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
Quite sure you can test it on live. The spell hits the GCD on live, however the tooltip will reflect the cast time even if it is <1.5sec.
no the tooltip never changes from 2.46 seconds with my 29 haste regardless of the whether I have 2 or 3 debuffs on me.
#3202SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Grai
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
no the tooltip never changes from 2.46 seconds with my 29 haste regardless of the whether I have 2 or 3 debuffs on me.
I was testing this just the last few days. As I've been the only mage lately, I've been specced arcane for CoS. I'm positive the tooltip does show below 2.5 seconds, as I remember using the tooltip (spellbook one if that matters) when I was fully stacked to make sure I was taking enough haste gear off to avoid the GCD block.
#3203SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nakawe
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
It's a flat reduction irrespective of haste. Using the skull + 120ish passive haste as a simulation of what it would be like kitted in full Sunwell gear, my AB casts went 2.1 -> 1.8 -> 1.5 -> 1.2s.

As a complete aside, Bloodlust + IV is still stacking on the PTR. *crosses fingers*

It is clear as mud now sorry for not thinking straight.

Last edited by Nakawe : 02/29/08 at 10:30 AM.
#3204SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nakawe
Originally Posted by Grai View Post
I was testing this just the last few days. As I've been the only mage lately, I've been specced arcane for CoS. I'm positive the tooltip does show below 2.5 seconds, as I remember using the tooltip (spellbook one if that matters) when I was fully stacked to make sure I was taking enough haste gear off to avoid the GCD block.


Yes it does show below 2.5, but it doesnt change on subsequent cast while applying debuff. My tooltip shows 2.46 right now, after I apply a debuff the tooltip still shows 2.46.


hmm, I am using drdamage and have it on bar, Ill open spell book see if it changes.

ok, your right. my numbers. I was holding the mouse over the tootip, you have to pull mouse off of tooltip then back onto it before it updates.

start 2.46
1 debuff 2.13
2 debuff 1.8
3 debuff 1.47

This leads me to believe that each debuff takes .33 seconds off regardless of where you start. Hence, stacking enough haste to get it initially to 2 seconds will allow for a 1 second cast after 3 debuffs are applied. BTW this also tells me that the debuff ignores GCD, because I can actually take it below 1.5 now on live. Basically the gcd is irrevelant when it comes to arcane blast. I didnt understand it intiially becuase I was was thinking it took off .5 seconds per cast. But, 3 (.33)=.99

Last edited by Nakawe : 02/29/08 at 10:29 AM.
#3205SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
rthadidas
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
This leads me to believe that each debuff takes .33 seconds off regardless of where you start. Hence, stacking enough haste to get it initially to 2 seconds will allow for a 1 second cast after 3 debuffs are applied. BTW this also tells me that the debuff ignores GCD, because I can actually take it below 1.5 now on live. Basically the gcd is irrevelant when it comes to arcane blast. I didnt understand it intiially becuase I was was thinking it took off .5 seconds per cast. But, 3 (.33)=.99
You can't go below the GCD even with AB. This is the reason why 3 stack AB is useless with heroism/bloodlust and arcane mages avoid haste. This changes with 2.4 where with haste you will be able to drop the GCD to 1 second.

I think you believe you going below the GCD when in fact you are not. With only a .03 off the cast time I do not think it would be noticible with even the best possible latency. It would be much easier to show if you either tried a 3 stacked AB with heroism/bloodlust, or if you are specced for icey veins, to pop that and try a 3 stacked AB. You will notice that you will hit the GCD.

Last edited by rthadidas : 02/29/08 at 10:42 AM.
#3206SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by rthadidas View Post
You can't go below the GCD even with AB. This is the reason why 3 stack AB is useless with heroism/bloodlust and arcane mages avoid haste. This changes with 2.4 where with haste you will be able to drop the GCD to 1 second.

I think you believe you going below the GCD when in fact you are not. With only a .03 off the cast time I do not think it would be noticible with even the best possible latency. It would be much easier to show if you either tried a 3 stacked AB with heroism/bloodlust, or if you are specced for icey veins, to pop that and try a 3 stacked AB. You will notice that you will hit the GCD.

I was just going by the tooltip, Its says that my cast is 1.47. Whether it actually breaks the gcd, I dont know. I would think if the tootip says it does, it should. But, who knows with blizzard.
#3207SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3RoboStac
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
I was just going by the tooltip, Its says that my cast is 1.47. Whether it actually breaks the gcd, I dont know. I would think if the tootip says it does, it should. But, who knows with blizzard.
The spell will take 1.47 seconds to cast, so the tooltip is correct. However, the GCD will still be 1.5seconds, so a gap of 0.03 seconds exists where you aren't casting, and can't cast. See warrior slam for a really obvious example (0.5 second cast).
#3208SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by rthadidas View Post
You can't go below the GCD even with AB.
You are wrong sir, you CAN go below anything you like. The cast time WILL be any time interval from 0 upwards. The fact that the GCD prevents you from Starting another spell is irrelevant to the point he's trying to understand, which is "does the AB debuff give a flat -0.334sec per application, or is it a % increase".
#3209SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
You are wrong sir, you CAN go below anything you like. The cast time WILL be any time interval from 0 upwards. The fact that the GCD prevents you from Starting another spell is irrelevant to the point he's trying to understand, which is "does the AB debuff give a flat -0.334sec per application, or is it a % increase".

Am I glad your here... I have another question. in 2.4 if I stack enough haste to get to a 2 second cast. I Can get my arcane blast to 1 second. By doing so will my gcd be 1 second as well for that spell? or do I have to stack more haste to lower the gcd, or does arcane blast just truely ignore the gcd?


I do understand now that its a flat .334 now. thanks for all who helped me understand this.
#3210SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
I believe you would need 50% passive haste to lower your gcd to 1sec....which is 787 haste.

With bloodlust...you would only need 236 haste.

With IV...you would only need 393 haste.

If they let IV + Bloodlust stack as in the current build...0 haste.

However your goal shouldn't be to lower your GCD to 1 if you're going to be casting AB. This only worsens your DPM. The reasons AB is being looked at again is the changes to the mp5 calculations and that haste is no longer a wasted stat for AB...but not saying it should really be stacked.
#3211SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Spell haste has absolutely no impact on any spell DPM. Although, every other stats will increase your DPM.
#3212SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Inoko
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Spell haste has absolutely no impact on any spell DPM. Although, every other stats will increase your DPM.
Thank you for saying this. It's something I see forgotten often. DPM >doesn't change with haste<. It's damage per mana. You do the same damage for the same mana. You just do it faster.
#3213SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
You are correct manly. I was talking more in the sense of using your mana pool quicker at the cost less damage per hit while keeping the same dps. This causes less regen time while using AB, meaning you will have less time doing the same amount of dps.

You could argue that DPM should include the regen time when using the 45% regen while casting.

dmg / (mana cost - (mp1 * 0.45 * cast time)) where mp1 = mp5 / 5
#3214SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3sambjo
Or you could just refer to it as MPS.
#3215SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
mps doesn't take into account the amount of damage done.
#3216SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
MPS is problematic in that it's haste-dependent. DPM is an indicator of efficiency, not consumption. MPS is the opposite.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say AB ignores the GCD, it's a little odd because AB gains a haste-like benefit from both specifically haste and it's own -cast time effect. I haven't tried but nobody has mentioned yet that any kind of GCD has ever limited anything over 1.0sec so it's safe to assume the stacking of percentile haste (from talents/spells) and flat cast reduction (from talents/AB debuff) and haste bonus from gear is working fine.

It's safe to assume you will not need additional haste to move the GCD.
#3217SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
If you're going to take DPM into consideration, you have to know which DPS consumeables and which mana consumeables you're already using to go through the fight (assuming fire, as arcane obviously uses all mana consumeables as the extra AB spam will increase DPS more than any dps consumeable). The more mana you have (as a fire mage), the less effective more mana is, becuase you'd be dropping better mana consumeables for not-as-good damage consumeables (say, if you're very low on mana, getting more will reduce evocation time and be a big dps increase. If you're already not evocating and using flame caps but still mana potions, more mana will just allow destruction potions which aren't as big of a boost).

Overall if you're just calculating average fireball spam DPS and get 12 dmg ~= 10 haste, then obviously 12 damage is better. Wether 10 haste is quite above or under 12 damage, though, has quite a bit of dependancy on your gear, since they're rather close. Hopefully updated versions of spreadsheets/simulatros can/will properly take into account the more mana->more dps factor.

On a side note, it would be nice if on the simulator/spreadsheet you could define "no dps" periods to take movement into account, where regen from buffs (and spirit if applicible) are still taking effect as well as VT+SWP regen. I've noticed from MC all the way to BT that the fact you're not realy fighting for the whole X minutes the fight lasts has major effects on your mana sustainability - and it gets more significant the more regen you have. For example I bet on the simulator in a situation where 2.4 arcane and fire are equal, if you adjust it to 90% DPS time arcane will win all of a sudden - as not only you had an effectively 90% fight duration instead of 100% (and we know shorter fights favor arcane), you also had mana regen of 100% (a little less since the shadow priest also isn't attacking 100% but does have DoTs ticking) which favors arcane even more. My main point here is that in a real X minute fight you will have a much "harder" time to use all your mana than in a simulated "stand-and-shoot" X minute fight. And since regen is calculated on the full duration rather than the "modified" duration it makes a difference for theorycrafting the DPS of different gear/spec/setup.
#3218SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3sambjo
Originally Posted by Cardynal View Post
mps doesn't take into account the amount of damage done.
Over any given amount of time you're going to regen the same amount of mana regardless of whether or not you run yourself oom (assuming you stay within the fsr). You end up with the same amount of extra spells through regen either way.

Haste allows you to dump your mana faster with AB resulting in better use of cooldowns (ap, trinkets, etc) so if anything haste slightly increases your DPM while increasing your MPS.
#3219SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
In fact since AP does increase DPM when it's up, the more spells you cast during AP the more efficient you are. That's one of the main reason a pompyro spec is probably not worth considering as you can't stack IV/AP for increased efficiency on top of the massive dps. And trying to get both pyro and IV will result in a shitty filler spell.
#3220SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mathris
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
In fact since AP does increase DPM when it's up, the more spells you cast during AP the more efficient you are. That's one of the main reason a pompyro spec is probably not worth considering as you can't stack IV/AP for increased efficiency on top of the massive dps. And trying to get both pyro and IV will result in a shitty filler spell.
Why would AP inscrease your DPM? Your DPM shouldn't change when using AP since DPM is dmg/mana and while using AP you multiply both by 1.3 which means the ratio dmg/mana stay the same.
#3221SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
due to how things stack, AP has a bigger relative DPS increase than a relative mana cost increase. AB with 3 stacks is already +225% I think (verify plz, didn't really check), adding another 30% to that is nothing compared to adding 30% to your dps, even if that 30% is additive to other multipliers (which would make the relative increase slightly weaker but nothing close to how small 0.3X is compared to 3.25X).
#3222SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tucker
At the risk of getting flamed for "useless post", I have a question: What would you guys think about Blizz making Spirit count towards Spell hit in a similar fashion to the way Int counts toward crit rating now? It would make Spirit a more useful stat and would allow for more diversity in gemming/enchanting of items the way I see it. Thoughts?
#3223SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
It's an unsound idea, Tucker. The highest-spirit classes are druids and priests, who both are irrelevant to it. Particularly for mages it's also irrelevant as most likely the only spec that will go nuts over spirit will be arcane and there's no hit lack in arcane for sure. On the other hand, warlocks whose eyes glaze over at it's mentions will never have spirit on their gear due to the nature of their regen.

Besides there's a massive spirit rework with WotLK we're told. Who knows what twisted madness they'll come up with.

Sambjo: You are correct but the benefit isn't flat it's spikey; That means you'll only gain value from it during AP/IV whenever it grants you one additional cast. Say it takes 140haste (randomly picked, should be close enough) to get 13 fully-ramped ABs into an AP (with IV) cast, then you'll gain approximately nill from having 139. In fact, it's arguable you'll lose, because haste is counter-productive to OO5SR rotations like (AB/AM)*3/Sc, though those, as well, are odd in that as long as AM+(fastest)AB>6.1sec. That's 6 because it takes 5sec to go OO5SR but tics are processed every 2sec.
#3224SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mathris
From my understanding DPM mean Damage per Mana and AP increase the damage you do by 30% after every stacking effect you can add (trinket/destro/crit bonus/etc).

It looks like simple math unless i'm missing something
If you say
X = damage after every stacking effect without AP
Y = cost of the spell

then DPM = X/Y

AP increases your damage by 30% and increase the cost of the spell by 30% (Arcane Power - Spells - World of Warcraft)

DPM with AP = (X * 1.3) / (Y * 1.3) = X/Y = DPM

This is true only if AP increase your damage after all stacking effect which is what believe it does.
#3225SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tucker
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
It's an unsound idea, Tucker. The highest-spirit classes are druids and priests, who both are irrelevant to it. Particularly for mages it's also irrelevant as most likely the only spec that will go nuts over spirit will be arcane and there's no hit lack in arcane for sure. On the other hand, warlocks whose eyes glaze over at it's mentions will never have spirit on their gear due to the nature of their regen.
Thx for response. That makes sense. Just would be nice to find a use for all the spirit Blizz likes to put on mage items, but hopefully that will be addressed in WotLK.
#3226SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Well, I know for a fact a blue posted saying that they intentionally want [mages and a number of other classes] to have just 1 set of tiered gear. It could be in the latest blizzcast, although I am not sure where I read this. But I know for sure it was a blue post. Basically, this means there there will never exist a 'perfect' tiered set due to the simple reason that:

fire/frost wants
  • (lots of) hit rating
  • crit rating is OK
  • spirit is near 100% wasted
arcane wants
  • no hit rating
  • crit rating is really a bad stat to stack
  • spirit is good

As you can see, all builds need different itemisation, but blizzard publically admitted they do not want more than 1 tiered set, which means we'll always have a 'middle-of-the-road' gearset thats imperfect for all 3 specs.
#3227SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3sambjo
In response to posts asking about AP increasing DPM:

Arcane power greatly improves arcane blast DPM when you have 1 or more stacks. The additional mana cost is based on a 0 stack of arcane blast. So whether it's your first blast or you're spamming, it's always 59 extra mana per cast.

Tier 5 2piece works the same way.
#3228SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
There is some oddness about the way Arcane Blast increases in mana cost. You'll note that the T5 set bonus increases AB by 20%, but it's 20% of the cost of the base blast, irrespective of which debuff stack you're on. The same goes with AP, it'll increase the spell by 30% of the base spell's cost not it's stacked non-AP cost *1.30. This is why I believe Galzohar suggested AP does in fact increase DPM of AB.
#3229SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Alcyon
Upcoming Bloodlust/Heroism Changes in 2.4 PTR
Originally Posted by Drysc
The following changes have been made for a future PTR update:


* Bloodlust/Heroism will, again, stack with Icy Veins.
* Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with Power Infusion, however.


The new rule being used to govern these changes is “non-self % based haste spells will not stack with each other”.
This is some good news... it is bad enough getting Shamans to heroism properly currently, so making sure they didn't heroism when I IV'd next patch (and thus obviating my 3 minute cooldown) is a relief. Plus: Cooldown stacking!
#3230SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rayeth
EDIT: Beaten
#3231SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Phenom Z
Originally Posted by Mathris View Post
@PhenomZ

Your fire mage is doing way too much scorch to do good dps.

On lurker he did 29 scorch compared to 55 fireball but for this fight is kinda normal since he has to stack scorch on lurker after every dive because he's the only fire mage.

On Leo he did 14 AB, 33 FB and 38 scorch which is definitly not the best ratio of spells for a deep fire mage but again this fight is not the best to use travelling spell such as fireball because there's a lot of aggro reset. He also had to kill his inner demon which is probably why he used AB and lost dps at the same time.

Same thing on karathress too many scorches for a deep fire build. 60 FB compared to 47 scorch.

On Morogrim the ration FB/scorch is better 71FB compared to 21scorch somehow he never used flamestrike/blastwave/dragon breath for aoe.. he used blizzard probably for imp blizzard to help control the murlock.

I personnaly dont think this WWS proves arcane is better than fire when the deep fire mage did not play is build correctly (because of skill, how the fight work or group setup). Deep fire build is all about spamming fireball not half fireball and half scorch.

Since he was the only fire mage in the raid (except morogrim) he probably never got CoE (which he shouldn't) but you had CoS (i hope) which is 10% less dps for him right there.
So what you're saying is even if Arcane is a better damage for most boss fights because it allows the caster to squeeze more damage out, fire is still better because for those select few boss fights where you can sit and spam a perfect fireball rotation it will do more damage. Sorry, but I'm not buying into it.

I gave you proof but you came back with idealistic scenario's that would allow a fire mage to outdps me.

BTW lol@ the person who reported my last post for trolling because of his distorted opinion of it being "pretentious." Is that what I can expect from most members on this forum for supporting a talent spec with proof simply because they don't agree with it?

Last edited by Phenom Z : 02/29/08 at 8:32 PM.
#3232SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Lurker, depending on setup, either favors arcane or frost. Leotheras 100% guaranteed favours frost a lot, arcane quite a bit and fire not at all. Morogrim is pointless comparing anything to arcane, as arcane will out-AE erverything on the face of the planet. Karathress is worse for fire than either arcane or frost because mob-switching ruins Sc/FBall ratio, causes multiple Ignites to burn out with mob-death, and doesn't help with cooldown-syncing (especially with MF).

No, what he should have been saying, is SSC is extremely unfriendly to fire. You're in SSC and are seeing the results of (a) a bad mage who scorches way too much (b) encounters that are counter-productive for scorch and (c) no CoE vs Mal CoS. When you move away from T5 content and into MH/BT you'll see that things aren't at all the same. My personal oppinion is frost will out-perform even arcane on non-aoe fights in SSC and that's purely due to karathress and leotheras both syncing perfectly with the timing of your (plentiful) cooldowns as frost.

It's simply silly to compare fire to anything on Leotheras. Ignite tics mean you HAVE to stop DPS 5sec before phase change, 1s for travel time and 4sec for the potential ignite, otherwise, phase changes, .1sec later ignite tic, .3sec later you're dead. Doesn't take a rocket-scientist to work out Leo isn't exactly Fire's Ballroom choice. Lurker has at least 9 scorch-up periods. Once per emergence and at least 3 times per adds. That's a bucket of lost DPS. Not to mention Molten Fury means absolutely nothing when the mobs have 15k HP. What about Karathress? When are you going to smoke CDs, and when will it make any difference other than when Karathress himself is the target? All of SSC is the worst case scenario for Fire, even Hydros is a bad deal with multiple mobs -and- transitions meaning you can't dps 4sec before them.

Under this context, given you're doing T5 content, yes, arcane has a relative edge and fire has a relative handicap, nobody denied this. Arcane is not OK however, by a long shot, in the end game. There has not been proof to disprove this yet.

And I assure you, if you did get an infraction for Trolling, it's because you Trolled. The moderators don't give a rat's arse what you're talking about and they look into reports to establish validity. You Troll, you get points. Perhaps your mood, attitude or wording was bad, I honestly can't be bothered to search your posts to pick-out specifics and I'm not interested in it either. Want to "lol@" people? Go to another forum to do it.
#3233SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Kavan, have you been able to determine if the gnome or human racial is more optimal for an Arcane Mage in 2.4? I'm refering to the 5% intel vs. 10% spirit increase.
#3234SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Andorian View Post
Kavan, have you been able to determine if the gnome or human racial is more optimal for an Arcane Mage in 2.4? I'm refering to the 5% intel vs. 10% spirit increase.
It's about the same. Using Rawr.Mage with the best known gear from Sunwell and Arcane/Frost spec gnome is about 0.5% ahead.
#3235SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
In fact karathress has quite a bit of pushback probably giving fire the advantage.
#3236SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Anedris
Given that tier 4 isn't exactly an ancient relic when one usually encounters Karathress, I would say it's fairly probably that a mage on that fight would be wearing two pieces of it, and the pushback would thus be a non-factor for frost.
#3237SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Arguable Galz, I found Karathress synced well with CDs from frost. You'll IV and Elemental , Snap and re-both on hunter+pet, second IV will come up at 3rd target (the cow with the waterbolts). WE might not be up yet for it and you might have to WE at the start of karathress instead, but unless you're deep into your progression and your guild knows it's shit you will get another IV in, just at the end. That's a bucketload of cooldowns which dont need to be synced with any MF that fire suffers from. Granted, in exchange you will get some pushback, but still. I'd trade stacking up WC instead of Sc any day. Not to mention you can spank up 1-2 ranks of WC on the move into positions with Icelance ala-gnome-BG.

Back when there wasn't ice-block for all, I'd quite happily over-nuke the hunter at the start. If you get a crit-string, big deal. He moves like a pussy and it's no biggie. A feat you wouldn't do without IB. I understand overagroing on purpose is rather daft, but I'd rather take a chance for to fit one more cooldown in than think "i might crit again, better cool off". Note that this is something I'm happy to do -only- on Karathress, and -only- on the hunter.
#3238SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Trawnis
The following changes have been made for a future PTR update:


* Bloodlust/Heroism will, again, stack with Icy Veins.
* Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with Power Infusion, however.


The new rule being used to govern these changes is “non-self % based haste spells will not stack with each other”.
So Icy Veins will stack with bloodlust again..

Source
#3239SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
At present however the Skull of Gul'dan isn't stacking with (HSH/Icon/et al), so our "uber" cooldown stacking will take a bit of a hit, albeit a very small one.
#3240SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Baruk
But at least WE can control that, I was really afraid of the prospect of coordinating the timing of the shamans BL
with the 3 mages in the group.....
#3241SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Pulling aggro knowing you have iceblock is like the best way to get your top DPSers killed right off the bat, due to the 130% rule (as they will be above 100% and when you pull aggro and block guess who's second on aggro?). And no, it's not their fault - they were actually taking good advantage of game mechanics and you made it go down the drain by pulling aggro and iceblocking it off to them. Not to mention as soon as you start attacking you get aggro again so you have to stop attacking anyway. Save yourself and everyone time and effort and just take the break at the start of the fight rather than get people killed and then take the exact same break anyway.
#3242SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Particularly on Karathress, particularly on the Hunter, specifically for that fight, I'm very happy to Block out of agro. Rogues are on poison duty and as such are shiving their way to low threat in the first 8-10sec. Warlocks are busy applying curses (some not even on that mob), immolates and corruption, and I'm making a conscious choice to smoke a trinket and a mana stone with IV on my Frostbolt and WE. I'm fully aware that in most cases if I pull the next in line will get it and it won't most likely be the tank, however particularly with the Hunter the advent of his pet causes a prologued lapse in threat generation.

In my experience (and I've no misconception that it might be entirely down to my raid composition/tactic) Everyone's quite low on threat except me, so with everyone under 85% threat I'm very happy to endanger a 40% crit to cause me to block and wait 2sec or so, which is all the bear tank needs to add one more swipe. Rogues and Locks (the usual agro suspects) are both fine, only errant hunters are a worry, but if I see the only one inching past 100% is me, I'm perfectly happy to use the technique.

Clearly, it would be wrong to do anything of the sort if anyone was above Tank agro to start with, but being frost one is in the slightly unique position that nuking is a lot heavier from the get-go as stacking up WC is nothing like stacking up Scorch; the chances you pull at the start as frost are much much higher. Just like CD-stacking is the be-all and end-all of Fire, fitting in as many CDs as possible is the same for frost.
#3243SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Isn't it best to save iceblock for the mana drain on Karthress?
#3244SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
The drain is a sting, as such it can be dispelled by shamans and druids. Even if it isn't, frost spec won't have any trouble dealing with mana on Karathress even if you fireblast the totems given a SP.
#3245SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Mana vs. Damage
Added Elixirs and compared to Flasks. Worse trade-off than Mage Armour and a respec.

Updated this one with cooldown stacking for Mana Gems/Potions.
Using a Destruction Potion and a Flame Cap paired with everything under 20% is very much worth it. It is even worth using Evocation to make up for the mana lost.
#3246SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
As far as I know the sting cannot be removed (as in, it's not "poison" nor any other "removeable" type effect, though iceblock and the likes probably do remove it).
#3247SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
As far as I know the sting cannot be removed (as in, it's not "poison" nor any other "removeable" type effect, though iceblock and the likes probably do remove it).
It is undispellable: Leeching Throw - Spells - World of Warcraft. It's been a long time but what I remember from this fight is that it can be long and taxing depending on the raid's performance, getting stung a few times and your shadow priest (should you have one) getting stung a few times is possible. It seems clear to me that there are possible situations where evo/pots/gems/mage armor still leaves periods of no mana with unlucky stings, so iceblocking for mana efficiency should be better than iceblocking for DPS in those situations, which may or may not occur but are catastrophic for performance on the fight.
#3248SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Anedris
So, about not-Karathress...

(The fight was brought up in the context of a WWS parse and subsequent arguments that it's a bad fight for fire, as are many t5 encounters. Obviously playing risky with aggro is something you wouldn't do unless you were farming the fight. Obviously a case can be made that it should be avoided even then, despite potential DPS gains. Obviously getting warlocks killed is still so much fun that it might be worth it. Etc.)
#3249SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Not particularly relevant to PvE, but recently the following has been brought to my attention: Look at two similar spell descriptors:

Demonic Resilience, should give 3% crit resistance, spell and physical. Demonic Resilience - Spells - World of Warcraft

Molten Armor, should give same type 5% crit resistance, spell and physical Molten Armor - Spells - World of Warcraft

Does anyone else notice that the first one has "Mod Attacker Spell Crit Chance" AND "Mod Attacker Melee Crit Chance" while Molten Armor has only the former?

Could it be we're gaining only the spell resilience and not the physical? I suspect this will be easy to prove; get a rogue to strip off gear and wear two white lvl 9 daggers, white attack for a few hours, compare crit rates with and without Molten Armor.
#3250SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3kadgar
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
It's simply silly to compare fire to anything on Leotheras. Ignite tics mean you HAVE to stop DPS 5sec before phase change, 1s for travel time and 4sec for the potential ignite, otherwise, phase changes, .1sec later ignite tic, .3sec later you're dead. Doesn't take a rocket-scientist to work out Leo isn't exactly Fire's Ballroom choice.
Never stop dps as fire mage only because of ignite and aggro resets - switch to non-ignite spells. If there are 5 sec. left, thats enough for 2 arcane blasts (no travel time), frostbolts are also an alternative. Sure, you still loose quite some dmg, but better than nothing.

For Hydross Fire is of course better than frost.

Lurker, it depends on the setup, we have most ranged on one side, the spawning adds there die so fast (2 fireballs and add is dead), that there's no time and no need for ramp ups. Meeles clear the 2nd. plattform and 1 meele add. The adds on 3rd. plattform get dotted and die fast when the ranged arrive. 2 meele adds are sheeped all the time.
The timing with adds and dive is bad for Water Elemental.
Fire has to ramp up 4 times, but frost has the same problem. I havn't played arcane at Lurker, but I think Geyser and Spout can destroy rotations a lot.

Morowgrim -> arcane, but fire isn't bad too, the AE cooldowns fit very well with the murloc waves. WE dies from earthquake, so you have to time properly.

Karathress has quite some puch back for frost and arcane, WE also can die really fast. Perhaps depends on strategy too, we kill shaman first with hunter tanked next to him. CDs should be saved for this AE priest as much as possible, I use my double IV there.
Probably no winner here, but I don't see fire loosing against frost here.

Leo - no question favores frost over fire, the cds work well with deamon phases. But Fire has an advantage below 15%. At the end of the fight you may be behind of a frost mage but in the really important phase fire is not that much behind frost, if at all.

Vashj - elementals are frost immune, so frost can only be used against striders and nagas.

At the end you can say that SSC is fire unfriendly, but you also can say it's frost unfriendly, meele unfriendly, ...
I don't see fire loosing against frost, the only boss where fire has real disadvantages is Leo, but frost problems at Hydross are bigger.
Fire may loose against arcane with 2pT5, but I havn't played arcane there to judge that.
#3251SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Asahina
Hmm from personal experiance, never worry about ignite ticks on an agro change over, If your tanks can't grab agro over an ignite tick, then in fairness your tanks need a bit of work. I know for weeks on Leo I was top DPS by a long shot (well about 2 %) and even now I still top the charts, though people have got more agressive. I've found that unless the tick happens exactly as he changes, he'll go for a searing totem anyway. And our tanks usually have him under control within half a second or so even if he is running towards me, as I'll blink through him to them. Course, we have done the fight to death now, so even our most inexperianced tank knows exactly when to start running back in etc.

My point, long and rambling as it may be is, I stop DPS over change overs due to the obvious agro reset, but I'll keep going right to the reset line and not care about ignites, its never got me killed yet (although plain forgetting about stopping DPS has, erm, obviously)
#3252SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Tharia
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Could it be we're gaining only the spell resilience and not the physical? I suspect this will be easy to prove; get a rogue to strip off gear and wear two white lvl 9 daggers, white attack for a few hours, compare crit rates with and without Molten Armor.
Bring a healer for the rogue

Before the Fire/frost buff, Arcane was way on top on almost every fight in SSC because of those aggroswitches. with Arcane, I sometimes didn't even bother with dps breaks at phase transitions, just kept on nuking and never had a problem. (AP + AB spam at phase transitions can get you killed very fast though ^^). I remember Ignite killing me once as fire, because of lots of misses of the tanks, but that was really bad luck and at least you can blink to the tanks so no problem there.
I haven't tested it since then, but you should be ok with all 3 speccs actually.
#3253SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Postre
do u guys mind if i ask u a question?
i just bought Crusade trinket from the blessings cards. what would be better to match it with? lighting capacitor? or icon from badges?

im full spellfire, full spellstrike, and the rest is zula/tk loots, spell hit capped, 33 crit ubuffed ( just molten armor)

Last edited by Postre : 03/04/08 at 1:08 AM.
#3254SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Benlol
Originally Posted by Postre View Post
do u guys mind if i ask u a question?
i just bought Crusade trinket from the blessings cards. what would be better to match it with? lighting capacitor? or icon from badges?

im full spellfire, full spellstrike, and the rest is zula/tk loots, spell hit capped, 33 crit ubuffed ( just molten armor)
First off, wrong thread ([Mage] Help me please? for next time.) Second, to answer your question, use Darkmoon Card: Crusade and Icon of the Silver Crescent.
#3255SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Postre
Originally Posted by Benlol View Post
First off, wrong thread ([Mage] Help me please? for next time.) Second, to answer your question, use Darkmoon Card: Crusade and Icon of the Silver Crescent.
sorry, and thanks
#3256SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3banaj
Is there any point at which [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would become decent for fireball spam?
Like a certain amount of haste (from buffs or items) or is just always plain useless?
Seeing as there is more and more good haste gear available I wondered if you could get some synergy going.
#3257SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Anasztaizia
Originally Posted by banaj View Post
Is there any point at which [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would become decent for fireball spam?
Like a certain amount of haste (from buffs or items) or is just always plain useless?
Seeing as there is more and more good haste gear available I wondered if you could get some synergy going.
[Mage] TC after 2.3

[Mage] TC after 2.3

It's hard to imagine that ATOI will ever be good for Fireball spam unless they change how it procs.
#3258SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Banaj: The combination of fireball being a long cast and a relatively moderate crit rate mean the trinket's uptime will be far from it's maximum. Roywyn also recently did some research that showed it wasn't properly applying to the first spell after activating; this means that with 0 haste you'll effectively get 1 fireball's worth of haste, and with enough haste to get your fireball under 2.49sec you'd get two fireball's worth of haste, but deffinitely less than you're entitled to.

AToI should be left in your bank, patiently awaiting 2.4 when it'll become the best trinket to ever grace Arcane Explosion with it's procs. It will undoubtably be one of the major reasons we'll shoot ahead in AoE DPS
#3259SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zinaida
Originally Posted by banaj View Post
Is there any point at which [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would become decent for fireball spam?
Like a certain amount of haste (from buffs or items) or is just always plain useless?
Seeing as there is more and more good haste gear available I wondered if you could get some synergy going.
Not useful for fire with any currently feasible gearing. I believe there is also a bug with it which causes your first cast to not gain any benefit from the buff. It could be very good for AE spam in 2.4 with the haste changes though.

Edit: beaten to it.
#3260SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3banaj
Cheers for the fast replies, missed the posts about it earlier /hide
#3261SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Zapirian
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Under this context, given you're doing T5 content, yes, arcane has a relative edge and fire has a relative handicap, nobody denied this. Arcane is not OK however, by a long shot, in the end game. There has not been proof to disprove this yet.
Hi all, long term reader and only just at a point in raiding where I feel slightly qualified to offer input.

I agree completely that the phasal/stop and start, target switching encounters of SSC/The Eye do not favour fire over arcane.

I'm back to arcane(current armory spec) after trying fire(Unbuffed Fire stats : 163 hit rating, 1105 fire damage, ~34% Fire crit) for our first run in BT. Was doing roughly the same damage as an equivalently geared arcane mage on Naj'entus. As I was the only fire mage CoE wasn't up and I wasn't in the shadowpriest group (didn't have an elemental shaman attuned at this point). I'm guessing that CoE would have closed the gap and had us at about the same damage level even put me slightly ahead with the benefit of not being as reliant on a shadowpriest.

At Supremus without COE I had ~45% of my damage mitigated. COE should reduce this a lot (other WWS reports show about 17% mitigation for fire mages). This would probably put me above the arcane mages too. But given this isn't a difficult fight the fire spec doesn't really offer anything that arcane doesn't. Sure you have a better range for doing a bit more dps during the mobile phases but then arcane with reduced threat can lay down more damage during the tankable phases.

For Hyjal as Arcane of course you are doing more damage on the waves between bosses. I've yet to try fire here but we've cleared to archimonde in our first few visits without issue. Because of the nature of the fights here (don't go under 3k mana, move out of the death and decay, wait for tank building threat on infernal etc etc) I don't see fire being much better DPS either. The one fight that we haven't beaten yet seems to be the best candidate for fire to out perform arcane, since sitting at max range at archimonde as fire spec is probably going to be easier than sitting at 30yrds as arcane.

When coming into Hyjal and BT I don't see any reason to switch immediately to fire spec. Is it only the best spec once you have 4xT6 and your groups are optimised to burn down most encounters in 2-3mins where your dps time is spent entirely under all achiveable cooldowns and buffs to give 2500+dps figures? Until further notice (and further upgrades) I will be advising our T5 geared mages to stay arcane. Fire will probably move ahead of arcane once we all know the fights off by heart and are familiar with positioning, how much time we have to dps between phases etc.

I'm not saying that fire isn't the best DPS spec end game. Obviously I'm still gearing up for true end game T6 dpsing, but it does seem to rely more on perfect conditions than arcane at our current progress.

Last edited by Zapirian : 03/04/08 at 7:59 AM.
#3262SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
On Archimonde it depends on your group strategy. Due to decursing standing "at max range" and nuking is most likely not an option unless you're clearly not decursing any melee. I like to schizophrenically attempt to deucrse anything that gets a grip, even if out of range (though unless they're in my designated grp I won't bother moving to them) on the slight offchance their decurser is out of range, occupued, or inattentive. Losing a GCD to attempt a decurse is not an issue, we[ve found Archi DPS is a lot less critical than not dying.

As for AoE, imp. Flamestrike does magic. It won't beat full arcane AE (and won't beat full-fire AE in 2.4) but for now is extremely efficient, particularly combined with BW @ 20% and the potential to DB any stray adds that a lock may have pulled with SoC. The reason I say DB rather than FN is that the latter will make the add attack whatever is closest instead, which might just be you, another lock, etc.
#3263SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Vulcana
Originally Posted by Zapirian View Post
The one fight that we haven't beaten yet seems to be the best candidate for fire to out perform arcane, since sitting at max range at archimonde as fire spec is probably going to be easier than sitting at 30yrds as arcane.

When coming into Hyjal and BT I don't see any reason to switch immediately to fire spec.

I'm not saying that fire isn't the best DPS spec end game. Obviously I'm still gearing up for true end game T6 dpsing, but it does seem to rely more on perfect conditions than arcane at our current progress.
In terms of needing perfect conditions, arcane is on a relatively similar level as fire. The mana intensity that comes with it almost requires a shadowpriest, lest you be sitting with a low damage rotation with your thumb promptly inserted in your backside.

No, fire is not the best spec to go once you hit bt and hyjal, so feel free to abuse the 2pc t5 bonus until you replace the older gear, for a couple reasons specifically. One, you're unfamiliar with the fight, so optimizing your cooldowns will be borderline impossible unless you're a psychic, which is unlikely ;p. Two, you'll be lacking a lot of hit rating, as SSC/TK and T5 loot has very little of it. I'd recommend waiting until you at have at least helm and gloves (over t5, as those are DIRECT upgrades from t5 in terms of fire due to the hit) to even think about switching out. Ideally, you'd want the 4 piece bonus, since 5% on your main nuke is a huge bonus, but if you're not at the mother/council/illidan killing stage (or from what it looks like, the Archi killing stage either), don't worry too much about it.

As for archi... well, it depends on how your guild does it. If you want to stack resto druids, that's one way to do it, but in my guild, we have no such abundance of foliage, so our mages essentially get assigned to bitch duty for decursing and leading the group away from doomfire while the rest of them mindlessly spam shadowbolt, steadyshot... the like.
#3264SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
Originally Posted by Anasztaizia View Post
[Mage] TC after 2.3

[Mage] TC after 2.3

It's hard to imagine that ATOI will ever be good for Fireball spam unless they change how it procs.
It's fun for Imp Flamestrike spam in Hyjal though.
#3265SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zapirian
Originally Posted by Vulcana View Post
Two, you'll be lacking a lot of hit rating, as SSC/TK and T5 loot has very little of it. I'd recommend waiting until you at have at least helm and gloves (over t5, as those are DIRECT upgrades from t5 in terms of fire due to the hit) to even think about switching out. Ideally, you'd want the 4 piece bonus, since 5% on your main nuke is a huge bonus, but if you're not at the mother/council/illidan killing stage (or from what it looks like, the Archi killing stage either), don't worry too much about it.
As I stated in my post I am 1 hit below cap and thats only with Leggings of Channelled Elements from Hyjal. coming into Hyjal and BT I had gear for about 220 hit in my bags (obviously damage and crit then suffer). I don't think its too hard to get hit prior to Hyjal/BT, its just hard to get hit accompanied by other stats that can make the gear truely worth equipping. Until I have 4xT6 I'm finding it hard to drop 4xT5 bonus. I actually want to get back to fire as I'm now bored of AB spam. We'll see how Archi goes soon, better not drop the caster weapon since I just blew most of my DKP on The Maelstrom's Fury ^^
#3266SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Luthus
My guild is entering SSC/TK now as a 2/48/11 fire specc I must admit im rather clueless about Arcane/Frost. Iv'e serched these forums for an hour and havent been able to find a simple condensed answer post 2.3

For this point in our progression what spec should I be telling my non fire mages to lean toward?

With MSD nerf is Arcane still viable, I know its better suited for SSC especially but what about T/K and beyond?

Is it still dependent on first getting 2pc t-5?

What is the spell rotaion now still ABx3/AM??

Whats the spell rotaion for frost and should they bother if they are already Arcane/Fire?

Any help would be greatley appreciated i'm right brained and get lost in the jumble of % and numbers
#3267SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by Luthus View Post
My guild is entering SSC/TK now as a 2/48/11 fire specc I must admit im rather clueless about Arcane/Frost. Iv'e serched these forums for an hour and havent been able to find a simple condensed answer post 2.3

For this point in our progression what spec should I be telling my non fire mages to lean toward?

With MSD nerf is Arcane still viable, I know its better suited for SSC especially but what about T/K and beyond?

Is it still dependent on first getting 2pc t-5?

What is the spell rotaion now still ABx3/AM??

Whats the spell rotaion for frost and should they bother if they are already Arcane/Fire?

Any help would be greatley appreciated i'm right brained and get lost in the jumble of % and numbers
I am not sure if this thread is right place for questions like this, but here is my answers to your questions.

1. Stay 2/48/11 until you get 2 piece t5
2. After two piece t5 40/0/21
3. Rotation is 3ab/3fb. Arcane missles is out, do not try to maximize damage with it.
4. Arcane fire is not as mana effecient as arcane frost.
5. They can stay 2/48/11 and do great damage. You do not have to switch to arcane. I found that its more about play style. All the high damage specs are so close in dps that is strictly personal preference. Certain fight an arcane mage is better and certain fights a deep fire mage is better.

Almost forgot-
Throw a deep ice mage into the mix for wc debuff if you do an arcane ice build.
You pretty much have to have a shadow priest in the group as well
pick up herbalism because mana pots will be you best friend.
Use all of your mana cooldowns wie, pots, gems, ect when they are up.
#3268SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
Luthus, this is probably the wrong thread for that question, however I'll give you the cliff notes answer. For SSC/TK (and even the beginning of Hyjal/BT) Arcane works fine provided you have 2pc T5 (without 2 pc T5 it is garbage, never forget AB IS your dps, the short era of AM spam is over, RIP). For alot of the encounters in SSC/TK and for mages who are well under the hit cap arcane is good once you get that two piece bonus, at least for awhile. Once you start approaching end-game geared 2/48/11 (or similar variations) will win the dps fight on the majority of encounters and group situations (boss encounters not trash) by a significant margin. The only way to compete with arcane is to make AB spam uptime high enough to bridge the gap which requires gear or group setups that at this stage of the game are not feasible.
#3269SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Lepew
A quick question on AM. The wiki says that crit effects can proc per missile (eg lightning cap), and on cast effects proc per channel. How do the robe of elder scribes (when spells land), spellstrike set bonus (when spells land) apply now? Are they per channel or per missile? I understand the MSD is per channel now with a cooldown so it is nerfed, and the nerf to the lightning cap is no more than 1 discharge per 2.5s. I just got my 2pc T5 bonus and am considering going to a 40/0/21, but the simple elegance of a pure arcane cycle from a hit rating and threat standpoint make me want to stay 49/0/12.
#3270SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
2pc t5 at ssc/tk levels

At those gear levels arcane blast spamming is much superior DPS to fireball spamming, but the frostbolt (or whatever other filler you pick) is much much lower dps than fireball spamming. The deciding factor is fight duration, but that seems to be rather long when you're learning SSC, with enrage timers going up to 10 minutes and vashj/kael not really being short fights (although you can argue for arcane AOE on kael since it's the only phase that really matters). Hydross depends on your strategy. Lurker takes too long the first kills. Void reaver can go all the way to the 10 minute enrage. Al'ar isn't a short fight even if you completely neglect phase 1 DPS and just go all out in phase 2.

Maybe those fights get short enough when you're clearing SSC/TK with 25 people that know all the fights perfectly, but when you're progressing the fights will simply take too long. And remember even on an average-low duration fight, fire cooldown stacking will be very powerful while the fight can stil be too long for arcane. Even rage winterchill will probably take too long for arcane to win the first time you kill him if not the other times too.

Arcane is so situational in 2.3 I just wouldn't bother on any part of the game.
#3271SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ilyawen
Well, after lots of reading, finally my first post arround here *cough*

Anyhow, I wasn't sure wether this should go into the help thread - I finally decided against it, since its probably more of a TC-issue than actually ever a real raid-alternative

Question is: Is there any possible scenario wherein a build like 50/0/11 with a focus on Arcane Missiles (I am aware that 40/0/21 would be an option, but I don't see the second IV really making up for the losses you take in Arcane when you specc for AM; and YES, the 11 points in Ice are more or less just because the single IV is the best to get with them, not because I am interessted in Frost; and YES, that was a long parenthesis) could perform at least somewhat NOT terrible in a raid?

Small background: I'm interessted in Arcane, but neither do I have 2xT5 nor will I be likely to go back and get it. I find the whole thing disgusting, somehow, and even if we return to killing Vashj and Kael regularly, I have better things to roll on still. Also, as raids go on, I am more often left to be the only mage in the raid, meaning that I am facing Bosses without CoE.

So, my goal is for something that sees AM as the main nuke, with AB as a mana-dump (end of encounters, or tank-phases on Supremus and so forth). From the little testing I did in 10s so far, I perform rather ok-ish with AM, and mana is a non-issue, but I lag behind compared to my output in fire and frost.

My thoughts so far were that, even after the nerf, the TLC is still one of the things that help the AM-Spam compared to other speccs. Also, just like AB-Speccs, I can get rid of quite a lot of hit. And finally, there is haste, which I put pretty heavy emphasis on in my gear, and which made me lean towards AM in the first place. With 2.4, this of course won't be a factor in comparison to AB anymore, and from the little I know about the way haste works (a linear percentage increase?), even though it takes more time of my AMs then it takes of my FB or AB, I still have the same gain in DPS. My non-mathematician brain struggles to understand why a larger value of time saved results in the same DPS-gain, but I am grasping the concept, somewhat.

So, sorry if this has come up before, but at least in relation to 2.4-changes I haven't been able to find any constructive material on the AM-issue. I'm not gonna specc it, I am afraid, but I'd greatly appreciate some brainstorming and hints on why the wonderfully cool AMs could be a great spell, even though I know the answer will probably be: They aren't
#3272SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Just to be more thorough. Travel time might affect fireball/fireblast mechanics, but whats most important to remember is that all procs in the game are queued on the server for later processing. This is why you fireblast, and it takes like 100-200ms before ignite appears. Similarly, this is why you get AB to bug out and give you 2.5 / 2.5 / ..., because the AB debuff applies after your following cast. This is also the same reason the ashtongue trinket behaves similarly to AB bugging out -- the proc occurs after your following cast.
#3273SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Antiphonal
Ilyawen, you are right that the haste changes don't help AM more than they help Fireball and Frostbolt, though the changes do make AB more useful than before.

It seems like you run into the exact same scaling issues that make AM subpar right now, no matter what the gear is. Unless you somehow have a lot of +arcane gear lying around (in other words, in a world unlike the WoW we play in), AM spam is probably not the right DPS choice over the elemental nukes.
#3274SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Luthus
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
I am not sure if this thread is right place for questions like this, but here is my answers to your questions.

1. Stay 2/48/11 until you get 2 piece t5
2. After two piece t5 40/0/21
3. Rotation is 3ab/3fb. Arcane missles is out, do not try to maximize damage with it.
4. Arcane fire is not as mana effecient as arcane frost.
5. They can stay 2/48/11 and do great damage. You do not have to switch to arcane. I found that its more about play style. All the high damage specs are so close in dps that is strictly personal preference. Certain fight an arcane mage is better and certain fights a deep fire mage is better.

Almost forgot-
Throw a deep ice mage into the mix for wc debuff if you do an arcane ice build.
You pretty much have to have a shadow priest in the group as well
pick up herbalism because mana pots will be you best friend.
Use all of your mana cooldowns wie, pots, gems, ect when they are up.
As I only have 1 piece t-5 ATM i'll stay fire. Hoever I have 3pice epic along wth Spell Strike set, with what piece of t-5 should I be replacing those with?

Also as the only mage with a pice of t-5 in our guild should I have other arcane mages respecc to fire until they have accuired neccessary pieces?

Ty so much for helpfull replies!
#3275SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Docjowles
The T5 shoulders and pants were, for me, the sweet spot of "easy to get" and "not terrible". The gloves are massively worse than Spellfire, and realistically most guilds will only see a couple helms and chests drop before they move into T6. Personally I'd recommend running T5 leggings plus shoulders, and keeping your spellfire bonus intact. Especially since as arcane (with Arcane Mind or whatever it's called) you have a giant intellect pool, so that 7% becomes 50 or more damage. Compared to the spellfire bonus, the spellstrike proc isn't so hot.
#3276SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Stein
Originally Posted by Docjowles View Post
The gloves are massively worse than Spellfire
keep in mind that int/spirit are significantly more valuable in 2.4 (bringing the T5 gloves up to/past spellfire's level).
#3277SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3[DRF]Solmyr
This doesn't directly affect TC, but here:

MMO is reporting epic quality gems for 15 heroic badges. All TC should not assume access to epic level gems.

edit: removed picture, jic.
#3278SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Lurker
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Not particularly relevant to PvE, but recently the following has been brought to my attention: Look at two similar spell descriptors:

Demonic Resilience, should give 3% crit resistance, spell and physical. Demonic Resilience - Spells - World of Warcraft

Molten Armor, should give same type 5% crit resistance, spell and physical Molten Armor - Spells - World of Warcraft

Does anyone else notice that the first one has "Mod Attacker Spell Crit Chance" AND "Mod Attacker Melee Crit Chance" while Molten Armor has only the former?

Could it be we're gaining only the spell resilience and not the physical? I suspect this will be easy to prove; get a rogue to strip off gear and wear two white lvl 9 daggers, white attack for a few hours, compare crit rates with and without Molten Armor.
Hi. Friendly neighborhood Lurker here. Got a Shaman to test this with me for 800 attacks. Shaman had 4% to crit on her sheet, and had zero gear on. 350 weapon skill with a level 2 club. 350 Defense on me with zero resilience. This one was done with Molten Armor on and attacks from behind to eliminate the odd dodge chance.

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4...ortest1rj7.jpg
Result? Not one crit on the Shaman's part.

This was just a quick confirm test of 200 attacks to make sure crit was working.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/765...ortest2av2.jpg
Result? Crit working as intended. It'd begin to average out near 4% if we were to continue to oblivion, of course.

Finale: Molten Armor is reducing melee crit chance.

Last edited by Lurker : 03/04/08 at 7:49 PM.
#3279SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
Rawr.Mage is finally in a state where I feel comfortable using it to make some cross-spec comparisons. So far we've all come to conclusion that Arcane looks promising in 2.4, but how does it really play out after you take into account Sunwell gear.

First observation is that there is a ton of spell haste and spell hit on gear. This puts arcane at great disadvantage. You'll get at 200+ haste, 10%+ hit even if you try to avoid it. Even so it's not so bad as it might seem.

All arcane specs are very close together with 40/0/21 slightly in the lead. The AM variants depend very much on how many on hit effects are in play. Anyway the differences are in 1% range, so I'd say mostly a personal choice.

If we put all specs on the same playing field with both COS and COE then Fire has a large lead. At 300 mp5 sh priest regen fire/iv clocks at 2691 dps while arcane/frost is at 2584 dps. Deep frost seems to be on the losing end here at 2453 dps. If the arcane/frost had winter's chill up it would put it at 2651 dps, so still not enough to catch up. When COE is not up arcane gets in the lead. 2498 dps for arcane/frost compared to 2382 dps for fire/iv. Numbers are very similar at lower sh priest regen rates.

So the conclusion would be that depending on whether you have COE/COS or not either Fire or Arcane is a better choice. It would be interesting to see what the situation would be if there were equivalent gear that had spell hit converted into other stats. Unfortunately you can't get more dps talents if you remove spell hit talents. The only exception is 43/0/18, but there frost plays a very minor part.

Last edited by Kavan : 03/04/08 at 8:35 PM.
#3280SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Your numbers seems to match closely the ones I was expecting. Although, I believe you give less credit to arcane spec than is due. As you know, fight duration, and JOW will play a big role as far as arcane spec is concerned. And of course, it does win out on trash and aoe.

What I had came to conclude when I had done my TC was that basically it made arcane a real competing spec once again. It does give out exactly what I wanted the spec to be, which is 'its gonna win some fights, and its gonna lose some' because that is how all specs should be really. To me it felt like pre 2.4 arcane was really lackluster, and the int/spi changes really put things back in line.

I guess now all specs are arguably on equal footing as far as PVE goes. I think frost spec has the most to lose, given that WE does not scale as well from sunwell gear because the pet gets no benefits from spell haste (which comes at teh cost of crit in the case of sunwell gear, which the WE was scaling off of).

In any case, I think much of the arcane power will depends on whether or not they change the int/spi before 2.4 goes live, which is why I reserved my judgement until then.

kavan: have you tried with this gear config ? [Mage] Help me please?
#3281SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by manly View Post
kavan: have you tried with this gear config ? [Mage] Help me please?
That setup gives me 2743 dps for fire. Using Sunflare/Heart of the Pit combo for Arcane/Frost gives 2624 dps.

I agree that I'm probably downplaying Arcane a bit. One thing that I don't consider for fire is the initial Scorch stack, which is about 10 dps loss longterm. Then of course there are a lot of other intangibles like threat and range and specific fight mechanics which will give either spec an advantage. Another interesting thing is that Arcane specs get relatively better on longer fights now because of extra regen. On a fight like Kael'Thas with lots of downtime Arcane gets a clear edge.
#3282SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Icicles
All arcane needs now is an int/spirit gem cut for seaspray emerald

Edit: Although, without that cut, how should 2.4 Arcane optimize gems? 12 dmg in Red, 10 int in Yellow?, 10 spirit in Blue...problem I see with that is, the value of more int diminishes slightly in terms of regen, but what's a better alternative?

Last edited by Icicles : 03/05/08 at 2:41 AM.
#3283SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andorian
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
That setup gives me 2743 dps for fire. Using Sunflare/Heart of the Pit combo for Arcane/Frost gives 2624 dps.

I agree that I'm probably downplaying Arcane a bit. One thing that I don't consider for fire is the initial Scorch stack, which is about 10 dps loss longterm. Then of course there are a lot of other intangibles like threat and range and specific fight mechanics which will give either spec an advantage. Another interesting thing is that Arcane specs get relatively better on longer fights now because of extra regen. On a fight like Kael'Thas with lots of downtime Arcane gets a clear edge.
Did your arcane setup include 3/5 of Arcane Focus and the rest in Magic Absorption? While it would be optimal to only have 6% from gear, magic absorption does add a little to DPS on some fights especially with 15-17k mana pools.

Edit: Grammar

Last edited by Andorian : 03/05/08 at 1:33 AM.
#3284SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
It's worth noting that if the changes to the warlocks' fire spells remain intact, fire will likely become the preferred spec for destro locks - making CoE and Imp Scorch important for both mages and warlocks. Speaking in terms of my guild, we usually raid with 2-3 mages and 2 destro locks, both of whom are at least considering going fire. This would make CoE the preferred curse over CoS (4-5 fire users vs 3 shadow), and as such we'd probably get maledicted CoE from our Affliction lock. More DPS for both classes makes a pretty compelling argument for 2/48/11, at least in my book.
#3285SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Andorian View Post
Did your arcane setup include 3/5 of Arcane Focus and the rest in Magic Absorption? While it would be optimal to only have 6% from gear, magic absorption does add a little to DPS on some fights especially with 15-17k mana pools.

Edit: Grammar
I'll be honest with you. Current-level TC is a long way from being able to accurately model somethings thats even remotely close to a real encounter. Now try to give a qualitative value to Magic Absorption? I'm sorry, but before we even consider that we need tools that can at least give a semblance of an actual fight.

To be honest, I think those talents boil down to personal preference. They are not direct DPS-increasing talents, so I consider them pretty much on that level.
#3286SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
It's worth noting that if the changes to the warlocks' fire spells remain intact, fire will likely become the preferred spec for destro locks - making CoE and Imp Scorch important for both mages and warlocks. Speaking in terms of my guild, we usually raid with 2-3 mages and 2 destro locks, both of whom are at least considering going fire. This would make CoE the preferred curse over CoS (4-5 fire users vs 3 shadow), and as such we'd probably get maledicted CoE from our Affliction lock. More DPS for both classes makes a pretty compelling argument for 2/48/11, at least in my book.
But then again, I could definately understand your raid leader enforcing a 1-affliction lock minimum per raid solely for Shadow Embrace (-5% boss physical dmg). Just to drive the point home -- I know back when EJ was still learning new bosses in TBC, we would literally skip raids if we didn't have one affliction lock in the raid (although I have to mention we heavily bias towards quality of time over quantity). I think it is too soon to be able to gauge out whether firelocks are good, and where the shakedown is.
#3287SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
The good news with a firelock would be we could always count on having CoE up heh. A question I have for you Manly, or really anyone with some experience on Sunwell bosses on PTR, is range a factor in any fights we have seen (or school resistance/immunites) up this point? I don't like to underestimate how much encounter design factors into speccing,
#3288SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Selun
Don't know why underestimate Magic Absorption so much, if you get 8-9k mana back in 6-7minutes then that means it was worth it and is a dps increase because of the mana gain, and you do get alot of resists in the boss fights, I personally seen this because I do have +7resist on cloak, use magic armor, have imp. mark of the wild and the buff for a specific school (e.g. shadow protection). And I must say that resisting 3 carrion swarms at Anetheron was lucky, but 1 is normal. At Rage Winterchill again you'll be resisting at least 3 times be it a nova, bolt or decay. The bad part is that the shorter the fight is the less Magic Absorption effect is, but on fights like Al'ar, Vashj, Kael, Karathress it's doing a really good job on the mana regen part.


Anyway as Pintofbrew looked at the mechanics presented by a site for a specific spell being wrong, you can consider the same for Prismatic Cloak talent in regards to magic resistance. I "tested" this at the mobs in SSC/TK/MH with a warlock and the magic dmg received was differing by about 5-6dmg whereas the 4% reduction from a 3k hit should be 120 with an average +/- because not all hits are exactly the same. Did anyone bother to test this throughly and not just compare magic dmg taken on hit with someone else that doesn't have this kind of reduction?


If Prismatic Cloak has magic dmg reduction mechanic (not a flat % dmg modifier), then using this with Magic Absorption, Mage Armor, +7 resist enchant on cloak, buffs and the 2.4 Imp. Blink, you can effectively get to about 60% magic dmg avoidance/reduction for those 4sec after blink so basically forcing the Magic Absorption to get back alot of mana (given that you'll be arcane with these talents and have a huge mana pool and also blink costing only 313 mana). So you basically don't die from magic attacks and also get back more mana than you used but only in 60% of the cases, even more if you'll be having the +70 resistance to 1 school of magic.

Last edited by Selun : 03/05/08 at 4:10 AM.
#3289SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Selun
In regards to locks going to fire and using CoE over CoS, wouldn't this move nerf their curses dps and also lower the mana regen from a shadow priest? Would that be a smart move to do for personal mana efficiency or having a shadow priest in group will balance the things out?
I guess a rule of thumb will be for locks to go shadow-destro if a spriest will be in group, if not go fire-destro.

Last edited by Selun : 03/05/08 at 5:22 AM.
#3290SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
Probably the ideal scenerio would be for a raid with 4 locks, 2 destro/shadow, one destro/fire, and one aff/malediction. Even a fire mage will inirectly benefit from CoS because of the increased mana regen your SP will yield so we don't want a situation where it is CoE vs CoS, much better to have both, throw in another lock for recklessness and we have the bases covered.
#3291SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by manly View Post
WE does not scale as well from sunwell gear because the pet gets no benefits from spell haste (which comes at teh cost of crit in the case of sunwell gear, which the WE was scaling off of).

I was under the impression the WE scaled off your Int, Sta and Frost spell power? Crit didn't figure into the story just like hit didn't.

Selun, let's assume a 15k mana pool, which is a slight bit on the enthusiastic side. Full Mag Abs (which is unlikely to be the case) will grant you 750mana per resist. That means the 8k mana you assume represents just under 11 full resists. I sincerely doubt that you'll resist that many of anything on the vast majority of fights. More likely to me it seems that you gain in the region of 2.1k from perhaps 3 resists of something nominal, like Azgalor's silence or RoS P1.

Granted, I disagree with Manly in that it -is- a DPS tool in the context that extra mana is more AB/filler ratio, but I agree on his oppinion that it's more preference than anything due to it being unreliable and uncontrolable. Were it to be changed to 0.5resist/level at max rank rather than a paltry 10 resist, I'd be flying a different banner but at 5 points for a negligible resistance increase and an uncontrolable situational effect with small pay-off, it is a totaly personal-preff choice.

Duravi: the 2.7% increase from Mal-CoS to the SP is negligible (your 300mp5 will go to 310mp5. Not particularly a selling point vis. the potentialDPS difference.). So is the point of mixing Shadow and Fire destro locks. Either one is superior or the other, there is no reasonable excuse (except ISB uptime) to mix the lock types.

The Affli lock for the majority of cases will be a given, for reasons beyond the scope of this thread. Given a raid with at least one Fire mage and at least one SP then the choice is rather clear:

Does [Mal-CoE * (Firemages + Firelocks)] + [CoS * (Affli + SP + Arcmages)]

Equal more than [Mal-CoS * (Affli + SP + Shadowlocks + Arcmages)] + [CoE*(Firemages)].

Easy as pie. Given you can integrate ISB uptime to the Shadow calculation side...

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 03/05/08 at 5:54 AM.
#3292SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Goggles
Originally Posted by Selun View Post
Anyway as Pintofbrew looked at the mechanics presented by a site for a specific spell being wrong, you can consider the same for Prismatic Cloak talent in regards to magic resistance. I "tested" this at the mobs in SSC/TK/MH with a warlock and the magic dmg received was differing by about 5-6dmg whereas the 4% reduction from a 3k hit should be 120 with an average +/- because not all hits are exactly the same. Did anyone bother to test this throughly and not just compare magic dmg taken on hit with someone else that doesn't have this kind of reduction?
This has come up before and I've always believed the opposite to you (reduces actual damage taken, rather than reduces number of hits you take) but have never put it to the test. Given I don't want to respec and don't have access to PTR I decided to take a look on WWS to see if I could find anything. I found this parse: Mages - WWS

It's a recent parse (March 2nd), shows Essence of Anger (WWS handles this fight badly but I'm only after Aura of Anger info which in this case seems to be displayed fine), has 2 mages taking the same number of hits from the aura. Deorman is Arcane and has Prismatic Cloak. Yoogo is Fire and has Playing With Fire. The damage range on Aura of Anger is minimal if anything and they are taking the exact same hits at the same time. If you take the view that Prismatic Cloak reduces actual damage taken by 4% then you'd expect to see a 7% difference in damage taken (+3 for Playing With Fire), if it relates to number of hits you'd expect to see 3%. In this case it's almost exactly 7% for both average and maximum hit. Personally I'd say that's pretty conclusive.
#3293SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Goggles, I'm not sure how you infer Selun wants to indicate "prismatic cloak should reduce number of hits taken" but it doesn't matter because you correctly demonstrate it shouldn't.

As for testing for spells, it'll be a lot simpler to test using a holy priest and a Duel (and I say holy, because misery and/or shadow weaving applying/expiring will fudge results). Reset talents, get a SW:P to tick on you, spec into PWF, see if the SW:P goes up to 103%, spec PWF & Pris Cloak, see if it goes down to 99%, reset talents again, get only Pris Cloak, see if it goes to 96%.

You can do the same with a rogue using Kick as it's flat damage.

Bare in mind certain damage sources like Naj'entus bubble, Mala'kress' spirit-bolts or Al'ar's flame... thingummy are non-mitigateable. This means no modifier will prevent/alter them, including amp/damp magic. They are, of course, fully avoided from immunity effects like IB or Bubble. Except for Gruul's Shatter, for some utterly bizzare reason.
#3294SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Goggles
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Goggles, I'm not sure how you infer Selun wants to indicate "prismatic cloak should reduce number of hits taken" but it doesn't matter because you correctly demonstrate it shouldn't.

As for testing for spells, it'll be a lot simpler to test using a holy priest and a Duel (and I say holy, because misery and/or shadow weaving applying/expiring will fudge results). Reset talents, get a SW:P to tick on you, spec into PWF, see if the SW:P goes up to 103%, spec PWF & Pris Cloak, see if it goes down to 99%, reset talents again, get only Pris Cloak, see if it goes to 96%.
Well Selun was suggesting that Prismatic Cloak was either not working or working in a different way than most of us expected and from what he'd said he seemed to suggest it might affect resists in some way (ie number of hits taken). I can't work out any other way of interpreting Selun's post.

I also say in my post I don't want to respec and don't have access to PTR at the moment so this was the quickest way I could think of to prove it.
#3295SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Selun
Yes Pintofbrew, the 8k mana average will be gained in the long fights from SSC/TK whereas in MH is a whole different story with so short fights and MA will have a lower effect. The bad part still is the uncontrollable nature of this talent, because even if you know that the bosses magic abilities are mostly binary (thus 0% or 100% resist) you can't predict the timeframe the server is gonna choose to give you the "x% magic resistance = y resists" and sometimes you get hit 4 times and get 3 resists, other times get 4 hits and no resist.

Anyway MA should be a filler talent for AB with AM as filler for a heavier proccing gear and some haste, due to IV not bringing too much as you'll be already 1sec AB or almost there and FrB not being good as AM for proccing things like the new trinket, enchant, etc in 2.4.


In regards to Prismatic Cloak I think that it has the normal magic resistance mechanic (reducing magic dmg in increments of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%) rather than just a flat % dmg taken modifier, but I didn't have time to test it, just compared my dmg taken with someone else, and in no circumstances I got lower dmg than him. For physical though it should be a flat % dmg modifier because that is how armor works against it.

Prismatic Cloak will reduce the number of hits taken (if it's working as magic resistance mechanic) only if the dmg taken is binary dmg (and from what I've seen the binary dmg is usually stuff that does more than 1.5k dmg), whereas for non-binary hits (Malakress's Spirit Bolt), Prismatic Cloak will make you just mitigate % dmg through partial resists. And so Playing with Fire will increase the magic dmg hits taken by x% against binary magic dmg or magic dmg taken by x% against non-binary magic dmg.

I don't know of any addons that keeps track of magic hits taken and how many partially resisted, fully resisted or full dmg and so is that WWS report. If you have MA yes you might track the full resists because it will trigger some mana back and will get registered, but not the partially resisted. I don't know how to test this except as Pintofbrew suggested to see how it is though I already mentioned that I don't have time for this except for when I'm in a raid or weekends .

As soon as I'll get home I'll post the report for yesterday (I have both MA and PC) and I think there was a fire mage that had PWF maybe that will make it more clear of what I meant.

Last edited by Selun : 03/05/08 at 8:12 AM.
#3296SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3maxi
Got a question about fireballx2->fireblast rotation.
With haste reducing GCDs in 2.4, will fireblasts once again be viable? Or is superior +dam scaling of fireballs still getting the better of them?
For theorycraft's purposes, screw mana efficiency for a bit :p
#3297SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Rawr.Mage is finally in a state where I feel comfortable using it to make some cross-spec comparisons...

All arcane specs are very close together with 40/0/21 slightly in the lead.
Question: Assuming no CoE, is 40/0/21 still in the lead, or do AM-based Arcane variants pull ahead due to Frostbolt losing dps? I assume the answer to this depends on fight time(more frostbolts, less ABs on longer fights), so if you need fight durations - 3 minutes and 6 minutes will do respectively.
#3298SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
Question: Assuming no CoE, is 40/0/21 still in the lead, or do AM-based Arcane variants pull ahead due to Frostbolt losing dps? I assume the answer to this depends on fight time(more frostbolts, less ABs on longer fights), so if you need fight durations - 3 minutes and 6 minutes will do respectively.
In most cases 40/0/21 is in the lead. The variations are small enough that each gear change can make a difference. Situation where I've seen AM variants take lead are with no COE, with JoW and a bit longer fight.
#3299SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Goggles, forgive the impasse, I thought you were missinterpreting when you weren't.

Selun, this concept of "binary" and "reduces number of X taken" is rather random and counter-intuitive.

Firstly, you're confusing Binary with "can't be mitigated in a way other than 100%". I assure you binary spells can be -reduced-. The only thing Binary spells can not be, is partially resisted.

A partial resist of any type is NOT the same as reducing it's damage. You may try this with a Warrior in Defensive and Berserker stance and see if your Frostbolt hits for a different number. You may also try this with any target and Amplify/Dampen magic. None of these effects have anything to do with Partial Resist and as such are not connected to being Binary.

Assuming a talent causes 4% dodge or 4% resist when it specifies "reduces damage taken by 4%" is inversely implying that other descriptors like Rogue's Heightened Senses (reduces chance you are hit by spells and ranged attacks by 4%) or Mage Arctic Winds (reduces chance melee and ranged attacks hit you by 5%) are somehow doing the same thing but wording exactly the correct effect, while Prismatic Cloak is wording it in a round-about and technically wrong way. Even PWF states "increases spell damage taken by 1%". I fail to see how you interpret Pris Cloak's "decreases all damage taken 4%" as "4%dodge and 4% resist", it simply makes no sense.

For completeness, please also note, that dodge doesn't work from behind or when you're sitting/stunned/disoriented.
#3300SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
Has there been any TC or PTR testing done on how the new talent Molten Shields will benefit us?
Im referring to these changes and more specifically the changes in bold.

* Improved Fire Ward has become Molten Shields.
* New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.

Im not sure how to interpret this but im leaning towards, any ranged and spell attacks made against me have a 100% chance to proc molten armor onto the attacker, thus inflicting 75 fire dmg onto them. In a pve enviroment there are quite a few bossfights where this talent could possibly mantain a nice little dmg bonus because of all the aoe flying around or am I way off in assuming this?

I cant access the PTR at the moment and just wanted to throw this out here to see whats you guys make of this. I did a search back to page 125 in this thread but found no releveant information so please dont chop my head of if I missed a major post about this.
#3301SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Sorry, to be clear, I wasn't advocating CoE should be applied over CoS outright. I always want E+S+R applied, at all times, and I tremendously dislike raiding with less than three warlocks, because someone's DPS has to suffer with two or less. At present though our Affliction lock is pretty much always assigned to (maledicted) CoS, and if our destro locks did decide to go fire, the Aff lock would probably switch to maledicting CoE. My general understanding of the 2.4 destro lock situation is that fire is expected to produce higher personal DPS, but at the cost of ISB uptime, which as you all know, has effects beyond DPS. How things pan out is something we won't know until Sunwell is live, but it's at least something to think about in the interim.
#3302SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
AoE does not proc any reflecting-type damage. You may test this with a druid with thorns on. Any damage that isn't specifically targeted at you (so spirit bolts on malakress is out) shouldn't proc it at all.

By and large, this change reeks of PvP ballancing, making Molten Armor able to proc an Impact on enemy spellcasters or hunters. Though with 0 dispell resistance, I wonder how exactly it is useful to start with.

Even so, I'd expect it to require at least 10 reflections for the damage to start being even remotely worth more than nothing; how often has an extra 1k ever made any difference? that's 13 reflections worth of damage. I'm not even sure it'll work on RoS P2.
#3303SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
AoE does not proc any reflecting-type damage. You may test this with a druid with thorns on. Any damage that isn't specifically targeted at you (so spirit bolts on malakress is out) shouldn't proc it at all.

By and large, this change reeks of PvP ballancing, making Molten Armor able to proc an Impact on enemy spellcasters or hunters. Though with 0 dispell resistance, I wonder how exactly it is useful to start with.

Even so, I'd expect it to require at least 10 reflections for the damage to start being even remotely worth more than nothing; how often has an extra 1k ever made any difference? that's 13 reflections worth of damage. I'm not even sure it'll work on RoS P2.
Ah, yeah that seems about right, doesent seem like its gonna be of any use for pve mages then.
Molten armor can however crit. I've seen hits for around 130dmg on attackers so unless its dispelled, that might atleast prove an annoying factor in pvp, not that I care about pvp at all really though.
#3304SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Selun
I didn't stated that Prismatic Cloak is giving 4% dodge (the mechanic for physical dmg reduction is a flat -% dmg modifier).
The thing I was talking about is that magic dmg does not have this kind of mechanic and that what is listed on some sites isn't throughly correct and that is because PvP has a very different mechanic than PvE on the magic dmg part (best example is that mobs don't critically hit you with spells, except elementals that everybody agreed about them that they do have a different mechanic than the rest of the NPCs/mobs).



And so how would it be that you know a boss hits you with 4% less magic dmg? Comparing parses; but the thing is that most of the bosses magic hits aren't affected by amplify/dampen and here is what I was on about. If the magic ability isn't amplified/dampened then the prismatic cloak works as resistance (and basically reducing the number of hits because of no partial resists), if the ability is affected by amplify/dampen then it works as resistance again but is subject to partial resistance .
I do suspect that Prismatic Cloak is working in PvE (the magic part only) as a % to resistance. And yes I do know binary dmg coming from players is reduced with this (best way is to get a rogue that has Cheat Death), but I was on about PvE and that is the magic dmg coming from bosses has a different mechanic or similar but not the same as PvP mechanics.

I do think that it has a different mechanic because NPC's have different mechanic and for example: if you are mind controlled and use polymorph spell on someone in your group it'll last up to 50sec even though you are a player and you use it on another player, because you are considered to be a Pet and thus an NPC while you are mind controlled... (best way to see this is to go in BF with at least 2-3 mages at 1st boss on heroic difficulty). Though didn't have time to test this only in PvP. Also another reason to think there is another mechanic for magic dmg on NPCs is that when you are mind controlled you do alot more magic dmg (don't know about melee).

Last edited by Selun : 03/05/08 at 10:22 AM.
#3305SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
You need to present some proof or stop arguing this point, because the idea that a flat "4% magic damage reduction" turns into resistance is all sorts of crazy. Priest Spell Warding is worded similarly and I can prove it outright reduces magic damage by 10%.
#3306SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Maledict
Yes Pintofbrew, the 8k mana average will be gained in the long fights from SSC/TK whereas in MH is a whole different story with so short fights and MA will have a lower effect.
How on *earth* are you gaining 8K mana from a SSC / TK fight? What fight is there in tier 5 with numerous binary resist checks flying around for such a long length of time?

And with regards to Prismatic cloak - this has been explained before, and you have just brought the same inaccuracies up without reading what was posted. Goggles has posted a parse on the last page which proves what you are saying is completely incorrect, so please stop posting it. This is a theorycraft thread, and when something is proved, we don't keep going on about it. Magic Absortion is a terrible talent, it isn't a good filler for any spec, and it certainly is not providing 8K mana to anyone on a tier 5 fight.
#3307SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Gumibear
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Duravi: the 2.7% increase from Mal-CoS to the SP is negligible (your 300mp5 will go to 310mp5. Not particularly a selling point vis. the potentialDPS difference.). So is the point of mixing Shadow and Fire destro locks. Either one is superior or the other, there is no reasonable excuse (except ISB uptime) to mix the lock types.
To back up your point a bit more:

I'm looking at about a 200 DPS increase going from SB to 2.4 Incinerate with Flame Cap usage.

Let's say all your Warlocks have my gear. A single Destruction Warlock using Shadowbolt can manage 50% uptime on ISB, and any more warlocks added do not have nearly the same impact on ISB up time. If you have 3 Destruction Warlocks and 2 Shadow Priests, it would make sense to have one that spams SB and then have the others use Incinerate. If you only have one Shadow Priest though, how many Shadow Priests have you seen that would make up for the Warlock losing 200 DPS by gaining essentially 10% to his own DPS? If you have only 2 Destruction Warlocks and any number of mages, I'd skip out on CoS and have both Warlocks use Incinerate.

If your raid has an Affliction Warlock and any Destruction Warlocks, that single Affliction Warlock can maintain about 30% ISB up time for the Shadow Priests. The Destruction Warlocks using Incinerate and any Fire Mages will easily do more Fire damage than Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks can do Shadow damage, so you should be using Malediction CoE over CoS.

The gap between Fire and Shadow damage done by raids will be very wide, and there's really not going to be a a reason to prioritize CoS over CoE in a normal raid setup.
#3308SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Wizeowel
Originally Posted by Selun View Post
And so how would it be that you know a boss hits you with 4% less magic dmg? Comparing parses; but the thing is that most of the bosses magic hits aren't affected by amplify/dampen and here is what I was on about. If the magic ability isn't amplified/dampened then the prismatic cloak works as resistance (and basically reducing the number of hits because of no partial resists), if the ability is affected by amplify/dampen then it works as resistance again but is subject to partial resistance .
I do suspect that Prismatic Cloak is working in PvE (the magic part only) as a % to resistance. And yes I do know binary dmg coming from players is reduced with this (best way is to get a rogue that has Cheat Death), but I was on about PvE and that is the magic dmg coming from bosses has a different mechanic or similar but not the same as PvP mechanics.
Sure there have been some exceptions coded for diminishing returns in pvp - but once upon a time you really did sheep the other player for 50 seconds. When they changed that they didn't also recode fireball or any other game mechanics. You are talking as if the whole game works differently depending on whether you are targeting a player or a mob.

Here is Prismatic Cloak effects Prismatic Cloak - Spells - World of Warcraft
Apply Aura: Mod Dmg % Taken (Arcane, Fire, Nature, Frost, Shadow, Holy, Physical) Value: -4

See? It's modify damage percentage taken - not modify resistance

Compare with Magic Absorption - Spells - World of Warcraft
Apply Aura: Mod Resistance (Arcane, Fire, Nature, Frost, Shadow) Value: 10

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Bare in mind certain damage sources like Naj'entus bubble, Mala'kress' spirit-bolts or Al'ar's flame... thingummy are non-mitigateable. This means no modifier will prevent/alter them, including amp/damp magic.
Sorry for further derail, but Na'jentus Tidal Burst can in fact be mitigated with Frost Ward/Mana Shield and Malacrass' Spirit Bolts can be mitigated with SR gear. It's just amplify and dampen magic that often don't work with certain boss abilities. I've often wondered how this can be? Perhaps the boss ability specifically overrides the aura from those two spells or perhaps those abilities are marked as not being magic somehow. At first I thought those Spirit Bolts must be physical damage or something.
#3309SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Duravi View Post
The good news with a firelock would be we could always count on having CoE up heh. A question I have for you Manly, or really anyone with some experience on Sunwell bosses on PTR, is range a factor in any fights we have seen (or school resistance/immunites) up this point? I don't like to underestimate how much encounter design factors into speccing,
The first 4 bosses or Sunwell don't really involve range at all, with the possible exception of Felmyst (it could be a bit an impediment to nuke Felmyst during his air phase with 30 yards, but I really doubt its a big deal).

The resistances, I'm not sure. When we did PTR testing we didn't even have a working damage meter. We don't have the tools to make use of the new 2.4 combatlogs. Kalecgos has a bunch of spells that I think are binary and that I think you can resist, but the fight is easy enough that it doesn't really matter. Your goal is mostly to apply '1-min DPS bursts', and another DPS burst once you reach 10%. And all through the while you need to constantly decurse (well, not exactly constantly, but you get the idea). The arcane dmg stack is probably binary, and constantly applied in the main room. I think 20-25 application per fight is realistic, but the spell is arcane, so don't expect much resists. You can't resist the curse, so thats another ability out. Then I am not sure which spells are binary in the room #2, but if I were to guess, I'd say none of the dmg you receive is binary. In other words, you should be casting 100% of the time, but you could regen mana in the main room, and it would be fine. As long as you have the mana in room #2 and at 10%.

Brutallus is a 6-min tank-n-spank with a very thorough dps/hps benchmark. The meteor slash can be fully resisted as far as I know. I am not sure about Burn though. Absolutely 0 DPS interruption. So you get 3 meteor slash per rotation, 4 if your tanks gets unlucky with taunt resists (unlikely). I doubt you'll get more than 3-4 ticks at most per fight. And that might be an exageration.

Felmyst is a bit messy to explain. In fact, I won't really attempt it, as I know I will forget details. I believe he constantly refreshes a 1000dmg/tick magic debuff (like every 5 seconds) when you are 'in range' (ie: when hes on the ground, not during air phase ?). However, I have no idea if that can be resisted. If I ever resisted it, it got reapplied right after. So its hard to tell. Then he casts another magic debuff that you can't resist that will wipe you soon enough if it doesn't get mass dispelled ASAP. Think like, a full raid wipe within 5-6 seconds if no dispell is done. He can also encapsulate players, which can be resisted (arcane school), however it is really unlikely that 1- you get targetted (1/25) 2- you resist an arcane school. And its not casted all that often (thanks god). I don't think theres any debuff/spells during the air phase that you can resist. The fight has like 3 possible dps interruptions -- namely at the end of air phases. Ideally you would still be nuking felmyst while hes in the air, but you might have to run after him constantly. So possibility of regenning mana there.

The twins have like a bunch of abilities. Unfortunately my experience with the fight is obtusely limited -- we pulled it the first time to see what would happen, then I immadiately got OMEN ERROR SPAMMED to death. I couldn't play or do anything. I proceeded to download bugsack and restart wow, but the login server was down. Then the server shut down afterwards. The fight does not seem to have any possibilities of DPS downtimes from what I was hearing on vent/from what I saw. Somewhat funnily, the fire twins has a spell stealable +35% fire dmg buff. I am unsure if this is some fire bias or if this is intended to have fire mages tank it. (or use warlock tank but make fire mages happy??).

In any case, I think this gives you a bit an idea. The fights don't really favor any spec.
#3310SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Toabo
Originally Posted by Saphirox View Post
Has there been any TC or PTR testing done on how the new talent Molten Shields will benefit us?
Im referring to these changes and more specifically the changes in bold.

* Improved Fire Ward has become Molten Shields.
* New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
Have heard very little about this talent was working on the PTR. (Yeah, I don't doubt it's of dubious value for PvE raiding, but the chance to proc impact on a hunter or caster in PvP is at the very least amusing.)

I was curious if anyone knew how this worked with DoTs. Loathing warlocks as I do, I'd love it if they took 75 dmg for every tick of their DoTs. , but I assume at best we'll probably get a single Molten Armor tick when we first get hit by the DoT, but not thereafter. Can anyone confirm/deny/clarify?

Also, any idea how the damage affects channeled spells like Mind Flay? Can the Molten Armor proc cause spell pushback or interrupt the channeling?
#3311SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
For the warlocks the effects of improved shadowbolt greatly depend on the crit rates of your warlocks, their specs, how many warlocks and how many shadow priests. Changing any of those (especially removing/adding 1 class) would change your ISB contribution by non-neglicible amounts (in comparison to DPS you could possibly gain/lose by swapping specs). If you're considering fire you'll have to look at lieuler's spreadsheet using your own standard raid as a baseline - anything else and you will never stop arguing about which spec does more raid dps due to the fact the answer is simply "it depends". In other words, you can't average it out or make any generalizations about warlock specs unless you can agree what a normal raid contains in terms of both SP/warlock numbers, warlock specs and warlock crit chances.
#3312SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
On the subject of the new Molten Armor talent-

It procs off of:
Direct damage spells, melee hits, and ranged hits.
Direct timed DoTs (Initial application only, this includes Gas Nova)
Targeted AoE (Meteor slash)

It does not proc on:
DoT damage ticks
Non-Target aoe (Mass dispel, Blast wave, Felmyst DoT (which btw is unresistable))

Curiousities:
It procs impact even if you aren't targetting the person, aka a warlock dotting you
It procs and shoots off lightning capacitator in the same way.
Does not seem to have an internal cooldown.

Untested: If it causes spell pushback on channelled spells, at the very least it can interrupt drain life.
#3313SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Sinless
Comparison of AM and FrostB for AB cycle fillers

Edit: I found one small mistake. AM mana cost with Improved Arcane Missiles is not 720, but 784. Changed the numbers accordingly.

Ok, I did some very basic testing on Dr. Boom. These are non-raid buffed so results might be slightly different in a raid environment.

61/0/0 /w Improved Arcane Missiles:

Missiles hit for 720 and crit for 1280 on average.

40/0/21 Frostbolt:
Bolts hit for 1720 and crit for 3900 on average.

With mage armor, I have 25% unbuffed crit. So,

Average AM damage = (720 * 0.75 + 1280 * 0.25) * 5 = 4300 => AM dps = 4300/5 = 860
Average FB damage = 1720 * 0.75 + 3910 * 0.25 = 2267.5 => FB dps = 2267.5/2.5 = 907

However, what we are more interested in is the DPM values for these spells. In a raid environment, things will be different.

Frostbolt gets one tick of while-casting mana regeneration. I will assume, the mage has 300 mp5 while not casting, 200 mp5 while casting. Which means, frostbolt's mana cost can be assumed as 272 - 100 = 172.

Thus, frostbolt => 2267.5 / 172 = 13.18 dpm

Now, for AM, things are a little complicated. In a typical AB/AM/AB/AM... rotation, AM receives 2 while-casting ticks of mana regen but the next AB spell will receive 1 tick of while-not-casting mana regen. So I will include the extra mana contribution of 1 while-not-casting tick in AM's dpm calculation.

764 - 100 - 100 - 50 = 514 mana per AM

Thus, AM => 4300 / 514 = 8.36 dpm

So, it seems, we have frostbolt as the higher dps and higher dpm spell. WIN-WIN situation, right? Not necessarily. There are 2 key factors.

1) Is CoS up?
2) Is JoW up?

JoW will reduce the mana cost of AM by an insane amount => 74 * 5 = 370
JoW will reduce the mana cost of FB only by 74.

CoS will increase dps and dpm of AM by 13%
CoS will do nothing for FB.

Now, if both CoS and JoW is up, let's see what happens to new DPM values.

FB = 2267.5 / (172 - 74) = 23.14 dpm
AM = 4300 * 1.13 / (514 - 370) = 33.74 dpm


Also with CoS up on a boss, but not CoE (which is usually the case for our encounters), then AM dps gains a 13% boost => AM dps with CoS = 971.8 compared to FB dps at 907. Which puts AM as the clear winner with higher dps and an even higher dpm.

My question is, have I done anything wrong in these calculations? Because, if my calculations are correct AM is hands down better than FB for AB cycles. So, why does people think 40/0/21 will be the better arcane spec, come 2.4?

WTB some feedback.

Last edited by Sinless : 03/05/08 at 6:36 PM.
#3314SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Grai
It would be interesting to math out how the Arcane specs (without CoE with missles and without CoE with Frostbolt) for multiple mages stacks up when accounting for a warlock who's able to put up an additional doom rather then CoE. I'd suspect that mage frostbolt makes the damage worth a CoE, but if we're able to blast the majority of the time due to high regen, might not be worth it to have warlocks CoE when they could do DPS themselves.
#3315SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3necropsis
Okay having a bit of a struggle.


I currently have frozen shadoweave for my chest, and had an opportunity to get Robe of shadow council.


I am obviously frost specced, and I was insistently told that this was an upgrade for me but honestly I just disagree.


I never have mana issues during a raid, so the stats do not mean a whole lot to me. I lose out on 18 + damage, and gain 25 crit. What are some mages thoughts on this?
#3316SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Acustar
This is the thread you're looking for, the current thread is more (right now) post-2.4 TC.

[Mage] Help me please?
#3317SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Wizeowel View Post
Sorry for further derail, but Na'jentus Tidal Burst can in fact be mitigated with Frost Ward/Mana Shield and Malacrass' Spirit Bolts can be mitigated with SR gear. It's just amplify and dampen magic that often don't work with certain boss abilities. I've often wondered how this can be? Perhaps the boss ability specifically overrides the aura from those two spells or perhaps those abilities are marked as not being magic somehow. At first I thought those Spirit Bolts must be physical damage or something.
Tidal Burst damage is not mitigated, it is absorbed. The full amount is assigned, it's just not assigned to your hitpoints in the example you pose. I may have been mistaken on Spirit Bolts, I never bothered much with it, however you're correct in that amp/damp don't affect it.

Tidal Burst can not be reduced in damage size and neither can a number of boss abilities. Stance, talents, whatever. Absorption is not the same as mitigation or resistance.
#3318SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Finkum
Originally Posted by Sinless View Post
So, why do* people think 40/0/21 will be the better arcane spec, come 2.4?
For starters, I don't know why you find it surprising that AM is a competitive filler spell when you give it ideal conditions as compared to frostbolt (CoS, JoW, no CoE). If you regularly raid with both CoS and JoW but not CoE, then yes, AM is a viable filler.

Secondly, you haven't accounted for the impact of Icy Veins/Cold Snap/Icy Veins in your calculations. Obviously IV's impact on your DPS varies depending on fight length and how you manage your cooldowns, but it is a non-trivial boost, especially if paired with AP (I've lost track of whether this is still possible or not in 2.4, I wish Blizzard would just decide one way or the other).

Assuming AP and IV still stack after 2.4, if AM does work out as a better filler spell for your raid conditions, then you might want to consider a 50/0/11 build.

Lastly, although the DPS/DPM values you have used may show that AM is superior for you, with your current gear, is the same true if you add 100 spell damage? Or 100 haste rating? Saying "hey with my gear Arcane > Arc/Frost, therefore Arcane always > Arc/Frost" is not a convincing argument.
#3319SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Lurker
Sinless, just an observation and a question:

JoW can be assumed to have a proc rate of 50%. I'm not sure how to calculate the chance that you'd get all five waves of AM to proc (0.5^0.5^0.5^0.5^0.5? Gives me 5% for all procs, which seems to make sense), but we can say it's likely not going to happen every time.

The average return would be 2.5 procs, or 185 mana. Since we can't have half procs, this is AM with various proc levels:

0 procs, 4859/514 = 9.45 DPM
1 proc, 4859/(514-74) = 11.04
2 procs, 4859/(514-148) = 13.28
3 procs, 4859/(514-222) = 16.64
4 procs, 4859/(514-296) = 22.29
5 procs, 4859/(514-370) = 33.74

Getting zero procs is just as likely as all five, I think, and you're most often going to hit two and three procs (the feasible median).

For 3 Frostbolts:

0 procs,
2267/(172) = 13.18
2267/(172) = 13.18
2267/(172) = 13.18
Average DPM: 13.18

1 proc,
2267/(172-74) = 23.13
2267/(172) = 13.18
2267/(172) = 13.18
Average DPM: 16.50

2 procs,
2267/(172) = 13.18
2267/(172-74) = 23.13
2267/(172-74) = 23.13
Average DPM: 19.81

3 procs,
2267/(172-74) = 23.13
2267/(172-74) = 23.13
2267/(172-74) = 23.13
Average DPM: 23.13

Now, AM will get a scorch afterwards, but I don't know Scorch's DPM offhand, but it looks like AM is capable of much more DPM, but it relies on getting all five procs. Frostbolt only has to get all three procs for its 23.13 DPM, which is a bit easier to get (0.5^0.5^0.5 = 15% for all three procs?). Faulty Math aside, I guess easier to roll all 1's (zero to one, one being a proc) when you only have to roll three times versus five times, but it's also easy to roll all 0's.

If I'm right, AM has to get 2 JoW procs to keep up with Frostbolt's zero proc DPM, so I think Frostbolt may be a bit better, but it's going to depend on luck. Ultimately, I think it's just a playstyle preference. Does this seem right?
#3320SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Another thing playing in favor of Frostbolt is level-based partial resists. On a level 73 AM gets the 6% penalty while Frostbolt does not. For AM variants Scorch really only works in 0 haste setup. With anything more than that Frostbolt takes the role of Scorch in IV builds.
#3321SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Sinless
Hmm, I completely forgot about 50% proc chance on JoW. This changes things a little bit. Statistically speaking, the effect of JoW on AM and FB will be -37 * 5 and -37 mana respectively.

Thus, for FB with no CoE the DPM will be;

2267.5 / (172 - 37.5) = 16.86dpm

And for AM with no CoS the DPM will be;

4300 / (514 - 185) = 13.07dpm

Now, this puts things into a brand new perspective. Let's have a look at the effect of CoS,

AM DPM = 14.77dpm, still less than FB DPM !!!

If there is no JoW, the difference gets bigger in favor of FB.

Hence, my conclusion (so far) is;

Any combination which includes a CoE or does not include a CoS-> Frostbolt is better DPS and better DPM.
CoS (no CoE) but no JoW -> AM is better DPS at much less DPM.
CoS (no CoE) and JoW -> AM is better DPS at slightly less DPM.


Now, let's not forget the effect of double dip icy veins with frostbolt during a full duration heroism and it is making more sense to me how 40/0/21 might pull forward.

WTB more feedback on this.

Edit: Hey Kavan

Last edited by Sinless : 03/05/08 at 9:26 PM.
#3322SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3maxi
I am not sure, but i think i read somewhere that frostbolts don't proc JoW
#3323SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Stein
Originally Posted by Sinless View Post
CoS (no CoE) and JoW -> AM is better DPS at slightly less DPM.
Another consideration is that even the most diligent pally won't achieve 100% JoW uptime, even with a ret pally.
#3324SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3sambjo
Originally Posted by Finkum View Post
Assuming AP and IV still stack after 2.4, if AM does work out as a better filler spell for your raid conditions, then you might want to consider a 50/0/11 build.
As long as you're not in serious mana trouble it's best to stack 3 blasts, pop ap and your other cooldowns and spam blast until ap wears off. Missiles + AP = bad
#3325SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Frostbolt is currently not proccing JoW, that is correct. A Retadin should realistically have JoW up for a very significant fraction of the fight. If not 100% then at least over 85%, after all the only way he'll drop it is two missed Strikes in a row or a phase-change or whatnot which will mean he has to forgo one. In which case you're probably not casting either.

I have not seen any evidence that the Fbolt-JoW issue has been resolved in either the PTR test notes or the PTR it's self.

While I advocate and do dearly love the calculations you're all bringing forth about Arcane variants, it seems rather odd we're all ignoring specifics we've discovered in this very thread recently:

AB has been proven to ramp incorrectly and incur a DPS and DPM loss via casting at a lower rank but costing at a higher. Would you all like to redo your calculations assuming AB mistakenly starts casting at the wrong speed and re-evaluate your positions?

Either that, or start working on a AB/Fbolt/AB/Fbolt/AB/Fbolt*3 rotation instead of a AB*3/Fbolt*3, because until this is resolved it's looking slightly grimly in favour of 50/0/11 if only in terms of game mechanics.

As a side note: Blink/Slow/Spellsteal seems to have had it's cost increased again. I seem to recall it at circa 224-245 mana on PTR some days ago yet last night I checked and it was 334-360 mana. Looks like they settled on 50% live cost rather than 33% live cost.

Also, ambling back to the old Magic Absorption issue: Improved Blink will make a perfect partner for it: Blink through some ambient AoE and increase your chance to proc mana-back by 25%, a non-insignificant amount. It is however, still under-par as you're wasting a GCD and chewing up the first two ranks of the talent's worth of manaregen in the process of the evasive manoeuvre.

This means it's more a "happy side-effect" than deliberate mechanic. I'd say for those of you speccing over 40 in arcane, spec imp blink and 1/5 magic absorption, wait 2-3 weeks and check WWS for how much mana it made you before considering speccing deeper into it. In my view if you must spend talent points for defensive talents I'd rather they were Prismatic Cloak or the new and not-so-shite Arcane Fortitude. Even improved Mana Shield will be more worth it with the "gains 50% from spellpow" change.

Edit: It also just struck me that I-Blink is possibly one of the most fundamental talents for AoE survival; an Arcane mage with no Tranq Air totem will be teetering on the verge of agro-gain as it stands now, let alone what happens with a AToI-IV-AP-AE spam in 2.4 with the increased cap. Picking up stray mobs will be almost a certainty and given Nova isn't generally an option, so Blink will be the new must-have. I'm even starting to like Arc-Fort; it'll be almost as much armor as Ice Armor.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 03/06/08 at 6:36 AM.
#3326SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes
Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now been fixed.
Haven't checked it in-game, but it's in the notes.

Kavan, thanks a lot for Rawr.Mage. It's just plain awesome.
I'm toying with a 40/0/21 spec, and with the known gear so far, haste has some very erratic behaviour between 350 and 390 haste.
In particular, AToI goes from horrible (8th best trinket) with [The Sun King's Talisman] to twice-as-good-as-Gul'dan with [Pendant of Sunfire].

(In reality, it will always be bad since the proc is delayed and does not affect the first cast after it procs.)

Removing AToI and swapping haste gems, there is a jump point in DPS between 442 and 444 haste. From 2507 to 2577 DPS.
The cycles change from AB/FrB4 to AB/FrB5 at that point.

I'll toy with haste later to find out more about its value.
#3327SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Wizeowel
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Tidal Burst can not be reduced in damage size and neither can a number of boss abilities. Stance, talents, whatever. Absorption is not the same as mitigation or resistance.
Mitigation isn't a game mechanic per se, it's just used as a term meaning 'to make milder', hence absorption is a form of damage mitigation. I don't recall suggesting that absorption is the same as resistance.

Have a look at Wow Web Stats you can see there clearly that Qumulox is in beserker stance for the first Tidal Burst as he gets 9350 damage. Click some pages further and Qumulox has changed stance and gets 7650 damage from the next burst. Also, look at the damage received by the Shamans. Three of them consistantly receive 7650 damage from all tidal bursts. If you check their talent specs in armory you will see that those shamans each have 3/3 elemental warding which gives 10% damage reduction to frost attacks.

Again, apologies to the rest for wandering off-topic, but I didn't like to be accused of being incorrect by someone who didn't even bother to check his assertions.
#3328SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3t2krook
Slow spell effects stack or not with Curse of tongues?

To start , I ask for your indulgence as this is my first post to EJ and if I am posting in an impropper thread please move it to a more appropriate one.
As my guild progresses into SSC (4 bosses down with Leo and Vash to go) several questions have arizen on ways to improve our performance. I am deep Arcane/ice 40/0/21 (Slow/Icy Veins).

Our current challenge seems to be the High King style fight of Fathom Lord. This is where I believe spell mechanics might help and Elitist Jerks may have answers where other sites seem to fail. On the attempts we succeeded, I had been constantly spamming slow on the SHammy Dranai toon. His fire totems came slower (being laid down) , and he himself went down faster noticebly.

I have been trying to convince our guild that an additional mage specced to "Slow" could be spamming the fem healer/aoe'r as well and thus improve our downing of the adds and focussing on Fathom. I was told that it wasnt necessary as "curse of tongues" was being applied to her and that the two would not stack "probably".

Can anyone verifiy this? I find no relevant threads when doing searches for "Slow" and neither spell description states that it would "NOT" stack, other than that any single enemy can only have one slow spell applied, thus I am very curious, as the enemy heals definately lenghten the fight and decrease our chances of success.
#3329SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3maxi
Originally Posted by t2krook View Post
To start , I ask for your indulgence as this is my first post to EJ and if I am posting in an impropper thread please move it to a more appropriate one.
As my guild progresses into SSC (4 bosses down with Leo and Vash to go) several questions have arizen on ways to improve our performance. I am deep Arcane/ice 40/0/21 (Slow/Icy Veins).

Our current challenge seems to be the High King style fight of Fathom Lord. This is where I believe spell mechanics might help and Elitist Jerks may have answers where other sites seem to fail. On the attempts we succeeded, I had been constantly spamming slow on the SHammy Dranai toon. His fire totems came slower (being laid down) , and he himself went down faster noticebly.

I have been trying to convince our guild that an additional mage specced to "Slow" could be spamming the fem healer/aoe'r as well and thus improve our downing of the adds and focussing on Fathom. I was told that it wasnt necessary as "curse of tongues" was being applied to her and that the two would not stack "probably".

Can anyone verifiy this? I find no relevant threads when doing searches for "Slow" and neither spell description states that it would "NOT" stack, other than that any single enemy can only have one slow spell applied, thus I am very curious, as the enemy heals definately lenghten the fight and decrease our chances of success.
For the record, this is a "help me" kind of question, usually best asked in this thread: [Mage] Help me please?

As for the question itself, i don't know if they stack, but your guild members are right when they say it is not necessary.
You only need enough slowing to make sure your interrupts land. CoT (and an interrupter rogue with mind numbing poison) do the job quite nicely. Slowmage will have to waste 1/10th of his casting time reapplying slows, which will lower his dps by 10%, and on top of that will also screw his AB rotations. Not to mention an arcane mage using mana on non-damage spells is an arcane mage that's gimping himself.

Imo, have your mages burn down adds, and let people more suited to debuffing do their own roles
#3330SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zeromega
Regarding the AToI:

Despite the fact that this trinket does not give the 1st spell after proc the Haste Benefit.....this trinket now takes my Fireballs down to 2.5 second casting time in my Haste Gear. This means that I effectively get 2 Full Casts hasted @ 2.5 seconds despite not getting the initial benefit.

All the theorycrafting I've seen has been very 'anti AToI' in that it puts this trinket below just about every other end-game trinket. At what point does this trinket from a theorycrafting standpoint begin to shine (is there a specific haste level, damage level, crit level, etc)? If we are stacking haste gear come 2.4 and are able to manipulate our crit % with Combustion in the <20% health range in order to cause 'chain procs' of the AToI does it begin to look better than its current state?

Thanks in advance for your theorycrafting help!
#3331SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Kavan, I see Blizzard has decided to change the Alchemist Stone from 54 hit to 63 damage. Looks like it will be a serous trinket from Deep Arcane now. MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies
#3332SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I don't see why it would be, given that youre missing out on leatherworking for it.
#3333SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
Until the Alchemist's Stone amplifies damage from Destruction Potions it will remain behind the Blessings card.
#3334SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3clairecakes
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
Until the Alchemist's Stone amplifies damage from Destruction Potions it will remain behind the Blessings card.
Seriously? 63 static damage and 40% bonus from mana pots and health pots as opposed to a potential 80 non static? If you're rolling a particularly mana intensive arcane spec/rotation this would be excellent. Also excellent for arcane blast spamming in heroics . Personally there are one or two fights where they take away my shadow priest and the extra mana would be extremely helpful.
#3335SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Nurru
Originally Posted by clairecakes View Post
Seriously? 63 static damage and 40% bonus from mana pots and health pots as opposed to a potential 80 non static? If you're rolling a particularly mana intensive arcane spec/rotation this would be excellent. Also excellent for arcane blast spamming in heroics . Personally there are one or two fights where they take away my shadow priest and the extra mana would be extremely helpful.
I use Destruction Potions, so yes. 63 static damage is far inferior to what is basically 80 static damage. Saying Blessings is "potentially 80" is silly when it's so ridiculously easy to keep the buff up. Scorch even stacks it twice per hit, and situations where Scorch might drop (Pretty much just Illidan, perhaps Archimonde if you're extremely unlucky) are also situations where you would need to restack the card.
#3336SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
I use Destruction Potions, so yes. 63 static damage is far inferior to what is basically 80 static damage. Saying Blessings is "potentially 80" is silly when it's so ridiculously easy to keep the buff up. Scorch even stacks it twice per hit, and situations where Scorch might drop (Pretty much just Illidan, perhaps Archimonde if you're extremely unlucky) are also situations where you would need to restack the card.
I'm pretty sure he was saying for Arcane specs and rotations, the new Alchemist's Stone would be a contender as it would allow them to more easily maintain higher proportions of AB spam while also contributing bonus damage.
#3337SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Zeromega View Post
Regarding the AToI:

Despite the fact that this trinket does not give the 1st spell after proc the Haste Benefit.....this trinket now takes my Fireballs down to 2.5 second casting time in my Haste Gear. This means that I effectively get 2 Full Casts hasted @ 2.5 seconds despite not getting the initial benefit.
Given a rather generous 45% crit and assuming enough haste that it affects 2 fireballs:
Uptime = 1 - (1-(0.45*0.5))^2 (it's not up if neither of the casts 2.5s and 5s ago procced it) = 40%. 40%*145 haste = 58 haste. Not worth it.
Also, mind you that it won't work until you get one normal and one hasted fireball into the proc.
#3338SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Finkum
Originally Posted by sambjo View Post
As long as you're not in serious mana trouble it's best to stack 3 blasts, pop ap and your other cooldowns and spam blast until ap wears off. Missiles + AP = bad
I wasn't advocating using AM during AP + IV (assuming you aren't running into the GCD with a fully stacked AB, which I think won't be the case even with the plentiful spell haste available on Sunwell gear). As you say that is just wasteful.

Rather, the two builds that Sinless was comparing were 61/0/0 and 40/0/21; if we allow that AM is a better filler spell under Sinless' raid conditions than frostbolt, then I was suggesting that 50/0/11 would be a better build, as you can still easily pick up all the necessary talents in Arcane with 50 points and get IV as well.
#3339SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
Rawr Beta 12 posted!

DOWNLOAD: https://www.codeplex.com/Release/Pro...eleaseId=11411


Beta 12:
* Rawr now includes models for Moonkins, Mages, and Warlocks!
* Many more stats are tracked about items, for use in new and upcoming models.
* Fixed a bug in the options for Cat, so that it updates the label for the value of expose weakness.
* Icons now pull from the more reliable wowarmory.com instead of the old flakey armory.worldofwarcraft.com.
* You can now safely run multiple copies of Rawr at the same time by duplicating Rawr's folder. Each running copy of Rawr must be in its own folder, with its own cache xml files.
* Fixed some bugs that would cause Rawr to crash.
* The Splash screen has finally been redone! It now has a background image, and an icon for each model that is loaded, along with the version #s of each model, Rawr's UI, and Base.
* Tooltips on the calculations should really last a long time now, for everyone, I hope.
* The ItemCache should save faster, load faster, and take up alot less space, per item.
* There's a menu item now, to reload the character data from the Armory for the current character.
* The Projectile and Projectile Bag slots will now be hidden if they don't apply to the current model.
* Improved how Rawr handles requests for data from the Armory.
* When unable to access the Armory will now handle it much more gracefully. If you see blank icons, anywhere, that's probably the case.
* There's now an options dialog. More will come in there, but for now, there's customizable proxy settings. If you were previously unable to use Rawr due to being behind a proxy that was different from your IE settings, or required different authentication, give this a try.
#3340SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Kavan, thanks a lot for Rawr.Mage. It's just plain awesome.
I'm toying with a 40/0/21 spec, and with the known gear so far, haste has some very erratic behaviour between 350 and 390 haste.
In particular, AToI goes from horrible (8th best trinket) with [The Sun King's Talisman] to twice-as-good-as-Gul'dan with [Pendant of Sunfire].

(In reality, it will always be bad since the proc is delayed and does not affect the first cast after it procs.)

Removing AToI and swapping haste gems, there is a jump point in DPS between 442 and 444 haste. From 2507 to 2577 DPS.
The cycles change from AB/FrB4 to AB/FrB5 at that point.

I'll toy with haste later to find out more about its value.
Thanks for this report. I'm looking now at what happens and the AToI effect you see is transition from AB/FrB3 to AB/FrB4. One issue in play here is the way I have defined this cycle. At this haste levels you have AB at 1.2 sec level and FrB at around 2 sec. This means you have a gray area where you're trading 0.8 sec pause or adding another FrB which would cause you to drop debuff before you start AB. Since the time lost in dropping AB debuff is also 0.8 sec it might be worth considering a cycle where you fill FrB until the debuff is off. Or maybe even using a Scorch as a filler. If anyone has any ideas for some cycles at these haste levels let me know.

One thing to consider about effects like AToI is that the way I'm modeling them now it's only really accurate on single spell chains. At the moment I estimate average haste gained on single spells and then use that as a fixed haste increase on them for composite cycles. Obviously this is not accurate, but it's a good first approximation. If used with AB cycles it essentially turns it into a dynamic cycle which are hard to model. Since the effect is generally weak I'm not planning to add more accurate models of it on AB cycles unless some TC shows that it would be worth considering it.
#3341SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
As for the question itself, i don't know if they stack, but your guild members are right when they say it is not necessary.
You only need enough slowing to make sure your interrupts land. CoT (and an interrupter rogue with mind numbing poison) do the job quite nicely. Slowmage will have to waste 1/10th of his casting time reapplying slows, which will lower his dps by 10%, and on top of that will also screw his AB rotations. Not to mention an arcane mage using mana on non-damage spells is an arcane mage that's gimping himself.
Sorry to bring this back up, but its of interest to me as a mage who used slow on the healer while our guild was learning this fight;

Could you not equally argue that the rogue is losing damage not using a damaging poison/totem buff or that the warlock is losing damage when using CoT over CoA? Out of personal interest, with the changes to the cost of slow next patch which class sacrifices the least by being on 'slow the casting' duty for this boss?

And for the record, slow, mind-numbing poison and curse of tongues do not stack.
#3342SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
Could you not equally argue that the rogue is losing damage not using a damaging poison/totem buff or that the warlock is losing damage when using CoT over CoA?
Maybe, but Curse of Tongues lasts for 30 seconds instead of 15, and has essentially no mana cost, compared to Slow at half the duration and about 8 times the mana cost.

The Mage is definitely the one losing more.
#3343SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Thanks for this report. I'm looking now at what happens and the AToI effect you see is transition from AB/FrB3 to AB/FrB4. One issue in play here is the way I have defined this cycle. At this haste levels you have AB at 1.2 sec level and FrB at around 2 sec. This means you have a gray area where you're trading 0.8 sec pause or adding another FrB which would cause you to drop debuff before you start AB. Since the time lost in dropping AB debuff is also 0.8 sec it might be worth considering a cycle where you fill FrB until the debuff is off. Or maybe even using a Scorch as a filler. If anyone has any ideas for some cycles at these haste levels let me know.

One thing to consider about effects like AToI is that the way I'm modeling them now it's only really accurate on single spell chains. At the moment I estimate average haste gained on single spells and then use that as a fixed haste increase on them for composite cycles. Obviously this is not accurate, but it's a good first approximation. If used with AB cycles it essentially turns it into a dynamic cycle which are hard to model. Since the effect is generally weak I'm not planning to add more accurate models of it on AB cycles unless some TC shows that it would be worth considering it.
Ah, that clears up quite a few things, thanks!


- AToI is averaged, that's explains a lot.
Just curious, do you model the bugged version (the first cast after a proc does *not* get the haste bonus) or the version how it should work (but does not work)?
It doesn't matter much since AToI is pretty bad for anything but AE spam unless it gets fixed.


- FrB3
Is that cycle what it states? You 1 AB + 3 FrB, to get one 2.13s AB (pre-haste) at base mana cost?
My gut feeling from previous calculations with Vontre's is that is lower DPS and only very slightly better mana efficiency than pure FrB spam - in a setting with CoE and WC.

The ideal thing to use is AB3/FrB3, but the AB debuff delay bug kills it.

AB/FrB/AB/FrB/AB/FrB3 is a suggestion of mine. Separate the ABs with FrBs to make sure you get the cast speed debuff, and end with FrB3 to have the debuff stack run out during the following AB.
It's just a suggestion - put it into a sim/sheet and see how it works.

From what I remember, AB/FrB rotations only a tiny bit better than FrB spam and AB spam mixed.
Seeing that you will still run into the same issue of having a 0.8s cast gap for the AB debuff, it's probably not worth it.

What I'd strongly recommend is having a "FrB spam and AB spam only" pattern to fall back to if you run into debuff timing issues.
It avoids timing headache, and is very potent with CoE+WC+4T6, on par with rotations.



I did some testing yesterday with the old Rawr with arcane and haste.

Setup:
50ms latency, 360s fight, 350mp5 SP (a bit high, but 360s fight is long too);
No DSpirit, Imp. MotW, BoK, BoW, AI, IP+ToW+WoA Totem;
+70 dmg flask, +23 dmg food, dmg/crit oil, +40 dmg weapon enchant;
Imp. Scorch, WC, 13% CoS, 10% CoE, Misery;

T6 hat, Amice of the Convoker, Council cloak, Sunfire Robes, T6 bracers, Tyri's Gloves, T6 belt, Leggings of Calamity, T6 boots, Forged Power/Eternal Sage, Hex/Skull, Sunflare, Heart of the Pit, Wand of the Demonsoul.

The Sun King's Talisman, +12 dmg (red), +6 dmg/+5 haste (yellow) as +damage setup.
Loop of Cursed Bones, +6 dmg/+5 haste (red), +10 haste (yellow) as +damage setup.
(Amulet of Unfettered Magics wasn't published then).

I only later realised that this setup lacks 2T5. Doh. Will redo that with Rawr 12 and the new neck.


The base +damage setup had +356 haste. Stat values for gems were:
+12 dmg - 2674, +10 crit - 2032, +10 int - 1756, +10 haste - 1656

Changing Sun King's to Sunfire Pendant (=> +386 haste), values changed to:
+12 dmg - 2708, +10 crit - 2059, +10 int - 1786, +10 haste - 3459

With the damage setup, I had 2193 DPS with +356. Changing gems to more haste one by one, it went down slowly to 2148 DPS at +442 haste, and jumped up again to 2174 at +447 haste with 1 more gem.

442-445 is the step where FB drops under 1.95s (+50ms delay) and we switch to AB/FrB4 cycles.


Mage/Molten Armour and Haste

DPS numbers with the setup above look like this:
2205 (haste, mage) > 2202 (damage, molten) > 2176 (damage, mage) > 2173* (haste, molten)
* - runs OOM

If I reduce the fight length, the highest damage comes from the haste/molten setup.
#3344SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Duravi
With your later numbers are you still talking about an AB rotation? I ask this because I don't see 2pc t5 in your gear setups, and without the 2 pc bonus I'm pretty sure AB dps becomes inferior in any rotation.

Last edited by Duravi : 03/07/08 at 7:51 AM.
#3345SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3vallkyr
Correct me if im wrong but AToI does affect 2 fireball casts even with 0 spellhaste with a delayed buff or not. You have to take missile travel time into account, assuming a 1 second travel for fireball, by the time your fireball crits and you get the haste buff you are 1sec+latency into a new fireball cast. Ofcourse that cant get the haste buff since the cast started before the crit occured, but 5 sec is more than enough to get the buff effect on 2 fireball cast starts. Just need it to be up at the start of a spell to lower its cast time.

The trinket still sucks tho :P just didn't understand all this talk about AToI and it affecting only one fireball cast.
#3346SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
Originally Posted by vallkyr View Post
Correct me if im wrong but AToI does affect 2 fireball casts even with 0 spellhaste with a delayed buff or not. You have to take missile travel time into account, assuming a 1 second travel for fireball, by the time your fireball crits and you get the haste buff you are 1sec+latency into a new fireball cast. Ofcourse that cant get the haste buff since the cast started before the crit occured, but 5 sec is more than enough to get the buff effect on 2 fireball cast starts. Just need it to be up at the start of a spell to lower its cast time.

The trinket still sucks tho :P just didn't understand all this talk about AToI and it affecting only one fireball cast.

I would like to know this as well. Although I expect it's one of those funky abilities that procs when the spell leaves your hands. I remember seeing SCTD pop up frostbite the second that a frostbolt leaves your hand, only to see the spell land and proc frostbite 1 second latter. Maybe this is the case?
#3347SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Speaking of AToI, it would appear to be better at AB/AM rotations than any other non-AoE scenario. Proccing off a AM pulse means that even with a significant delay (eg 0.2sec) it'll still gain good value as ambient haste gain affects your current channelling of AM, I seem to recall. Correct me if I'm wrong though. I was a pauper back in 2.2 and didn't have one to AM my way to dps heaven.
#3348SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3vallkyr
Im pretty sure it works like the lightning capacitor which shoots the bolt after projectile crit not when it leaves your hands. Ofcourse i could just test it at Dr.Boom with fireball and quartz showing current cast time, too bad im specd frost for the week and to be honest not that really interested in AToI.
#3349SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Improved Amplify/Dampen Magic in Sunwell - Yay/Nay?

Think that talent is worth it in Sunwell Plateau? Seems not to me, with so much magic damage flying around.
Would love some feedback/Opinions of others though who were on the PTR more often.



Edit:
I know what Amplify/Dampen does, thank you very much. I could probably tell you which 2.3.3 bosses to use it on when asleep.
I don't want to know about Azgalor or Malacrass or about what people think it might feel like.
I would however love some feedback/thoughts from people who were on the PTR and did more than an hour and a half fighting Kalegcos and Latency.

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/07/08 at 5:39 PM.
#3350SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3tedv
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Improved Amplify/Dampen Magic in Sunwell - Yay/Nay?

Think that talent is worth it in Sunwell Plateau? Seems not to me, with so much magic damage flying around.
Would love some feedback/Opinions of others though who were on the PTR more often.
Unless the tank is tanking an elemental, you pretty much always want amp magic on the tank, and nothing in sunwell changes that. It's not worth dropping Icy Veins to get it, but if you're getting clearcasting anyway, the extra 2 points are always well spent.

To decide if someone should have amp magic, you need to look at the number of times they take magic damage, not the quantities of damage dealt. For example, consider a tank on Azgalor standing in rain of fire-- this is pretty much the worst case for magic damage on a tank in today's raiding. The base ticks are what, 1625? Amp magic increases that by 120 damage, and that damage is reduced by 16% because of improved defensive stance, so that's 50 extra damage every seconds. Meanwhile, amp gives +240 healing per heal. So if just 3 healers are on the tank, the tank gets a minimum bonus 240 * 3 healing every 3.5 seconds, or +200 per second. (Actually it's even better than that, because of talents that reduce cast time and because of HoTs.) The benefits of amp magic far outweigh the costs.

Also, it's a myth that you shouldn't amp magic the tank if there's a danger of death from a large spike of magic damage. Suppose there's a fight where the tank can take a shadow bolt which averages 10k. With amp magic, the average goes up to 10.12k, which doesn't substantially affect survivability. But getting +240 on each heal to top him off after the bolt definitely helps, since healing that much damage will require three big heals, so he'll get a bonus 720 from them.
#3351SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3maxi
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Improved Amplify/Dampen Magic in Sunwell - Yay/Nay?

Think that talent is worth it in Sunwell Plateau? Seems not to me, with so much magic damage flying around.
Would love some feedback/Opinions of others though who were on the PTR more often.
Amplify was always worthwhile on full physical fights
It also works reasonably well on fights with small amounts of HUGE magical attacks.

Dampen is only good on fights where there is a large amount of small spells (Illhoof imps, Malacrass spirit bolts etc).

I think dampen is useless in Sunwell, and Amplify might be good on Brutallius, but don't hold your breath :p
#3352SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zene
Originally Posted by maxi View Post
Dampen is only good on fights where there is a large amount of small spells (Illhoof imps, Malacrass spirit bolts etc).
I don't have a link but I'm pretty sure Dampen got nerfed for Hex Lord's spirit bolts.
#3353SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3maxi
Originally Posted by Zene View Post
I don't have a link but I'm pretty sure Dampen got nerfed for Hex Lord's spirit bolts.
Well, it doesn't affect spirit bolts to full extent anymore, but it still helps the raid survive a lot longer
#3354SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duodecimal
Well, no, Amplify on ranged is what you want for the Hex Lord. Maybe dampen melee for consecrate, but I'd say it's a wash over leaving them unbuffed.
#3355SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3sambjo
Amp is almost always worth putting on the tank(s).
#3356SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Jarlyn
I've not been able to test the Twins much, but having at least some experience at every other open fight in Sunwell, I think Imp Magics is a bit of a wash. For Kalecgos, a number of his abilities (Arcane Buffet) are physical, but the corrupter's shadow abilities are not. Brutallus it would be useful on for tanks, but Felmyst and M'uru both involve large quantities of magic damage and it isn't likely you'd use anything there.

[e] grammars

Last edited by Jarlyn : 03/07/08 at 1:28 PM.
#3357SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3alvinrod
Looks like there's a new caster neck that dropped in Sunwell.

24 Stamina
17 Intellect
15 Spell hit
32 Spell haste
39 Spell damage

About the same as the JC neck except it has spell hit instead of crit. Depending on your spell hit this might be a better alternative than the JC neck.
#3358SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
bout the same as the JC neck except it has spell hit instead of crit.
No socket, it's not as good.
#3359SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
- FrB3
Is that cycle what it states? You 1 AB + 3 FrB, to get one 2.13s AB (pre-haste) at base mana cost?
My gut feeling from previous calculations with Vontre's is that is lower DPS and only very slightly better mana efficiency than pure FrB spam - in a setting with CoE and WC.

The ideal thing to use is AB3/FrB3, but the AB debuff delay bug kills it.

AB/FrB/AB/FrB/AB/FrB3 is a suggestion of mine. Separate the ABs with FrBs to make sure you get the cast speed debuff, and end with FrB3 to have the debuff stack run out during the following AB.
It's just a suggestion - put it into a sim/sheet and see how it works.

From what I remember, AB/FrB rotations only a tiny bit better than FrB spam and AB spam mixed.
Seeing that you will still run into the same issue of having a 0.8s cast gap for the AB debuff, it's probably not worth it.

What I'd strongly recommend is having a "FrB spam and AB spam only" pattern to fall back to if you run into debuff timing issues.
It avoids timing headache, and is very potent with CoE+WC+4T6, on par with rotations.
Actually it already takes all options into account. It only makes some small optimizations like it doesn't try using AB cycles in deep fire build for example or flame caps in arcane builds. But you can force it to take even those cases into account if you think it's relevant by disabling the Smart Optimization checkbox in options. So it already is considering the FrB spam as fallback. The fact that you're seeing AB cycle with the pause just says that even that AB cycle with relatively large pause is superior to using simple FrB spam.

All the cycles are at least a little dynamic and change depending on haste. You can check what they are at the current settings by mousing over them in the Spell Info. For example what I have open at the moment in the solution it uses ABFrB3Frb and if I look over in Spell Info it says that is AB-FrB-AB-FrB-AB-FrB-FrB-FrB-Pause. I have the ABx3+FrBxN variants in code, but they are inferior in all cases I checked so I'm not displaying them.

After testing things yesterday I found that letting AB debuff drop is always worse than the pause, but Scorch filler is surprisingly effective. Next version will have those new cycles in.

Last edited by Kavan : 03/07/08 at 3:34 PM.
#3360SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
I'm adding Drums of Battle stacking to Rawr.Mage and I have one question. Does spell haste reduce global cooldown on drums in 2.4?
#3361SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Actually it already takes all options into account. It only makes some small optimizations like it doesn't try using AB cycles in deep fire build for example or flame caps in arcane builds. But you can force it to take even those cases into account if you think it's relevant by disabling the Smart Optimization checkbox in options. So it already is considering the FrB spam as fallback. The fact that you're seeing AB cycle with the pause just says that even that AB cycle with relatively large pause is superior to using simple FrB spam.

All the cycles are at least a little dynamic and change depending on haste. You can check what they are at the current settings by mousing over them in the Spell Info. For example what I have open at the moment in the solution it uses ABFrB3Frb and if I look over in Spell Info it says that is AB-FrB-AB-FrB-AB-FrB-FrB-FrB-Pause. I have the ABx3+FrBxN variants in code, but they are inferior in all cases I checked so I'm not displaying them.
Aha!

I checked the mouseover of the spells, but not of the spell sequences. Now it's all crystal clear.
ABFrB3FrB actually means (ABFrB)*3+FrB and not AB+FrB*3+FrB, I just wasn't used to that notation.

DL'ed the new Rawr, added the Twins' necklace and Sunflare and checked some numbers.
Non-JCers now get even more default +hit, giving even more favour to T6 hat.
For arcane specs, I used T5 hat/shoulders, T6 gloves.

Same setup as before - 360s fight, 350mp5 SP, 50ms lag, draenei elemental shaman.
The above gear with 2T5, +40 dmg weapon/+70 dmg flask and the usual buffs.
DPS values are with molten/mage armour.


DPS in a 6 minute fight with 2T5

2/48/11 - 2460/2439
10/0/51 - 2219/2174
40/18/3 - 2391/2395

48/0/13 - 2328/2351 (without WC: 2231/2262)
43/0/18 - 2450/2457 (without WC: 2344/2361)
40/0/21 - 2498/2502 (without WC: 2388/2401)

So, given equal gear, Arcane/Frost can beat full fire even on a long 6 minute fight if Winter's Chill is up. By ~2%. It lags ~2% behind without WC. And that does not include ramp-up time (I think).

Reducing the fight to 4 minutes, it will get even closer.


DPS in a 4 minute fight with 2T5

2/48/11 - 2582/2553
40/0/21 - 2653/2654 (without WC: 2548/2560)

Note that this is with slightly less than optimal gems, some Reckless Pyrestones could be swapped for Potent ones for Arcane. Also, Fire spec is 0.5% under the cap, so this could even out, and a few changed Pyrestones don't affect DPS a lot.


Now, this was with 2T5.
Drop T5 for Sunwell gear, and use Sunfire enchant + Flask of Pure Death and Fire will make a huge leap.
Even if we swap back to +40 dmg weapon/+70 dmg flask, Arc/Frost will drop with the loss of 2T5.


DPS in a 6 minute fight without T5

2/48/11 - 2606/2586, that's ~150 DPS from better gear mostly (enchant/flask are the minor part).
40/0/21 - 2408/2387 (without WC: 2281/2271)

Seems that gear progression finally killed AB rotations for good.



Rawr cycle issue?

Kavan, I've had one oddity in the calculations.

With the T5 setup, WC, Arc/Frost, the spells were as follows:
Frostbolt - 2039 DPS, -17mps (i.e. gain mana while casting)
ABFrB3FrB - 2065 DPS. 11mps
AB spam - 2784 DPS, 336 mps

So, going from FrB to rotations is +26 DPS at the cost of +28mps spent (0.93 DPS/mps = 0.93 DPM).
Going from FrB to AB spam is +745 DPS at the cost of +353mps spent (2.11 DPS/mp2 = 2.11 DPM).

That means it's better to just use FrB and AB spam, than trying to do rotations and AB spam.
Rawr however uses ABFrB3FrB (188s) and some AB spam time (43s).
I should get more damage from using just FrB and AB though, unless I read the info wrong?

Rawr correctly uses IV/Hex/AP with AB spam. It also uses Hex+AB spam.
It uses all other haste procs with ABFrB3FrB, and another 188s of just ABFrB3FrB, and 43s of AB spam.
Heroism is paired with IV/Hex/Skull and ABFrB3FrB, but not AP-AB, which seems not optimised.

If I understand the spell tooltips correctly, it is better to skip ABFrB3FrB fully.
Stacking cooldowns with AB spam as much as possible and using FrB on the rest should be more damage, unless I got something wrong.

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/07/08 at 5:49 PM.
#3362SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
I wonder, is the rotation [AB, AM] supported in rawr? Yes, I mean intentionally using 1.5s AB all the time and enjoying a FSR mana tick every rotation. The numbers should be close to frostbolt numbers, but not rely on WC or COE. That rotation has many advantages over frostbolts, namely uninterruptibility and FSR mana tick, in addition to what I mentioned previously.
#3363SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I wonder, is the rotation [AB, AM] supported in rawr? Yes, I mean intentionally using 1.5s AB all the time and enjoying a FSR mana tick every rotation. The numbers should be close to frostbolt numbers, but not rely on WC or COE. That rotation has many advantages over frostbolts, namely uninterruptibility and FSR mana tick, in addition to what I mentioned previously.
Not sure which cycle you mean exactly, but Rawr does have an "AB-AM-Pause" cycle.

With 48/0/13, mage armour, no WC/CoE, no JoW, it's 1349 DPS while regaining 31 mps (you stand AFK for a few seconds every ~7 seconds).
AM spam is 1729 DPS while costing 37 mps.
"AB-AM-AB-AM-AB-AM-FrB*" is 1807 DPS while costing 36 DPS.

(There are some more options with another filler * than FrB, that are less damage and not worth the loss. Options being Sc-Sc and Sc-Pause. It also adds FrB-Pause and FrB-FrB if you have a lot of haste and need more spells to fill the pause.)


[Edit]:
Ah, that one. No, rawr, doesn't have it.

But you can stitch it together from AM spam (1729 DPS, 37 mps regen) and AB spam (2784 DPS, 337 mps spent).
Adds up to 1973 DPS, 106 mps spent. Cycle length is 6.5s/120% = 5.4 seconds (20% haste on gear).
You have 462 mp5 from spirit, or 185 mana/tick. One OO5sR tick adds 185*40% = 74 mana over 5.4s, or 13.7 mps.

So, you get 1973 DPS, 92 mps spent in the best case.

To get DPS data from gear, you could try adding the 13.7*5 = 69 mp5 to your SP regen, as a bandaid.

Also, mind you that at 5.4s cast time per cycle, your chance to actually get that oo5sr tick is really low.

[Edit]:
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
The reason why it doesn't stack IV/Hex/Skull with AP-AB is GCD clipping I think. What haste levels were you testing at?
Whoops! Ran 323 passive haste, 20.5%. Clips at +25% haste from other sources. Totally forgot about that.

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/07/08 at 6:39 PM.
#3364SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
No no, I mean literally what you see. [AB, AM] (no pause).
This is how it would work on a boss:
AB, AB, AB, (yay ramp-up bug -- yes this intentionally lists 3 AB as ramp-up time even though it should be 2)
AB, AM AB, AM AB, AM AB, AM ...
You do not do any pause or anything. Just spam both, giving you permanently 1.5s AB and full AM. And you don't cancelcast to use clearcasting either.
#3365SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
The reason why it doesn't stack IV/Hex/Skull with AP-AB is GCD clipping I think. What haste levels were you testing at?

In my T5 setup with Arcane/Frost I'm at 277 haste and it uses:

Heroism-AP=>AB spam
Heroism-IV=>AB cycle
IV-AP=>AB spam
IV=>AB spam

That thing with FrB+AB spam vs AB cycle+AB spam mix looks suspicious. Are you sure you looked at the right AB cycle? Can you open a new issue on Rawr (Rawr - Issue Tracker) and attach xml of the character setup you used (File->Save in Rawr)?
#3366SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by manly View Post
I wonder, is the rotation [AB, AM] supported in rawr? Yes, I mean intentionally using 1.5s AB all the time and enjoying a FSR mana tick every rotation. The numbers should be close to frostbolt numbers, but not rely on WC or COE. That rotation has many advantages over frostbolts, namely uninterruptibility and FSR mana tick, in addition to what I mentioned previously.
Good idea. Initially I thought this would be equivalent to combination of AB spam and AM spam but mps characteristic is different. I'll add it in.
#3367SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Well, I am asking for it because my data so far matches almost exactly the data from Rawr. And yes, the TC was shifting away from rotations, which is good given the ramp-up issues of AB. However, I did come up with interesting numbers with [AB, AM]. Thing is, not everyone will agree on what is 'common place' buffs in a raid. By my own definition, WC is not commonplace. I always assume it is not available. 13% COS is a given, 10% COE might be there. In any case, assuming the case where you're comparing

13% COS, [AB, AM]
10% COE, deep fire

the numbers got quite interesting. (Since I don't assume both COS and COE present at the same time with arcane/frost mages, that would mean 3+ warlocks and 2+arcane/frost mage with 1 deep frost mage, a composition I don't believe is commonplace at all)
#3368SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Ok I added it in and it turns out it's not a that good. Compared to the ABAMx3+FrB cycle 1803 dps/-19.2 mps you get 1945 dps/48 mps. So you're trading at 2.1 dpm. Trading for AB spam gives you 2.9 dpm. I can see it might be worth using it when you're just a bit short of full AB spam. Actually I do that in practice to fine-tune getting OOM at the end.

EDIT: Might be worth looking at AB-AM with AM when AM procs CC.
#3369SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
Now this is intersting. I added a new dynamic cycle for AB-AM, when AM procs AM chain AM until you don't proc AM, then ramp up AB and return to AB-AM.

This cycle outperforms the FrB variants in no COE situations.

I'll try another dynamic cycle that ramps up with AB-AM instead of just AB and again goes to AM when AM procs CC.

EDIT: I take that back, I made a mistake in this new cycle. It's not as good as I thought it would be. Even under no COE situations the (AB-AM)x3+FrB is better.

Here's some sample values with T5:

AB-AM: 1945.13 dps/47.99 mps
AB-AM with AM on CC, straignt AB ramp: 1910.62 dps/35.74 mps
AB-AM with AM on CC, AB-AM ramp: 1890.29 dps/22.34 mps
(AB-AM)x3+FrB with AM on CC: 1813.69 dps/-20.77 mps

trading with AB spam at: 2691.35 dps/283.31 mps

To estimate how valuable a cycle is in combination with AB spam let's say we have total time T, t spent on cycle, T-t on AB spam, M total mana. Then we have:

M = t * cyclemps + (T-t) * abmps
total damage = t * cycledps + (T-t) * abdps

Solving for t we get:

M = t * (cyclemps - abmps) + T * abmps
t = (M - T * abmps) / (cyclemps - abmps)
total damage = (M - T * abmps) * (cycledps - abdps) / (cyclemps - abmps) + T * abdps

Let's call (cycledps - abdps) / (cyclemps - abmps) tradeoff coefficient. We're assuming that M < T * abmps, otherwise we could AB spam all time. So the lower tradeoff coefficient is the higher total damage is.

tradeoff coefficients for the above cycles:

AB-AM: 3.17 dpm
AB-AM with AM on CC, straignt AB ramp: 3.15 dpm
AB-AM with AM on CC, AB-AM ramp: 3.07 dpm
(AB-AM)x3+FrB with AM on CC: 2.89 dpm

Last edited by Kavan : 03/07/08 at 8:59 PM.
#3370SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
Rawr Beta 12.1 posted!

DOWNLOAD: https://www.codeplex.com/Release/Pro...eleaseId=11483


Beta 12.1:
- Fixed a bug that would cause "Input string not in correct format" errors when Rawr was run on copies of Windows for a region where a period is not the decimal separator (ie european countries where it would be "1,23" instead of "1.23").
- For proxies that filter by user-agent, the user-agent used by Rawr is now customizable in the proxy options.
- Config settings (like recent files) are now user specific.
- Fix for occasionally not loading icons immediately even though a network connection is available. Also fixed an error when there was no network connection.
- Rawr.Mage: Added new AB-AM cycle and new AB cycles with Frostbolt/Scorch filler, added a fix for the item budget comparison, added scrolling on the options screen, added Drums of Battle stacking,
- Rawr.Warlock: Fixed issue when altering spell cycle
#3371SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Now this is intersting. I added a new dynamic cycle for AB-AM, when AM procs AM chain AM until you don't proc AM, then ramp up AB and return to AB-AM.

This cycle outperforms the FrB variants in no COE situations.

I'll try another dynamic cycle that ramps up with AB-AM instead of just AB and again goes to AM when AM procs CC.

EDIT: I take that back, I made a mistake in this new cycle. It's not as good as I thought it would be. Even under no COE situations the (AB-AM)x3+FrB is better.

Here's some sample values with T5:

AB-AM: 1945.13 dps/47.99 mps
AB-AM with AM on CC, straignt AB ramp: 1910.62 dps/35.74 mps
AB-AM with AM on CC, AB-AM ramp: 1890.29 dps/22.34 mps
(AB-AM)x3+FrB with AM on CC: 1813.69 dps/-20.77 mps

trading with AB spam at: 2691.35 dps/283.31 mps

To estimate how valuable a cycle is in combination with AB spam let's say we have total time T, t spent on cycle, T-t on AB spam, M total mana. Then we have:

M = t * cyclemps + (T-t) * abmps
total damage = t * cycledps + (T-t) * abdps

Solving for t we get:

M = t * (cyclemps - abmps) + T * abmps
t = (M - T * abmps) / (cyclemps - abmps)
total damage = (M - T * abmps) * (cycledps - abdps) / (cyclemps - abmps) + T * abdps

Let's call (cycledps - abdps) / (cyclemps - abmps) tradeoff coefficient. We're assuming that M < T * abmps, otherwise we could AB spam all time. So the lower tradeoff coefficient is the higher total damage is.

tradeoff coefficients for the above cycles:

AB-AM: 3.17 dpm
AB-AM with AM on CC, straignt AB ramp: 3.15 dpm
AB-AM with AM on CC, AB-AM ramp: 3.07 dpm
(AB-AM)x3+FrB with AM on CC: 2.89 dpm
Kavan, what is the trade-off coefficient for (AB-FrB)x3 -> FrBx3 cycle?
#3372SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Sinless View Post
Kavan, what is the trade-off coefficient for (AB-FrB)x3 -> FrBx3 cycle?
I added the AB spam tradeoff coefficient to tooltip in Rawr.Mage for AB cycles (I got tired doing it by hand :P)

For slightly different gear for Arcane/Frost spec I get 2.92 dpm for ABFrBx3+FrB. Same gear with Arcane spec is:

ABFrBx3+FrB: 3.37 dpm
ABAMx3+FrB: 3.15 dpm

So it depends a lot on specific gear and spec.
#3373SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
So, I am not gonna go into individual calculations, but with the following stats (raid buffed):

* +1500 spell damage
* 27% crit with spells
* 200mp5 while casting
* Hit-capped for both arcane and frost
* No spell haste
* CoS (no CoE)
* No JoW
* No WC

These are very close to my stats raid buffed /w mage armor on, and we always have CoS up.

1069 DPS for AM (61/0/0) (including -6% for partial resists)
1037 DPS for FrB (40/0/21)

AM will have, 784 - 100 - 150 = 534 mp5
FrB will have (272 - 100) x 2 = 344 mp5

Hence, the question:

Is a DPS gain of about ~32 DPS worth an mp5 loss of about 190 mp5?

Edit: I am so torn between AM and FrB as rotation fillers, so just trying to make up my mind
#3374SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Rawr cycle issue?

Kavan, I've had one oddity in the calculations.

With the T5 setup, WC, Arc/Frost, the spells were as follows:
Frostbolt - 2039 DPS, -17mps (i.e. gain mana while casting)
ABFrB3FrB - 2065 DPS. 11mps
AB spam - 2784 DPS, 336 mps

So, going from FrB to rotations is +26 DPS at the cost of +28mps spent (0.93 DPS/mps = 0.93 DPM).
Going from FrB to AB spam is +745 DPS at the cost of +353mps spent (2.11 DPS/mp2 = 2.11 DPM).

That means it's better to just use FrB and AB spam, than trying to do rotations and AB spam.
Rawr however uses ABFrB3FrB (188s) and some AB spam time (43s).
I should get more damage from using just FrB and AB though, unless I read the info wrong?

Rawr correctly uses IV/Hex/AP with AB spam. It also uses Hex+AB spam.
It uses all other haste procs with ABFrB3FrB, and another 188s of just ABFrB3FrB, and 43s of AB spam.
Heroism is paired with IV/Hex/Skull and ABFrB3FrB, but not AP-AB, which seems not optimised.

If I understand the spell tooltips correctly, it is better to skip ABFrB3FrB fully.
Stacking cooldowns with AB spam as much as possible and using FrB on the rest should be more damage, unless I got something wrong.
I just realized what is going on with FrB. I had it disabled with smart optimizations if you didn't have Emp. Frostbolt. I'll turn it on in all arcane builds.

But it's not clear that FrB is better in all cases. For example in my T5 setup I get 2.52 dpm tradeoff for FrB and 2.46 dpm for ABFrB3FrB.
#3375SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Icicles
I was trying out a setup in rawr pretty close to chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.2.beta, basically spamming +10 spirit gems everywhere.

With reasonable buffs and a good shadow priest, it looked like Arcane Blast could last almost the entire fight (toss an Innervate in there and gg), but the dps was a good bit (200ish) lower than what I was getting with an optimal fire setup (best gear options, 4pc, correct gems, etc.).

I was getting a +dmg number about 100 short of fully buffed fire, (thanks MM), a crit rate of roughly 30% for AB, a little too much hit (mainly due to the sunwell staff), and 12ish% haste.

In any event, bringing this up as a possible point of discussion, despite the loss of virtually all socket bonuses (which is pretty bad, granted), could this ever potentially be a viable setup, in order to allow yourself to spam AB for an entire fight, regardless of how long the fight was? First time using the software, so I might have missed a thing or two.

Side note: with the level of Int in that setup (buffed, about 875), each point of spirit is worth roughly 1.3 mp5 noncasting, and at just under 700 buffed spirit, that's about 600 mp5 while casting, before factoring in a shadow priest.

Summary + Question: Would the use of all Spirit gems/enchants/gear and (ideally) the ability to spam AB an entire fight's duration make up for the loss of damage from those slots/bonuses if optimized better than how I did it or under other circumstances?
#3376SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Icicles
Originally Posted by manly View Post
No no, I mean literally what you see. [AB, AM] (no pause).
This is how it would work on a boss:
AB, AB, AB, (yay ramp-up bug -- yes this intentionally lists 3 AB as ramp-up time even though it should be 2)
AB, AM AB, AM AB, AM AB, AM ...
You do not do any pause or anything. Just spam both, giving you permanently 1.5s AB and full AM. And you don't cancelcast to use clearcasting either.
Doing that rotation, would it be possible to limit your haste to still catch full regen ticks? Considering the amount of haste on almost all the gear in Sunwell, it's nearly impossible to avoid a rather decent amount, but at what point with haste does AM -> 1.5 AB finish in under 5 seconds, thus nullifying the advantage of that rotation?
#3377SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andersnordic
Rawr - haste calculation

Kavan,

Are you sure you got the haste calculation for arcane correct in Rawr. It seems you have used the ratio: 1 haste = 1,1 spell dmg (Fire ratio). The value of haste seems too high. Im quite sure the value of haste will be lower for arcane. I would guess: 1 haste = 0.65-0.85 spell dmg.

Awesome software btw. Well done

Last edited by Andersnordic : 03/08/08 at 4:58 AM.
#3378SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
Kavan,

Are you sure you got the haste calculation for arcane correct in Rawr. It seems you have used the ratio: 1 haste = 1,1 spell dmg (Fire ratio). The value of haste seems too high. Im quite sure the value of haste will be lower for arcane. I would guess: 1 haste = 0.65-0.85 spell dmg.

Awesome software btw. Well done
I'm not sure I understand. Haste gives the same casting increase to all spells. You can mouse over the spells in Spell Info and it should tell you their casting time (without latency). Let me know if you see some spell that is getting the wrong effect, but I kindof doubt it since they all share the same code path.
#3379SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andorian
These are the numbers I'm getting in Rawr.Mage for top end gear for a 5 min. fight.

40/0/21: Mage Armor

2589 DPS (CoS 13%, Basic Raid Setup)
2657 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 10%)
2762 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 13%, WC, Never Going to Happen)

As time decreases from 300s to 280s Arcane DPS is at 2696 (CoS 13%, CoE 10%).
As time increases from 300s to 320s Arcane DPS is at 2615.
At 360s, 2552 DPS.
At 420s, 2572 DPS.
At 480s, 2505 DPS.

2/48/11: Molten Armor

2635 DPS (CoE 10%, Basic Raid Setup)
2707 DPS (CoE 13%)

Fire:
As time decreases from 300s to 280s Fire DPS is at 2670 (CoE 10%).
As time increases from 300s to 320s Fire DPS is at 2605.
At 360s, 2568 DPS.
At 420s, 2564 DPS.
At 480s, 2494 DPS.

It looks like just under 5min is the sweet spot for fire but arcane appears to be a viable spec come 2.4. I personally think I'll be going arcane for the extra ice block, trash DPS, and AoE perks.

Thanks again for Rawr, it's simply amazing.

Edit: Both specs were using optimal gear/enchants/consumables for each but with the same raid buffs.

Last edited by Andorian : 03/08/08 at 12:31 PM.
#3380SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Pintofbrew
Originally Posted by Icicles View Post
Doing that rotation, would it be possible to limit your haste to still catch full regen ticks? Considering the amount of haste on almost all the gear in Sunwell, it's nearly impossible to avoid a rather decent amount, but at what point with haste does AM -> 1.5 AB finish in under 5 seconds, thus nullifying the advantage of that rotation?
OO5SR isn't easy to work with: exactly 5sec after spending mana you're classified as "not casting" and out of the 5SR, but it'll only show up in the next tic. That means: in order to 100% guarantee you'll get an OO5SR while rotating AM/x the x needs to be 2.0sec. Follow the time-line:

0.00 AM
5.00 Toggled as OO5SR
5.00 AM end
5.01 AB start channeling

The only thing you know for sure is that by 7.01 you'll have had at least one OO5SR tic. However, it could be that the tic was at 5.02, or it could be the tic was at 6.99. When energy gain tics are processed is not related to casting but rather to an internal "clock" in the game.

Technically you're not looking for "how much haste will make 1.5sec AB + AM = 5sec" because that will make the chance you OO5SR next to 0.00%. With 0 haste as is there's a chance you don't OO5SR.

I'm not sure on the statistics, but given that a 2.0 time interval OO5SR will guaranteed give you 1 and not more tics, then the highest two debuff ABs have only a 75% and a 91.5% to give you an OO5SR, while the default has 125% (ie, 100% to give you one tic and 25% to give you two) and the first debuff one 108% likewise.

Perhaps we should integrate the exact timing on Rawr, however I'm slightly weary of making the simulation behave erratically, along the lines of +1haste = 4% shift in mana.



Edit: Interestingly, given you cycle once of each debuff AB in your AM/AB, it seems the average chance you tic a OO5SR is technically [1.25+1.08+0.92+0.75]/4. Which is 100%. Not surprising, given the average cast time of AB is 2.0. So given a cycle of the ABAM3x type, it's rather safe to assume that with 0 haste you'll proc an average of exactly 1 OO5SR each AB/AM.

Last edited by Pintofbrew : 03/08/08 at 8:20 AM.
#3381SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Perhaps we should integrate the exact timing on Rawr, however I'm slightly weary of making the simulation behave erratically, along the lines of +1haste = 4% shift in mana.
Actually Rawr does this, including the effect of clearcasting extending the OO5SR time (on cast time spells only, channeling always forces you in 5SR).
#3382SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jonny_Monroe
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Actually Rawr does this, including the effect of clearcasting extending the OO5SR time (on cast time spells only, channeling always forces you in 5SR).
Channeling always forces FSR? even when clearcasted? this is news to me.
#3383SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Apparently, Blink has been changed to 21% base mana, according to the latest PTR notes. This would effectively make it circa 470mana.

I'm getting rather annoyed with this ping-pong. It went down from 630 to a shocking 230, then was amended to 345, now it's back at 470. Now taking bets on where you think it'll be by the next version of PTR.

On a fruity side-note, Essence of Immortals has been removed from the game in a bid to give all realms equal access to bosses. The stages of the instance will instead open over time. Good news for those of us in desire of progress but who suffer from under-performing realms.

Kavan: Could you please elaborate on the channeling->5SR rule you pointed out?
#3384SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Icicles
Andorian, would it be possible to put up a link on chardev or something similar with the setup you made that got you those numbers? I'm curious to see what you put together, cause I'm like you, personally I favor arcane and would love to see it go toe-to-toe with fire in 2.4.
#3385SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Originally Posted by Icicles View Post
Andorian, would it be possible to put up a link on chardev or something similar with the setup you made that got you those numbers? I'm curious to see what you put together, cause I'm like you, personally I favor arcane and would love to see it go toe-to-toe with fire in 2.4.
Sure, I'll try to do it when I get home tonight.
#3386SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Kavan: Could you please elaborate on the channeling->5SR rule you pointed out?
Mana Regen:

if channeling or time since last mana spent < 5 => 5SR regen
else => OO5SR regen

It's easy to test if you have a mod that shows you mana regen ticks. Go to Dr. Boom and chain cast AM. Clearcasted AM will give you small/no ticks. Also ask any priest, when they mind control for example, even though the channel is longer than 5 sec they never drop out of 5SR until they get out of the channel.
#3387SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Goedel
To clarify, is the rule

(1) While channeling, one cannot have non-casting regen active, even if it was active before the channeled spell and the channeled spell cost no mana; non-casting regen immediately resumes when channeling completes

(2) While channeling, one cannot go from while-casting regen to non-casting regen, but the 5-second timer continues, so that one might immediately go from while-casting regen to non-casting regen when channeling completes

(3) While channeling, one cannot go from while-casting regen to non-casting regen, and the 5-second timer is on hold, resuming when channeling completes and allowing non-casting regen to begin some time after

And what evidence do we have that distinguishes these?
#3388SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Soul
Originally Posted by Goedel View Post
To clarify, is the rule

(1) While channeling, one cannot have non-casting regen active, even if it was active before the channeled spell and the channeled spell cost no mana; non-casting regen immediately resumes when channeling completes

(2) While channeling, one cannot go from while-casting regen to non-casting regen, but the 5-second timer continues, so that one might immediately go from while-casting regen to non-casting regen when channeling completes

(3) While channeling, one cannot go from while-casting regen to non-casting regen, and the 5-second timer is on hold, resuming when channeling completes and allowing non-casting regen to begin some time after

And what evidence do we have that distinguishes these?
It's (1). Pretty easy to verify... just chain cast AM until you get a clearcast proc. Wait until you regen a tick of mana from being OO5SR then consume your clearcast with another AM. Watch your regen ticks... they will not be full OO5SR ticks.
#3389SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Andorian View Post
These are the numbers I'm getting in Rawr.Mage for top end gear for a 5 min. fight.

40/0/21: Mage Armor

2589 DPS (CoS 13%, Basic Raid Setup)
2657 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 10%)
2762 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 13%, WC, Never Going to Happen)
2657 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 10%)
is extremely unlikely too. You need 3 warlocks and 3+ 40/0/21 mages before its worth it, or 3 warlocks + 1+ fire/frost mage + 1+ 40/0/21 mage. And even 1/1 mage might not cut it depending on the performance of your mages.

2762 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 13%, WC, Never Going to Happen)
is probably never going to happen

Likewise, 13% COE is like so remote I wouldn't even dare hope it to happen.
I think here are the more realistic scenarios:
13% COS
13% COS + JOW
10% COE

And add possibly moonkin and ret pally (+3% crit) to the mix.
#3390SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Treerobber
Kavan would it be possible to add some Fireblast rotations for less progressed mages.
Maybe:
(FBx2, Fireblast)x2 FBx2, Scorch
with enough spell haste (2.4 style) it goes to:
(FBx2, Fireblast)x3 FBx2, Scorch
If these are too complicated just
FBx2, Fireblast

I haven't heard a concrete number, only a general observation that spamming one spell is optimum, while alternating spells does not work perfectly with the current spell casting system. Does anyone know how much this hurts a rotation like this?
#3391SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Originally Posted by manly View Post
2657 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 10%)
is extremely unlikely too. You need 3 warlocks and 3+ 40/0/21 mages before its worth it, or 3 warlocks + 1+ fire/frost mage + 1+ 40/0/21 mage. And even 1/1 mage might not cut it depending on the performance of your mages.
Likewise, 13% COE is like so remote I wouldn't even dare hope it to happen.

I think here are the more realistic scenarios:
13% COS
13% COS + JOW
10% COE
I agree, those are the most likely situations. I just thought we might be seeing more CoS 13% + CoE 10% since more locks will be specing fire/destro. I'll recalculate the arc/frost for CoS 13% only. I just added the other totals out of curiosity.
#3392SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zephriel
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
It's (1). Pretty easy to verify... just chain cast AM until you get a clearcast proc. Wait until you regen a tick of mana from being OO5SR then consume your clearcast with another AM. Watch your regen ticks... they will not be full OO5SR ticks.
This is mostly correct. Unless clearcasting mechanics have changed within the last few patches, there's one exception, however: If you clearcast an AM, and that AM itself procs clearcasting, the AM won't restart the 5SR timer, and it's possible to receive full mana regen ticks during the AM. This requires some luck, since you need back-to-back clearcasting procs with AM, but it's known to happen.
#3393SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
A quick question on rawr; with the elemental shaman option checked and 13% hit (along with EP) I am being told gemming other items with hit/dmg gems, as opposed to crit/dmg or pure dmg gems is superior dps. Any reason you can think of why this might be happening?
#3394SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Lightning Capacitor vs. Darkmoon Card: Crusade

I think, I finally decided to go with 40/0/21 for multiple reasons but most importantly for Frostbolt being a very mana efficient cast with moderately high dps. Now, time to decide on the trinkets.

Two of the most potent trinket candidates for a deep arcane or 40/0/21 build are the lightning capacitor (TLC) and Darkmoon Card: Crusade (DCC). The below comparison is strictly for 40/0/21 arcane/frost build but trivial conclusions can be drawn at the end of this analysis for other common builds such as deep fire and frost.

A 40/0/21 will only cast 2 spells throughout the fight: Arcane blast (AB) and Frostbolt (FB). In order to understand which trinket is better for this talent build, we need to analyze the individual effects on both AB and FB.

I am doing the analysis for my particular raid setup (an elemental shaman in my group) and will also assume the following:

* 34 % raid buffed crit (including 3% from Arcane Potency talent)
* 11.32% spell hit (94.32% to hit with any spell, 99% to hit with frost and arcane spells with Elemental Precision and Arcane Subtlety)
* 6% partial resist on boss for all spells except frost spells
* Chaotic Skyfire Diamond is equipped in head meta-gem slot (see: Lhiv’s post WoW Forums -> CSD: I've been wrong! for the latest info on CSD’s crit modifier)
* Misery, Curse of Shadows, Curse of Elements are always up on the boss (Misery affects TLC)
* Damage and crit modifiers from talents:
- Arcane Instability: + 3% spell damage (affects TLC)
- Arcane Impact: +6% critical strike chance for AB
- Spell Power: +50% spell critical damage (does not affect TLC)
- Ice Shards: +100% critical strike bonus for frost spells (does not affect TLC)
- Piercing Ice: +6% frost damage (does not affect TLC)

Known facts about TLC suggest that, it is affected by the debuffs on the boss that affect nature spells, it is affected by your nature spell crit chance and nature spell hit chance (for a mage, this would be base spell crit and hit chances).

Now, let’s get to the calculations. We start with TLC.


Average TLC damage = (750*0.66 + 750*1.5*0.34) * 1.05 * 1.03 * 0.94 * 0.9432 = 841.4

Number of AB’s required to fire 1 lightning bolt: (remember 40% crit rate for AB)

100 / 40 * 3 = 7.5

Average damage contribution to each AB when TLC is used:

841.4 / 7.5 = 112.2


Number of FB’s required to fire 1 lightning bolt: (remember 34% crit rate for FB)

100 / 34 * 3 = 8.8

Average damage contribution to each FB when TLC is used:

841.4 / 8.8 = 95.6


Now, let’s take a look at DCC.
We will assume that +80 spell damage is stacked and never needs to be restacked (not very realistic, but for the sake of simplicity)

For AB:

AB has 71.43% spell damage coefficient. So the damage contribution to each blast for 80 spell damage is:

(80 * 0.7143 * 0.6 + 80 * 0.7143 * 1.8175 * 0.4) * 1.05 * 1.03 * 1.13 * 0.94 * 0.99 = 86.24

For FB:

FB has %81.43 spell damage coefficient. So the damage contribution to each bolt for 80 spell damage is:

(80 * 0.8143 * 0.66 + 80 * 0.8143 * 0.34 * 2.3625) * 1.05 * 1.03 * 1.06 * 1.1 * 0.99 = 119

So we have the following figures:

TLC -> AB: 112.2 , FB: 95.6
DCC -> AB: 86.24, FB: 119


in terms of damage increase per bolt due to using respective trinket. So, what do these results show?

If you use equal numbers of FB and AB in a fight, the average contribution from the trinkets will be:

TLC = 103.9
DCC = 102.6


However, a 40/0/21 build (especially with 2 piece T5) will always use many more AB’s than FB’s in any given fight, which makes TLC much superior to DCC.

What about deep fire, frost or even 40/0/21 just spamming frostbolts? DCC is significantly better than TLC. Remember, even for a 40/0/21 spamming only frostbolts TLC = 95.6 and DCC = 119. Now consider, all the + damage modifiers coming from deep fire and deep frost talents, DCC is MUCH superior to TLC in any way.

CONCLUSIONS:

Deep arcane – No analysis needed, hands down TLC.
40/0/21 – TLC is much better.
40+ fire builds – DCC is much better.
40+ frost builds – DCC is much better
#3395SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Rawr may not be calculating TLC correctly then. I'm still showing TLC well below DCC in a 40/0/21 spec.
#3396SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Treerobber View Post
Kavan would it be possible to add some Fireblast rotations for less progressed mages.
Maybe:
(FBx2, Fireblast)x2 FBx2, Scorch
with enough spell haste (2.4 style) it goes to:
(FBx2, Fireblast)x3 FBx2, Scorch
If these are too complicated just
FBx2, Fireblast

I haven't heard a concrete number, only a general observation that spamming one spell is optimum, while alternating spells does not work perfectly with the current spell casting system. Does anyone know how much this hurts a rotation like this?
I added the cycle in. It'll display in Spell Info, but it won't be considered in final solution unless you disable smart optimizations option.

Originally Posted by Duravi View Post
A quick question on rawr; with the elemental shaman option checked and 13% hit (along with EP) I am being told gemming other items with hit/dmg gems, as opposed to crit/dmg or pure dmg gems is superior dps. Any reason you can think of why this might be happening?
What exactly do you mean by you are being told to pick hit/dmg gems? If you mouse over Frostbolt for example what is the calculated Hit Rate? If it still doesn't make sense you'll probably have to tell me exactly what gear and settings you're using.

Originally Posted by Andorian View Post
Rawr may not be calculating TLC correctly then. I'm still showing TLC well below DCC in a 40/0/21 spec.
Synless is computing the contribution of TLC in a wrong way. You have to consider the 2.5 sec internal cooldown on proc aquiring after a discharge. I don't see what was the spell haste used in that example, but let's assume it's 0. Even if you have enough haste to get AB to 1 sec the value is still lower than DMC.

AB:

841.4 / (2.5 + 3 * 1.5 / 0.4) = 841.4 / 13.75 = 61.19

FrB:

841.4 / (2.5 + 3 * 2.5 / 0.34) = 841.4 / 24.56 = 34.26
#3397SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Kavan is right, I forgot to include the effect of 2.5 second cooldown in my calculations BUT my results do not change a lot even when including the internal cooldown (which only triggers not after every charge but after every bolt).

First of all, I am not calculating the dps values, rather the +damage contribution to each bolt/blast from each trinket.

So, for AB, we said it takes us 7.5 ABs to fire one lightning bolt. The only way trinket's internal cooldown can affect our calculations is if the very first AB cast after a lightning bolt is a crit. In that case we need 8.5 ABs instead of 7.5. The probability of this happening is 0.4 (AB crit chance).

Thus instead of 7.5 ABs, we need 7.5 * 0.6 + 8.5 * 0.4 = 7.9 ABs => 841.4 / 7.9 = 106.5

Similarly for FB, instead of 8.8 FBs, we need 8.8 * 0.66 + 9.8 * 0.34 = 9.14 FBs => 841.4 / 9.14 = 89.51

Compare them to, 112.2 and 95.6 and yeah there definitely is a decrease but it still does not make it worse than DMC.
#3398SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Kavan as long as I know, the TLC CD is only for the Discharge, not the gathering of charges. Hence the only possible scenaria it becomes a limiting factor is (a) enough haste to make 3 AM within 2.5sec, which all three crit or (b) AoE.

Unless I'm wrong and the CD in fact does impede the gathering of charges.

There must be some error in his work however, I'm seeing TLC as optimal sine-qua-non only for 50.0.11, while for 40.0.21 it's only superior for higher AB cycles. The more FrB you mix in the more relative it's value is compared to DMC. Even so, the diff between DMC and TLC is small, in the tens.

Also gentlemen, bear in mind: When we're talking about a 5m sim which includes 6 iterations of BL, IV, AP, Trink, Destro, AB, Cycles, it starts to get distinctly likely that pitfalls are more of an issue than the 7dps difference in sim. Pairing trinkets will always be worse than self-activated affairs are simulated to be, unless you have some 100% sure-fire way to ensure they are scripted in to the optimal scenario (read: macrod, and you know exactly how and when to use them). DMC also suffers from needing stacking and the ubiquitous falling off. Granted, not very often, but if you're comparing TLC and DMC and seeing a 12dps difference, then the assumed "all CDs at start" scenario becomes a compromize in it's self as you either delay by 20sec or blow everything while 80dmg down.
#3399SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
You're right, I expressed it in terms of dps contribution. The cooldown is between discharge and first charge, not between charges.

If you have 0 haste then yes only the first AB after discharge can be affected. I've used a continuous model in Rawr and that is an underestimate since I assume first 1 sec of second AB also can't proc it, but that obviously doesn't matter. I'll change to discrete model and see how things change.
#3400SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
What Pint said is also true, the more frostbolts you introduce to the mix, the more DMC will pull forward. I was just talking about a typical scenario where the number of ABs cast is more than the number of FBs cast (which I understand may not always be the case). Assuming the DMC buff might fall off a couple times during a fight, you are looking at a much better situation for TLC, too.
#3401SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Ok I made the change. The effect is rather surprising but I still don't get the same numbers. For Arcane/Frost I still see DMC ahead of TLC. One thing that did change is that TLC is now ahead of SCB for Arcane/IV.

Ok I found where you made an error. You said if first AB does not crit then you need 7.5, if it does crit you need 8.5. That is not correct. If first AB does not crit, then it did not create any charge, meaning that the 7.5 actually starts from second AB. So regardless of whether first AB crits you need 8.5 crits on average.
#3402SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Wow, nice catch lol !

Yes, the first charge of AB and FB will always be disregarded in this case, which will pull the numbers even lower.

98.9 for AB and 85.8 for FB so in any scenario where you get to cast almost equal number of ABs and FBs, DMC will win. You need to cast more ABs to pull TLC further in this case, which just makes it another judgment call for each individual fight to decide which trinket to use.

/sigh.
#3403SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Searix
Something i've been toying around with: (33/0/28) Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It's self-sustained WC at the cost of mind mastery (and 3% int and 10% cc crit). This should be more dps than deep frost due to superior scaling, holds its own WC, and takes care of the mages not having WC thing.

Last edited by Searix : 03/09/08 at 7:46 AM.
#3404SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Something i've been toying around with: (33/0/28) Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It's self-sustained WC at the cost of mind mastery (and 3% int and 10% cc crit). This should be more dps than deep frost due to superior scaling, holds its own WC, and takes care of the mages not having WC thing.
40/0/21 with WC: 2502 DPS
40/0/21 without WC: 2401 DPS
33/0/28 with WC: 2299 DPS

You lose 8 DPS with 4/5 Arcane Mind, lose 17 DPS with 2/3 Arcane Potency, lose 177 DPS with 0/5 Arcane Potency.
Full frost with Soulfrost and no T5 is rated as 2348 DPS.


33/0/28 really looks like a bad deal to me. You gain 10% crit on your DPM spell, but lose more than 190 spell power from mind mastery. The numbers back that up.
#3405SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
First of all Kavan, excellent software mate, I really like Rawr. I do have a question though.
Playing around with different gear setups I noticed that Rawr will display 20 spelldmg to gloves as superior to 15 spellhit even though im below the hitcap (16%). Experimenting showed me what seems to be a 15% hitcap built into the script, as soon as I geared for more than 15% (Elemental Precision included) it shows 20spelldmg to gloves as the better choice and when I drop below 15% it shows 15 spellhit on gloves as the better choice. This change should really occur around the 16% mark since that is our spellhit cap right?

Help me understand this please.
#3406SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
You may be specifying in the "buffs" section that dranei buff of 1% accuracy. Commanding Cheesecake or whatever it's called. Sacreligeous alliance. Quite easy mistake to do if you just assume "click everything" for raidbuff status.
#3407SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Saphirox
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
You may be specifying in the "buffs" section that dranei buff of 1% accuracy. Commanding Cheesecake or whatever it's called. Sacreligeous alliance. Quite easy mistake to do if you just assume "click everything" for raidbuff status.
Easy mistake to make indeed but I have checked of everything to be sure.

Last edited by Saphirox : 03/09/08 at 12:39 PM.
#3408SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Saphirox View Post
Experimenting showed me what seems to be a 15% hitcap built into the script, as soon as I geared for more than 15% (Elemental Precision included) it shows 20spelldmg to gloves as the better choice and when I drop below 15% it shows 15 spellhit on gloves as the better choice. This change should really occur around the 16% mark since that is our spellhit cap right?
That sounds perfectly fine. You overcap hit with your glove enchant.


If you have 16% hit, spell hit does nothing. Damage is the choice.
If you have 15.5% hit, the hit enchant gives you 0.5% hit (as you cap at 16%), which is ~12 damage equivalent or so. Damage enchant is more.
If you drop below ~15.2% hit, you get 0.8% hit from the spell hit enchant, which is about equal to the damage enchant.
Drop under that threshold, and you get even more hit from the enchant, making it better than the damage enchant.

I guess that's what you see as well, from how you describe it.
#3409SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
That sounds perfectly fine. You overcap hit with your glove enchant.


If you have 16% hit, spell hit does nothing. Damage is the choice.
If you have 15.5% hit, the hit enchant gives you 0.5% hit (as you cap at 16%), which is ~12 damage equivalent or so. Damage enchant is more.
If you drop below ~15.2% hit, you get 0.8% hit from the spell hit enchant, which is about equal to the damage enchant.
Drop under that threshold, and you get even more hit from the enchant, making it better than the damage enchant.

I guess that's what you see as well, from how you describe it.
Ah, naturally, thanks for clearing this.
#3410SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zacara
I have a question regarding the use of rawr.mage. I tried this tool and I like its functionality alot, but I can't seem to get it to calculate Darkmoon Card: Crusade? Have I noobed out or is it in fact a bit of an oversight that it is not included among the trinkets?
#3411SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Originally Posted by Zacara View Post
I have a question regarding the use of rawr.mage. I tried this tool and I like its functionality alot, but I can't seem to get it to calculate Darkmoon Card: Crusade? Have I noobed out or is it in fact a bit of an oversight that it is not included among the trinkets?
I'm not sure if this is the thread for your question, the Rawr thead would probably be better.

1. Right Click on a trinket in the comparison side.
2. Click Edit.
3. Click Add.
4. Pull up DMC in wowhead.
5. Enter the item number (In this case 31856)
6. Click Ok.
#3412SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Even with epic gems, the hit enchant gives 15 hit rating at the cost of 20 spell damage, when you could just swap damage to hit at the rate of 6:5, meaning gaining 20 damage on the gloves would cost you, at worst, 18 spell damage. If you're closer to the cap and/or use non-epic gems to cap your hit, the tradeoff favors damage enchant even more.

This holds true for any spec that values hit as the best use of itemization points, but then again if damage is better than hit per itemization point the damage enchant is again superior.

This makes me wonder why you even consider a hit enchant unless none of your gear has any sockets or maybe if you have some wierd (read: unrealistic to have excessive spinel supply) gem availability problems.
#3413SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Duravi
The actual spell hit rates are accurate, however when I click on an item slot and sort the list of items it gives me by dps items at the top of the list still contain gemming for hit. Also the new haste/dmg and pure haste gems from 2.4 aren't implemented yet I take it, would be awesome to get a look at these. Anyways other than that small problem I've had alot of fun planning upgrades and seeing how the number change for different situations, thanks for the great tool!

edit: as a side note my brother plays a warlock and as per the discussion on here he was wondering how firelock would fare next patch. If I check immolate's box and look at incinerate's dps will that be the same as a rotation of keeping immolate up well spamming incinerate otherwise?

Last edited by Duravi : 03/09/08 at 6:32 PM.
#3414SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Saphirox
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Even with epic gems, the hit enchant gives 15 hit rating at the cost of 20 spell damage, when you could just swap damage to hit at the rate of 6:5, meaning gaining 20 damage on the gloves would cost you, at worst, 18 spell damage. If you're closer to the cap and/or use non-epic gems to cap your hit, the tradeoff favors damage enchant even more.

This holds true for any spec that values hit as the best use of itemization points, but then again if damage is better than hit per itemization point the damage enchant is again superior.

This makes me wonder why you even consider a hit enchant unless none of your gear has any sockets or maybe if you have some wierd (read: unrealistic to have excessive spinel supply) gem availability problems.
Im firespecced so the quest for hitcap is very real, thats why I looked into it in the first place, I was just to tired when I started looking at this to realize the difference in dmg tradeoff versus spellhit gain between the two enchants. Looking at it now I see how it works though.
#3415SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by manly View Post
2657 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 10%)
is extremely unlikely too. You need 3 warlocks and 3+ 40/0/21 mages before its worth it, or 3 warlocks + 1+ fire/frost mage + 1+ 40/0/21 mage. And even 1/1 mage might not cut it depending on the performance of your mages.

2762 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 13%, WC, Never Going to Happen)
is probably never going to happen

Likewise, 13% COE is like so remote I wouldn't even dare hope it to happen.
I think here are the more realistic scenarios:
13% COS
13% COS + JOW
10% COE

And add possibly moonkin and ret pally (+3% crit) to the mix.

My guild runs with 3 mages 40/0/21 and 1 wc chill mage.
we also run with 3 to 4 locks and 2 sp.
we also run with 1 ele shammy.
we also have a ret pally. (recently added)

Mage grp is 3 mages/1 ele shammy and 1 sp.

I guess mages in my guild are very lucky then.
#3416SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3spiderella
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
My guild runs with 3 mages 40/0/21 and 1 wc chill mage.
we also run with 3 to 4 locks and 2 sp.
we also run with 1 ele shammy.
we also have a ret pally. (recently added)

Mage grp is 3 mages/1 ele shammy and 1 sp.

I guess mages in my guild are very lucky then.
It isn't about how many of class 'x' you can stack in a raid to give some people the best possible numbers, it's about total raid DPS. The problem Manly is getting at is a mage providing WC, and two warlocks providing maledicted CoS / CoE, hardly seems optimal as the people providing these valuable debuffs lose a large amount of personal DPS to do it. That has to be accounted for to truly min/max from a raid perspective.

I do think there are some plausible raid setups with CoE but no CoS, or even *gasp* maledicted CoE but regular CoS with the incinerate buff.

Does anyone remember the shadowpriest.com simulated DPS table that was around late pre-TBC, early TBC? Something like that (providing theorycrafted DPS for casters of all specs at pretty close to top gearing) would really be handy for this kind of discussion and I think Rawr is a good tool for it as it supports multiple classes unlike a lot of spreadsheets. Unfortunately I can't run Rawr (PPC Mac).
#3417SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
It is also about how many of X class you stack. Nakawe's raid is extremely cloth heavy. You're running 10 cloth DPS there, that's two-thirds of the DPS, a huge percentage. 11 DPS are casters, leaves 4 or 5 spots for other (physical) DPS, I can see a point to ditching even CoR. Not many guilds run under 5 physical DPS.

As far as I can see one needs at least a grp of 2*rogue, dps-warr, enh-sham, cat (which can be one of the tanks for most encounters) and ideally a hunter with imp.hunter's mark somewhere else to optimize your dps. Not that raid make-up is particularly relevant to the thread, just to illustrate why there isn't usually space for so much cloth.

It is not convention to run so much cloth, a lot more guilds typically run 2 or perhaps 3 mages and 2 or 3 locks and no more. Same with SP, 3 is the absolute max with 2 being more common and some guilds running 1.
#3418SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
In regards to Rawr 12.1:

It appears the Darkmoon Card is not showing up under the trinkets to compare. I would assume adding the item in via the Item# will not work due to the funky mechanics of the trinket?
#3419SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Gem choices for 2.4 Arcane Mage

This post is to see how +int, +spirit and +damage gems compare to one another for 2.4's arcane mage. There has been a discussion going on on our guild's class forums and I wanted to see what EJ forum's elite crowd thinks about the conclusions I will list below.

This post might be long but I included every single detail in my calculations.

Ok, here is what I do. Let's say we would like to compare the effects of increases in intellect, spirit and damage (int_inc, spi_inc, damage_inc) .

First I pick the raid buffed values for intellect and spirit (int, spi) and then calculate the base mana regeneration as follows (the formula in 2.4).

base_regen = sqrt(int) * spi / 21.4

1) I calculate spammed AB dps from Rawr (too lazy to account for all raid buffs/debuffs on boss/etc) and multiply it by 1.5 to find avg_ab_dmg. (for my stats, it is roughly equal to 3200)

2) I choose a fight duration, fight_duration. (300 seconds by default)

3) I pick a relative ratio of AB to FB, AB_to_FB_ratio, indicating how many ABs are cast per FB which is going to change from fight to fight and is going to depend on how often you use cycles or pure AB.

4) I assume average cast times of avg_AB_dur = 2 and avg_FB_dur = 2.5 (ignoring lag for the moment and a rough estimate for AB cast time)

5) I calculate the number of ABs and FBs cast in the time with the following formulas.

num_FBs = round(fight_duration / (avg_FB_dur + avg_AB_dur * AB_to_FB_ratio))
num_ABs = AB_to_FB_ratio * num_FBs


6) +1 spell damage increases average AB damage by 1.078 (one_dmg_to_AB) and average FB damage by 1.4875 (one_dmg_to_FB). (I calculated these when I was comparing TLC and DMC in a previous EJ post)

7) Finally, I assume that ANY mana contribution from +int and +spi will be used by the LEAST mana efficient spell being 3-debuffed AB with a mana cost of 672, tri_debuff_AB_mana

8 ) Now, I calculate the total damage earned at the end of the fight due to each stat. Let's start with +dmg (damage_inc)

total_dmg_inc_dmg = damage_inc * (one_dmg_to_AB * num_ABs + one_dmg_to_FB * num_FBs)

As you can see, it is very straightforward.

9) For spirit, I take into account 2 effects. The obvious mana regeneration and the small +dmg contribution due to improved spirit. The contribution from the mana regeneration is calculated as follows. Also, let's not forget the kings multiplier (1.1).

spi_inc = spi_inc * 1.1

spi_regen = sqrt(int) * (spi + spi_inc) / 21.4 - base_regen
mana_regen_spi = spi_regen * 0.6 / 5 * fight_duration
total_dmg_inc_spi_1 = mana_regen_spi / tri_debuff_AB_mana * avg_AB_dmg

The contribution from +dmg from improved spirit is calculated just like the 8th step above.

total_dmg_inc_spi_2 = spi_inc * 0.1 * (one_dmg_to_AB * num_ABs + one_dmg_to_FB * num_FBs)
0.1 multiplier due to improved spirit.

And we just add these 2 effects: total_dmg_inc_spi = total_dmg_inc_spi_1 + total_dmg_inc_spi_2

10) Now, for the intellect, we have 2 major contributions. The obvious increase in mana + evocation and the increase in spell damage due to mind mastery. Also we shouldn't forget the kings (1.1) and the arcane mind (1.15) multipliers to calculate the actual increase in intellect.

int_inc = int_inc * 1.15 * 1.1

The mana regen contribution is calculated just like the spirit.

int_regen = sqrt(int + int_inc) * spi / 21.4 - base_regen
mana_regen_int = int_regen * 0.6 / 5 * fight_duration + int_inc * 15 + int_inc * 15 * 0.6 (includes evocation)
total_dmg_inc_int_1 = mana_regen_int / tri_debuff_AB_mana * avg_AB_dmg

And the +dmg contribution is calculated by taking into account both mind mastery and the increase in spell critical chance due to increased intellect.

int_mind_mastery_dmg = int_inc * 0.25
int_crit_dmg = int_inc / 80 * 22.1 * 0.8 ( from item budgets, 1 crit ~ 0.8 damage for 40/0/21 and 80 int gives 22.1 crit rating)
int_dmg = int_mind_mastery_dmg + int_crit_dmg
total_dmg_inc_int_2 = int_dmg * (one_dmg_to_AB * num_ABs + one_dmg_to_FB * num_FBs)


We just add these 2 effects again, just like spirit: total_dmg_inc_int = total_dmg_inc_int_1 + total_dmg_inc_int_2

11) Compare the 3 values found from 8-9-10.

So, to sum up, I tried to include every imaginable effect I could. And the only assumption I make is that you will complete the fight with no mana and the extra mana coming from regeneration will be used only by trible debuffed AB spam (think of it as a way to burn that extra mana).

I triple checked all this stuff and yet to find a mistake. I hope I am making a mistake somewhere because the results I found GREATLY favors int and spi when compared to dmg.

For example, for 3200 average AB damage (which is quite possible in a raid scenario) and 720 int and 400 spi, here is what I get for an increase of +1 in each stat (total damage contributed at the end of the fight):

total_dmg_inc_spi = 255.6147
total_dmg_inc_int = 323.9071
total_dmg_inc_dmg = 174.2790

Now, if we assume less AB damage, such as 2800,

total_dmg_inc_spi = 226.0592
total_dmg_inc_int = 296.3984
total_dmg_inc_dmg = 174.2790

They get closer but still int is much more favored.

So, what do you guys think about this? Will an arcane mage for int/spi and even change all his enchants / food & elixir buffs come patch 2.4?
#3420SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Sinless View Post
7) Finally, I assume that ANY mana contribution from +int and +spi will be used by the LEAST mana efficient spell being 3-debuffed AB with a mana cost of 672, tri_debuff_AB_mana


total_dmg_inc_spi_1 = mana_regen_spi / tri_debuff_AB_mana * avg_AB_dmg

I triple checked all this stuff and yet to find a mistake. I hope I am making a mistake somewhere because the results I found GREATLY favors int and spi when compared to dmg.
Your mistake is that you assume that if you gain another 672 mana from spi/int, you gain another 3.2k damage from one AB. That's not the case though. You replace something (a FrB or a rotation) with an AB.

AB is 1.5s, FrB is 2.5s, 2.5/1.5 = 1.66.

So, you can replace one FrB by 1.66 ABs. Calculate the difference in mana cost and in damage.
That's your real manadump => damage conversion.

You used a ~6 DPM conversion. It is much worse though if you redo the maths.
I did something similar a few days ago, and had between 1.5 and 2 DPM conversion,
#3421SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Your mistake is that you assume that if you gain another 672 mana from spi/int, you gain another 3.2k damage from one AB. That's not the case though. You replace something (a FrB or a rotation) with an AB.

AB is 1.5s, FrB is 2.5s, 2.5/1.5 = 1.66.

So, you can replace one FrB by 1.66 ABs. Calculate the difference in mana cost and in damage.
That's your real manadump => damage conversion.

You used a ~6 DPM conversion. It is much worse though if you redo the maths.
I did something similar a few days ago, and had between 1.5 and 2 DPM conversion,
Ok, so you are basically saying that the mistake with these calculations was to assume a high DPM conversion.

But, isn't 6 DPM the lowest you can get with any spell? Could you please explain how you were able to get 1.5 - 2 DPM values?

Also, even when I assume a 2DPM conversion (i.e. assume my avg_AB_dmg = 672 * 2) here are the figures I get:

total_dmg_inc_spi = 118.4772
total_dmg_inc_int = 196.2670
total_dmg_inc_dmg = 174.2790

Making +12 damage gems equal if not better than +10 int gems and making spirit very much less valuable. But, I don't understand how you can go as low as 2 DPM.

Thanks.
#3422SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
I know this was just covered above, and I've looked over Rawr about 10 times now to make sure I'm not a blind fool, but I believe hit cap is currently bugged.

Talent selected is the built-in 2/48/11 spec.

Under Spell Stats:
Spell Hit Rate: 12.88%

Under buffs:
Inspiring Presence is checked (which should be 1% to hit)

Under Talents:
Elemental Precision: 3 (which should be 3% to hit)

The total hit rate should be 16.88%, or .88% above the hit cap.

Yet when doing the Comparisons: Custom -> Item Budget it list Spell Hit Rating as 760.25 "worth". Which I'm guessing is what .12% of hit would be worth.

I'm guessing the code is off by 1% to hit. I checked to make sure that the checkbox for Inspiring Presence is working, and it is. The value of Hit goes from 760.25 to 5001.625 when toggling the switch off.
#3423SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Sinless View Post
Ok, so you are basically saying that the mistake with these calculations was to assume a high DPM conversion.
But, isn't 6 DPM the lowest you can get with any spell? Could you please explain how you were able to get 1.5 - 2 DPM values?
It's kind of what I wrote right there ...

You can replace 1 Frostbolt by 1.66 Arcane Blasts - since either has 2.5s unhasted cast time total.
mana_diff = 1.66*mana_3stack_arcane_blast - 1*mana_frostbolt
damage_diff = 1.66*damage_arcane_blast - 1*damage_frostbolt
Then damage_diff/mana_diff is the DPM rate at which you can burn mana via AB spam.


Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Under Spell Stats:
Spell Hit Rate: 12.88%

Yet when doing the Comparisons: Custom -> Item Budget it list Spell Hit Rating as 760.25 "worth". Which I'm guessing is what .12% of hit would be worth.
Spell hit/crit rate in Rawr.mage includes buffs, but not specific talents.
So, your 12.88% hit splits into 8.88% hit on gear, 4% aura/totem.
Fire gets 3% from EP, putting you at 15.88% for fire, 0.12% from cap.
#3424SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
I know this was just covered above, and I've looked over Rawr about 10 times now to make sure I'm not a blind fool, but I believe hit cap is currently bugged.

Talent selected is the built-in 2/48/11 spec.

Under Spell Stats:
Spell Hit Rate: 12.88%

Under buffs:
Inspiring Presence is checked (which should be 1% to hit)

Under Talents:
Elemental Precision: 3 (which should be 3% to hit)

The total hit rate should be 16.88%, or .88% above the hit cap.

Yet when doing the Comparisons: Custom -> Item Budget it list Spell Hit Rating as 760.25 "worth". Which I'm guessing is what .12% of hit would be worth.

I'm guessing the code is off by 1% to hit. I checked to make sure that the checkbox for Inspiring Presence is working, and it is. The value of Hit goes from 760.25 to 5001.625 when toggling the switch off.
Inspiring Presence is included in the Spell Hit Rate since it affects all spells, so total hit rate is actually 15.88%.
#3425SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
In regards to Rawr 12.1:

It appears the Darkmoon Card is not showing up under the trinkets to compare. I would assume adding the item in via the Item# will not work due to the funky mechanics of the trinket?
You can add it by item id, but it is just modeled as a straight +80 dmg.
#3426SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Yeah remember the DPM of swapping from spell A to spell B is (A.dps - B.dps)/(A.mana/sec - B.mana/sec) as what actually matters is the difference in DPS VS how much mana it costed you. This also gives you in return how much damage would be gained by regenerating X mana, assuming you're already casting partially spell A and partially spell B and never going completely dry. Of course even a small conversion of mana to extra damage needs serious consideration - think how fire has so much leftover mana you just use non-mana consumeables to turn some mana into damage, which generally gives quite under a 2 DPM conversion, with exact number depending on what consumeables you're swapping and what they're stacked with.
#3427SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Vontre
I believe we determined via some divine rituals in accordance with the irc gods that an optimal clothie setup was now 1 spriest, 1 affliction lock with maledicted CoE and 19 destro, and everything else fire mages/fire locks. The numbers we used to conclude this were very shrewd, and by shrewd I mean we didn't use any numbers at all, but if you think about it there's really no way this wouldn't be the case. Perhaps dump the affliction lock and spriest for more fire mages/locks, but I guess you lose Shadow Embrace then and that's kindof good when the tank is getting squished by a big demony thing in Sunwell. I mustn't dwell in the realm of numbers for much longer, for even posting of this brevity has cut severely into my required daily allotment of Smash Bros. Brawl.
#3428SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Waterbolt should be counted as 3.0s cast time, an Elemental can get off 15 Waterbolts before it expires.
The reason is cast delay which causes breaks between chain casting.

I had checked some logs a while ago and it seemed like 15 Waterbolts per summoned elemental.
Decided to make a definitive test with a shaman (mana spring/tide) and Dr. Boom.

Result was - surprise - 15 casts. 14 hits (2 of which crit) and 1 resists (resists are not registered in DM, you can either trust me or redo the test yourself).
The Elemental died shortly after starting its 15th, was around 0.5 seconds into the cast and had 2 seconds remaining.

The Elemental died shortly after starting its 15th, was around 0.5 seconds into the cast.
It got as low as around 800 mana at the end.

I have ~80 ms ping since I added the registry edit thingy a month or two ago.
#3429SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Myrdinn
Hello guys,

I did look around with the search function but did not find easily an answer.
You are playing with 40/0/21 spec in 2.4, that is beating 2/48/11 fire spec.
Is 2T5 needed for this or is 40/0/21 superior even with better/lower stuff ?

Sorry if it has been clarified somewhere before...
#3430SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
Originally Posted by Myrdinn View Post
Hello guys,

I did look around with the search function but did not find easily an answer.
You are playing with 40/0/21 spec in 2.4, that is beating 2/48/11 fire spec.
Is 2T5 needed for this or is 40/0/21 superior even with better/lower stuff ?

Sorry if it has been clarified somewhere before...
look at previous pages and at www.magegraf.com
#3431SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Myrdinn
Thanks for your help jogjog...
My understanding so far is 40/0/21 is good with 2T5, 4T6, only.
But without 2T5, 2/48/11 is still the way to go.

I just wanted to be sure, sorry...
#3432SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Genocidal
Originally Posted by Sinless View Post
Also, even when I assume a 2DPM conversion (i.e. assume my avg_AB_dmg = 672 * 2) here are the figures I get:

total_dmg_inc_spi = 118.4772
total_dmg_inc_int = 196.2670
total_dmg_inc_dmg = 174.2790

Making +12 damage gems equal if not better than +10 int gems and making spirit very much less valuable. But, I don't understand how you can go as low as 2 DPM.

Thanks.
That pretty much contradicts what Kavan stated a few pages back; where the value of spirit was much more desirable. So what you’re basically saying is that, even with BoK taken into consideration, it’s not recommended to stack spirit gems on blue sockets for the 40/0/21 and that in case such sockets appeared then they should be ignored.

[EDIT] typo
#3433SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3jogjog
The interest of gemming 12dmg is also the future, like respecing fire for an event who require fire...

int/spi gems are only viable for pure full arcanes fans like "hey, 48/0/13 forever".

But it's not a very flexible way to gem, full 12 dmg being so good for all spec.
#3434SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
The best case for spirit in Rawr that I found was 48/0/13 with 2T5, 4T6, JoW, no CoE, no WC, 4 minute fight, mage armour.

There, +10 int (2653) and +12 (2624) dmg had the same value, +10 spirit (1334) was half as good, +10 haste (1696) and +10 crit (1703) was between those.
A TLC would increase the value of crit, but the update with a proper TLC isn't published yet (I think).

Even without CoE/WC, 40/0/21 would do more damage. The stat rating for that spec would be +10 int = 2712, +12 dmg = 2640, +10 crit = 1998, +10 haste = 1442, +10 spirit = 1240.


While still surprised at the high value of intellect, I have yet to see a setting where spirit gems are decent.
#3435SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Genocidal
So should there be a dmg socket bonus and one blue gem, we can use the intellect with mp5 gem to fill it in. However, if the socket bonus is anything else or if there is more than one blue socket to activate it, there's no point in gemming anything other than intellect and ignoring the bonus for arcane builds. What I find annoying is the fact that mp5 doesn't work well with BoK, unlike spirit, but such is the way of things, I suppose.

Roywyn: yes it surprises me as well.
#3436SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Genocidal View Post
What I find annoying is the fact that mp5 doesn't work well with BoK, unlike spirit, but such is the way of things, I suppose.
The 2.4 changes made mp5 useless for priests and druids because spirit is just flat out better for them.
I honestly hope that they just give every class 30% spirit regen while casting and remove mp5 when WotLK comes.
#3437SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3xiaoxin21
Originally Posted by Genocidal View Post
So should there be a dmg socket bonus and one blue gem, we can use the intellect with mp5 gem to fill it in.
I would think [Fluorescent Tanzanite] may be a better choice?
#3438SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Genocidal
Originally Posted by xiaoxin21 View Post
I would think [Fluorescent Tanzanite] may be a better choice?
With the 2.4 change that states you can stack more than one of those and the fact that you're willing to hunt in blood Furnace for it? Yes.
#3439SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
While still surprised at the high value of intellect, I have yet to see a setting where spirit gems are decent.
Human mages will have a better spirit rating (10% racial buff). However, I doubt it will make a big difference. I suspect those numbers are for an undead mage, correct?
#3440SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Queuetip
Haste proc and GCD

Going back to the topic about Haste proc from Ashtongue trinket, if it gets activated off an instant (Arcane Explosion), the first GCD will be its normal length due to the trinket proccing off the hit instead of the cast. It is pretty trivial for overall damage from an AE spam, but it further shows the disadvantages of the trinket, even after 2.4. I'm liking the idea of haste dynamically changing cast / GCD more and more. It's doubtful Blizzard would even bother with a mechanic like that.
#3441SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Aeryn
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
While still surprised at the high value of intellect, I have yet to see a setting where spirit gems are decent.
What about fights in which you use lots of non-damaging spells? Spellsteal, sheep, blink, decurse, frost/fireward etc. Sure, compared to damaging spells you don't usually cast them that much, but even in basic tank and spank fights, I have Ice Barrier up almost constantly, except when I know there won't be any incoming damage. I also tend to blink fairly often.

As far as theorycrafting goes, Rawr assumes that all mana is used for damaging spells, right? I wonder how int, spirit etc. would fare in these calculations if some of that mana was used differently (read: "lost").

Last edited by Aeryn : 03/11/08 at 11:22 AM.
#3442SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
Question Regarding Rawr:

I do not see the check box for Mana Spring from a shaman. Does the program assume Mana Spring for alliance if the Inspiring Presence is checked?
#3443SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
Additional Questions about RAWR:

Dicking around with the built in 40/0/21 Arcane spec and I'm a bit confused by the spell cycle chosen. Using the fairly complicated ABFrB3FrBSC rotation nets around 2,146 dps. When I switch off AB Cycles, and leave on Smart Optimization it results in 1,1776 dps and a large chunk of time spent wanding (109secs). Only when turning off Smart Optimization do I get what I was expecting, a bit less AB spam (20 seconds less), but no wanding and using FrB which results in 2,130 dps.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it's a bit counter-intuitive to turn off something listed as smart optimization to get a 400 dps increase

Maybe for the next build put a mouse over tip for the Smart Optimization tool tip?

On a side note: Is this thread the best spot to post these questions about RAWR and TC? Maybe create a new thread about RAWR Mage TC? Or should we just PM Kavan if we think we have found a bug? The only reason I continue to post in this thread is that others might have the same questions or have already figured out the answer and save Kavan a bit of time and trouble.

Maybe we could start up a wowwiki section devoted to RAWR.Mage?
#3444SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
It's just "Rawr", not "RAWR". Wherever you want to post feedback, is probably fine. Here for anything specific to Rawr.Mage, or the Rawr Model Development thread if it appears to be a general Rawr bug. Another option that we all read alot is our CodePlex site, Rawr - Home, where you can post discussions, feature requests, bug reports, etc.
#3445SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duravi
I have a question about the [Nightfall] axe. Pre-BC it was something we use for a decent amount of fights (C'thun and Loatheb come to mind) but I havent seen much discussion on it lately. Is this something still worth using or has the change of raid size from 40 to 25 made that shaman/warrior's dps loss from using it too great?
#3446SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zure
Originally Posted by Duravi View Post
I have a question about the [Nightfall] axe. Pre-BC it was something we use for a decent amount of fights (C'thun and Loatheb come to mind) but I havent seen much discussion on it lately. Is this something still worth using or has the change of raid size from 40 to 25 made that shaman/warrior's dps loss from using it too great?
Nightfall and TBC raiding
Retro weapons - Nightfall

Those are the first two hits that come up if you simply enter the word "nightfall" into the search box at the top of every page on this site.
#3447SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinless
Yes, my mistake was comparing the extra damage generated by the extra mana from intellect and spirit to no damage, whereas I was supposed to compare it to cycle damage. When I did that, I came to the same conclusion as Kavan and Rawr. 1 intellect is about 1.2+ damage making +10 intellect gems a very good replacement for yellow sockets. But I wouldn't go out my way to replace enchants such as +40 spell damage to weapon with +30 intellect.

Where does haste fit in these equations? Lhivera's calculator puts 1 haste at 1.16 damage which makes it seem pretty valuable.
#3448SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Duravi
Those are the first two hits that come up if you simply enter the word "nightfall" into the search box at the top of every page on this site.
The threads you linked to are full of speculation and no definite numbers. The only numbers I see are for gorefiend and the guy comes to the conclusion he should be using it where as almost all the speculators say they don't use it. Even the speculator's who do come from posts made a very long time ago, when raid dps was lower and before many class changes in recent patches. So yes I already searched for it and learned almost nothing. Also I'm asking if people are using someone with this NOW for fights, preferably people that have been killing illidan for awhile. Those threads are pretty useless if you took a look at them.

Last edited by Duravi : 03/11/08 at 10:25 PM.
#3449SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
Originally Posted by Aeryn View Post
As far as theorycrafting goes, Rawr assumes that all mana is used for damaging spells, right? I wonder how int, spirit etc. would fare in these calculations if some of that mana was used differently (read: "lost").
That is the assumption yes. You can simulate the effect you want by lowering sh priest regen/entering negative regen and using a dps time lower than 100%.

Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Question Regarding Rawr:

I do not see the check box for Mana Spring from a shaman. Does the program assume Mana Spring for alliance if the Inspiring Presence is checked?
It will be included in next build.

Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Additional Questions about RAWR:

Dicking around with the built in 40/0/21 Arcane spec and I'm a bit confused by the spell cycle chosen. Using the fairly complicated ABFrB3FrBSC rotation nets around 2,146 dps. When I switch off AB Cycles, and leave on Smart Optimization it results in 1,1776 dps and a large chunk of time spent wanding (109secs). Only when turning off Smart Optimization do I get what I was expecting, a bit less AB spam (20 seconds less), but no wanding and using FrB which results in 2,130 dps.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it's a bit counter-intuitive to turn off something listed as smart optimization to get a 400 dps increase

Maybe for the next build put a mouse over tip for the Smart Optimization tool tip?

On a side note: Is this thread the best spot to post these questions about RAWR and TC? Maybe create a new thread about RAWR Mage TC? Or should we just PM Kavan if we think we have found a bug? The only reason I continue to post in this thread is that others might have the same questions or have already figured out the answer and save Kavan a bit of time and trouble.

Maybe we could start up a wowwiki section devoted to RAWR.Mage?
Well I guess Smart Optimization is not that smart I did recently add Frostbolt to be used with arcane builds when optimization is on so this wouldn't happen, but your point still stands. The reason why I added that option is that when you have a lot of cooldown effects for stacking and a lot of different spell options the number of combinations that are possible is enormous. If you have 2 on use trinkets, deep fire build with molten fury, icy veins, heroism, destro pots, flame caps, drums that's a lot of combinations. In order to make the problem more tractable I disable some spells that based on testing were never part of a solution, for example AB cycles in fire builds or destro pots in arcane builds.

If you find that in normal situations some options are left out then let me know and I'll fix it.

Last edited by Kavan : 03/11/08 at 10:32 PM.
#3450SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Prod
Jewelcrafting and Tailoring items now require profession skill to wear.

The question is then, what 2 professions maximize dps in 2.4 when combined with Sunwell gear
Enchanting, Tailoring, Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking for drums.

I'll be looking at with and without ele shamans, personally. And without Alliance +hit buff.
#3451SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
My guild actually just got a Nightfall for our off-tank, but we've yet to test it out on teron to see what kind of difference it would make.

As far as what professions are the top for sunwell now...read my post here http://elitistjerks.com/667022-post1000.html I didn't include JC in my comparison as I feel the new haste/dmg/hit neck is better for 2/48/11+1 at least.
#3452SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Searix
On the issues of choosing professions now that the crafted items are profession locked

Sunfire 2 peice is coming out as 18.24 dps over Transmutated item alternatives (Gloves of Tyri's Power, Robes of Ghostly Hatred) due to large wasted points on spirit, but 48.51 dps over tempest alternatives.

Pendant of Sunfire is a 4.98 dps LOSS over amulet of unfettered magics, but a 9.79 dps gain over translucent spellthread necklace, the ring is 2 dps over ZA 3rd chest ring and a DPS loss over exalted hyjal (due to proc)

Leatherworking is a neutral dps change for yourself, but ~75 dps total for the other 4 people in the group. Notice this is at a 1.5 second global cooldown, and doesn't consider popping drums right before cooldowns to amplify the effect.

Enchanting is a flat 20 dps increase.

Conclusion
If you...
-Only clear sunwell trash and dont have tempest: Tailoring*/Leatherworking
-Are progressing deep through sunwell and dont have access to transmutated items: Tailoring*/Leatherworking
-Are progressing deep through sunwell and have access to trans items: Tailoring* OR Enchanting/Leatherworking

Footnote:
* - DOES NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE DPS LOSS OF HAVING TO WEAR ADDITIONAL POORER PEICES OF t6 FOR 4 PEICE, OR UNDISCOVERED PEICES IN THEIR RESPECTIVE SLOTS THAT COULD BE BETTER

Last edited by Searix : 03/13/08 at 4:05 AM.
#3453SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3xiaoxin21
I will not consider keeping enchanting as the rings enchant will not be lost even after dropping enchanting, if I remember correctly. Hence enchanting is a 0 dps increase.
#3454SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Only problem with dropping enchanting for rings is spending 3000-4000 gold respeccing enchanting and back if a better ring drops, which with half the instances's loot still being undiscovered may happen
#3455SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Prod
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
On the issues of choosing professions now that the crafted items are profession locked

Sunfire 2 peice is coming out as 18.24 dps over Transmutated item alternatives (Gloves of Tyri's Power, Robes of Ghostly Hatred) due to large wasted points on spirit, but 48.51 dps over tempest alternatives.

Pendant of Sunfire is a 4.98 dps LOSS over amulet of unfettered magics, but a 9.79 dps gain over translucent spellthread necklace, the ring is 2 dps over ZA 3rd chest ring and a DPS loss over exalted hyjal (due to proc)

Leatherworking is a neutral dps change for yourself, but ~75 dps total for the other 4 people in the group. Notice this is at a 1.5 second global cooldown, and doesn't consider popping drums right before cooldowns to amplify the effect.

Enchanting is a flat 20 dps increase.

Conclusion
If you...
-Only clear sunwell trash and dont have tempest: Tailoring*/Leatherworking
-Are progressing deep through sunwell and dont have access to transmutated items: Tailoring*/Leatherworking
-Are progressing deep through sunwell and have access to trans items: Tailoring* OR Enchanting/Leatherworking

Footnote:
* - DOES NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE DPS LOSS OF HAVING TO WEAR ADDITIONAL POORER PEICES OF t6 FOR 4 PEICE, OR UNDISCOVERED PEICES IN THEIR RESPECTIVE SLOTS THAT COULD BE BETTER
This has to be inaccurate for several reasons.
25crit
35haste
36dmg

vs

15hit
32haste
39dmg

Hit rating is everywhere and I feel the JC allows you to utilize your sockets better as well. For those calculations I assumed 10haste gem and 2dmg bonus, but you could hit gem if needed.

The gloves and ring were not bound to professions either from what I understand. Also the Hyjal ring was nerfed in its proc duration on PTR.

As far as T6, ideally you would use the t6 gloves + new items.
#3456SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Doing gear comparisons with Rawr, and just looking at the over all stats, Pendant of Sunfire is better when you're still using a hit mh or oh combo set, but once you're to KJ, and replaced all that hit stuff, then Amulet of Unfretttered Magics is better.
#3457SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Searix
Originally Posted by Prod View Post
This has to be inaccurate for several reasons.
25crit
35haste
36dmg

vs

15hit
32haste
39dmg

Hit rating is everywhere and I feel the JC allows you to utilize your sockets better as well. For those calculations I assumed 10haste gem and 2dmg bonus, but you could hit gem if needed.

The gloves and ring were not bound to professions either from what I understand. Also the Hyjal ring was nerfed in its proc duration on PTR.

As far as T6, ideally you would use the t6 gloves + new items.
I did my calculations with 6 spell/5 haste for yellow slots, which is the same dps as 10 haste but better dpm, but whatever floats your boat, i also assumed hit rating could always be used.

Last edited by Searix : 03/13/08 at 4:40 AM.
#3458SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Mystz0r
Don't forget the BoP jewelcrafting only gems
#3459SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3epiphenom
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
Pendant of Sunfire is a 4.98 dps LOSS over amulet of unfettered magics, but a 9.79 dps gain over translucent spellthread necklace, the ring is 2 dps over ZA 3rd chest ring and a DPS loss over exalted hyjal (due to proc)
Okay, no, this doesn't seem right. The Exalted Hyjal ring doesn't even beat Ring of Ancient Knowledge across most timeframes. How are you modeling the proc? Keep in mind that in 2.4, chances are that it will retain its 60 second internal cooldown against only a 10 second proc duration, and you can't use the same formula that you use for a clickable trinket.
#3460SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Etherealz
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Doing gear comparisons with Rawr, and just looking at the over all stats, Pendant of Sunfire is better when you're still using a hit mh or oh combo set, but once you're to KJ, and replaced all that hit stuff, then Amulet of Unfretttered Magics is better.
Assuming you don't gem hit on the necklace, we're comparing 25 crit to 15 hit. 25 crit is about 20 damage worth. 20 spell damage worth of spinels is equal to 16.7 hit in lionseye, so you would still be better off sacrificing the 20 spell damage worth in gems for a better net hit gain.

There's a lot of red / yellow sockets on the new gear so I'm quite confident everyone will be able to socket more hit if needed.

Although viewing the necks from a raw stat equivalency viewpoint you would conclude the magic's neck better - in fact looking at an overall gear setup I think the JC neck is better.

Last edited by Etherealz : 03/13/08 at 2:35 PM.
#3461SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by epiphenom View Post
Okay, no, this doesn't seem right. The Exalted Hyjal ring doesn't even beat Ring of Ancient Knowledge across most timeframes. How are you modeling the proc? Keep in mind that in 2.4, chances are that it will retain its 60 second internal cooldown against only a 10 second proc duration, and you can't use the same formula that you use for a clickable trinket.
At low haste T6 level, RoAK beats BotES by 5 DPS. At high haste sunwell gear, BotES beats RoAK by 1 DPS.

Originally Posted by Mystz0r View Post
Don't forget the BoP jewelcrafting only gems
[Don Julio's Heart] is a flat +2 damage, [Blood of Amber] is worse than [Reckless Pyrestone] for yellow slots, [Great Bladestone] is not in the game according to databases.

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Doing gear comparisons with Rawr, and just looking at the over all stats, Pendant of Sunfire is better when you're still using a hit mh or oh combo set, but once you're to KJ, and replaced all that hit stuff, then Amulet of Unfetttered Magics is better.
[Pendant of Sunfire] is a +14.8 DPS to +15.52 DPS increase over amulet of unfettered magics, in the case you have +0% hit, +3% hit or +4% from party auras (Draenei Racial, Totem of Wrath). It's a +12.43 DPS increase if you have a +1% hit party aura (i.e. a Draenei, but no ToW).
You get another +2.24 DPS from the unique +14 damage gem.

Changing your necklace will require you to change up to 3 more pieces of your gear and regem them to go from one opimised setup to another.

This is assuming a setup with T6 Cowl, (Bracers), Belt, Boots, Skull and head enchant for 81 base hit rating, using Hellfire-Encased Pendant
Amulet of Unfettered Magics is -1.9 DPS, +15 hit, Loop of Forged Power is -3.4 DPS, +19 hit, Mana Attuned Band is -8.02 DPS, +18 hit, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is -12.2 DPS, +17 hit, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is -22.12 DPS, +28 hit, changing a Reckless into a Veiled Pyrestone is -5.48 DPS, +5 hit.

Being 1 hit under the cap is -2.04 DPS. It's worth regemming if you're 3 or 4 hit rating below the cap, but not if you're 1 or 2 hit rating below the cap (after recovering all multiples of 5 via gems). Usually, if you're 2 hit rating below the cap, there is another gear setup that yields more damage.

With those numbers taken from Rawr, you can optimise your gear for different hit requirements, with and without the Sunfire Pendant.


Jewelcrafting
[Pendant of Sunfire] is a +24.55 DPS upgrade over [Hellfire-Encased Pendant]. It is around +15.** DPS upgrade over [Amulet of Unfettered Magics].
[Don Julio's Heart] provides another +2.24 DPS, but you can continue to use that after dropping jewelcarafting.

Tailoring
[Sunfire Robe] is a +25.91 DPS upgrade over [Robes of Ghostly Hatred].
It is a +49.35 DPS upgrade over [Robes of the Tempest], if you adjust to 4T6 and hit cap again.

Enchanting
Enchanting provides +26.83 DPS via ring enchants.


Conclusion if you maximise everything

1) Get Jewelcrafting, make a couple of +14 damage gems, then drop it. This ensures that you always have one +14 damage gem socketed somewhere.
2) Get Enchanting. Acquire a Loop of forged Power as soon as you can. You need to convince someone to give you 5 Sunmotes to craft it. The pattern itself is a trash drop, so some guild should get a pattern within a few days.
Enchant the ring, then drop Enchanting.
3) Get Leatherworking to make and use Drums of Battle.
4) Get Tailoring to make and wear a Sunfire Robe. Curse the if it the pattern won't drop and no other guild sells it either.


Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
Assuming you don't gem hit on the necklace, we're comparing 25 crit to 15 hit. 25 crit is about 20 damage worth. 20 spell damage worth of spinels is equal to 16.7 hit, so you would still be better off sacrificing the 20 spell damage worth in gems for a better net hit gain.
Gemming grants you +5 hit at the cost of -6 damage or -5 haste (you lose less by dropping haste for hit).
Changing items grants you +hit at a much much lower cost than gemming for it.

Loop of Forged Power is +19 hit for -3 damage, , Mana Attuned Band is +18 hit for -7.2 damge, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is +17 hit for -11 damage, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is +28 hit for -20 damage.
Those are far better ways to gain +hit than gemming for it.

Even though there is less +hit on gear now, gemming for it is generally not advised.
You may need to gem if you're 3-10 hit away from the cap and swapping gear would overcap you, but you won't gem larger amounts of +hit unless you miss several pieces of spell hit gear from T6 instances.





All the data comes from Rawr for a 360s fight.
All number will change as you swap gear, so it won't always be 100% correct.

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/13/08 at 7:50 AM.
#3462SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Lepew
I wanted to run this calculation by you guys. The problem I was solving was 'what haste rating would exactly fit 3frostbolts into the AB debuff cooldown of 8s. The equation I was using was

A*(1-C1/C2)= H, where A is a constant (1500ish), C1 is hasted cast time, C2 is unhasted cast time, and H is the haste rating.

The problem seems to come down to C2 =3x2.5+1.5s= 9s, C1=8s (the AB debuff), so C1/C2 goes to 8/9 which was about 175 haste rating.

My question was this- do you use 2.5s or 3.0s with frostbolt in the equation? IE does imp frostbolt lower the base cast time in the haste equation? Did I do this part wrong?

Also has anyone else thought of using haste rating to engineer a tighter rotation, much as hunters use bow speed to achieve a tighter shot rotation? Is this more effective than just going for +dmg?

The way I see it is if you optimize your frostbolt casting speed, you spend more time ABing, and less time Frostbolting for higher DPS. As you run off of optimal cycles, you will not AB as much since the debuff falls off.
#3463SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kikler
So basically if you have LW / Ench as you should atm all you got to do is get the new ring ASAP , enchant it and specc Tailoring (http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ry/profreq.jpg)
#3464SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cardynal
That's assuming there aren't any better rings off of the last 2 bosses who's loot is yet to be discovered. If there is a ring off of one of these bosses, it could be quite a while before you could drop enchanting to do this since they haven't disclosed how long it will take the gates to automatically open.
#3465SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by epiphenom View Post
Okay, no, this doesn't seem right. The Exalted Hyjal ring doesn't even beat Ring of Ancient Knowledge across most timeframes. How are you modeling the proc? Keep in mind that in 2.4, chances are that it will retain its 60 second internal cooldown against only a 10 second proc duration, and you can't use the same formula that you use for a clickable trinket.
In 2.3, exalted ring is 15s duration 45s internal cooldown.
In 2.4, exalted ring is 10s duration 45s internal cooldown.

In other words, [Loop of Forged Power][Mana Attuned Band] seems like the best combo, with [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] swap-in if youre hit capped. And possibly use the exalted ring solely for trash (ie: a series of short dps times (< 30 seconds) with time off so you can dodge the cooldown.
#3466SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Muphrid
Originally Posted by Lepew View Post
I wanted to run this calculation by you guys. The problem I was solving was 'what haste rating would exactly fit 3frostbolts into the AB debuff cooldown of 8s. The equation I was using was

A*(1-C1/C2)= H, where A is a constant (1500ish), C1 is hasted cast time, C2 is unhasted cast time, and H is the haste rating.

The problem seems to come down to C2 =3x2.5+1.5s= 9s, C1=8s (the AB debuff), so C1/C2 goes to 8/9 which was about 175 haste rating.

My question was this- do you use 2.5s or 3.0s with frostbolt in the equation? IE does imp frostbolt lower the base cast time in the haste equation? Did I do this part wrong?

Also has anyone else thought of using haste rating to engineer a tighter rotation, much as hunters use bow speed to achieve a tighter shot rotation? Is this more effective than just going for +dmg?

The way I see it is if you optimize your frostbolt casting speed, you spend more time ABing, and less time Frostbolting for higher DPS. As you run off of optimal cycles, you will not AB as much since the debuff falls off.
You need to be using a different formula: H = A*(C2/C1 - 1).

The original casting time is the talented casting time, 2.5 seconds.
#3467SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Etherealz
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post

Gemming grants you +5 hit at the cost of -6 damage or -5 haste (you lose less by dropping haste for hit).
Changing items grants you +hit at a much much lower cost than gemming for it.

Loop of Forged Power is +19 hit for -3 damage, , Mana Attuned Band is +18 hit for -7.2 damge, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is +17 hit for -11 damage, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is +28 hit for -20 damage.
Those are far better ways to gain +hit than gemming for it.

Even though there is less +hit on gear now, gemming for it is generally not advised.
You may need to gem if you're 3-10 hit away from the cap and swapping gear would overcap you, but you won't gem larger amounts of +hit unless you miss several pieces of spell hit gear from T6 instances.
I was talking about the neck tradeoff only, so I think you missed the point entirely. In the case of the neck - gemming for hit is better.

On the neck to gain 15 hit you are sacrificing 20 dmg
In gems you would gain 16.7 hit for the same 20 dmg sacrifice. I could also describe it as gaining 15 hit at the cost of only 18 damage.
#3468SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Rustyshrapnel
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
You need to be using a different formula: H = A*(C2/C1 - 1).

The original casting time is the talented casting time, 2.5 seconds.

Using Lepew's constant and Muphrid's formula with a base cast of 2.5s, I get 187.5 as my haste result. Right?

Now the question is if 188 haste rating is worth gearing for pre-Sunwell, given the kinda craptacular way haste is itemized at the moment.
#3469SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3epiphenom
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
At low haste T6 level, RoAK beats BotES by 5 DPS. At high haste sunwell gear, BotES beats RoAK by 1 DPS.
Right. Searix was claiming that the exalted Hyjal ring was beating Loop of Forged Power, though, and I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
#3470SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
We know the loots from the first 4 bosses in Sunwell currently, so using those bosses as a basis of gear choices, I've been using Tempest of Chaos + Heart of the Pit weapon combo which could be why I'm seeing such difference's in my numbers. Dropping the Tempest of Chaos for Sunflare along the line does put the Amulet of Unfeterred Magics at a higher dps gain than Pendant of Sunfire.

But a lot of this is varying based off the speed of the gate openings. If the gates open realativily fast, then going Jewelcrafting for Pendant of Sunfire is a wasted gold sink, but if slow gates, no idea then.

The one concern I am having about next patch, is the massive loss of crit. Right now I'm at about 39% crit raid buffed, next patch I'm seeing numbers as low as 28% raid buffed, which concerns me a bit.
#3471SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
The one concern I am having about next patch, is the massive loss of crit. Right now I'm at about 39% crit raid buffed, next patch I'm seeing numbers as low as 28% raid buffed, which concerns me a bit.
*blinks* Say what?

Using T6 and Sunwell gear with a Draenei Elemental shaman in both settings, I gain:
+0.44% crit, -0.47% hit (still capped), +14.66% haste, +99 fire damage.
The listed Rawr DPS jumps from 2235 DPS to 2609 DPS.

No idea how you manage to drop 10% hit ... maybe you forgot to count 9% fire crit from talents?
#3472SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
For those of you that have been testing Rawr.Mage I'd like to hear if you have any suggestions to improve the model. Some ideas I could potentially add in: threat constraint, on hit mechanics like magic absorption or molten shields, survivability vs dps tradeoff constraints, boss specific abilities like resistable silence effects, mana drains. Let me know if anything like this would be of value.
#3473SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3f1reburn
There's a couple of things that might be nice, but I doubt Rawr is made to handle these things:
-The cast sequence (like Magegraf)
-Target switching (like Magegraf)
-Automatic optimization of gear (like Tornhoofs equip optimiser)

but overall I'm very satisfied with the Rawr mage module, great job.
#3474SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
Originally Posted by f1reburn View Post
-Automatical optimization of gear (like Tornhoofs equip optimiser)
Working on that one for b13, but that's not Rawr.Mage specific, that's for all modules.
#3475SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
At low haste T6 level, RoAK beats BotES by 5 DPS. At high haste sunwell gear, BotES beats RoAK by 1 DPS.


[Don Julio's Heart] is a flat +2 damage, [Blood of Amber] is worse than [Reckless Pyrestone] for yellow slots, [Great Bladestone] is not in the game according to databases.



[Pendant of Sunfire] is a +14.8 DPS to +15.52 DPS increase over amulet of unfettered magics, in the case you have +0% hit, +3% hit or +4% from party auras (Draenei Racial, Totem of Wrath). It's a +12.43 DPS increase if you have a +1% hit party aura (i.e. a Draenei, but no ToW).
You get another +2.24 DPS from the unique +14 damage gem.

Changing your necklace will require you to change up to 3 more pieces of your gear and regem them to go from one opimised setup to another.

This is assuming a setup with T6 Cowl, (Bracers), Belt, Boots, Skull and head enchant for 81 base hit rating, using Hellfire-Encased Pendant
Amulet of Unfettered Magics is -1.9 DPS, +15 hit, Loop of Forged Power is -3.4 DPS, +19 hit, Mana Attuned Band is -8.02 DPS, +18 hit, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is -12.2 DPS, +17 hit, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is -22.12 DPS, +28 hit, changing a Reckless into a Veiled Pyrestone is -5.48 DPS, +5 hit.

Being 1 hit under the cap is -2.04 DPS. It's worth regemming if you're 3 or 4 hit rating below the cap, but not if you're 1 or 2 hit rating below the cap (after recovering all multiples of 5 via gems). Usually, if you're 2 hit rating below the cap, there is another gear setup that yields more damage.

With those numbers taken from Rawr, you can optimise your gear for different hit requirements, with and without the Sunfire Pendant.


Jewelcrafting
[Pendant of Sunfire] is a +24.55 DPS upgrade over [Hellfire-Encased Pendant]. It is around +15.** DPS upgrade over [Amulet of Unfettered Magics].
[Don Julio's Heart] provides another +2.24 DPS, but you can continue to use that after dropping jewelcarafting.

Tailoring
[Sunfire Robe] is a +25.91 DPS upgrade over [Robes of Ghostly Hatred].
It is a +49.35 DPS upgrade over [Robes of the Tempest], if you adjust to 4T6 and hit cap again.

Enchanting
Enchanting provides +26.83 DPS via ring enchants.


Conclusion if you maximise everything

1) Get Jewelcrafting, make a couple of +14 damage gems, then drop it. This ensures that you always have one +14 damage gem socketed somewhere.
2) Get Enchanting. Acquire a Loop of forged Power as soon as you can. You need to convince someone to give you 5 Sunmotes to craft it. The pattern itself is a trash drop, so some guild should get a pattern within a few days.
Enchant the ring, then drop Enchanting.
3) Get Leatherworking to make and use Drums of Battle.
4) Get Tailoring to make and wear a Sunfire Robe. Curse the if it the pattern won't drop and no other guild sells it either.



Gemming grants you +5 hit at the cost of -6 damage or -5 haste (you lose less by dropping haste for hit).
Changing items grants you +hit at a much much lower cost than gemming for it.

Loop of Forged Power is +19 hit for -3 damage, , Mana Attuned Band is +18 hit for -7.2 damge, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is +17 hit for -11 damage, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is +28 hit for -20 damage.
Those are far better ways to gain +hit than gemming for it.

Even though there is less +hit on gear now, gemming for it is generally not advised.
You may need to gem if you're 3-10 hit away from the cap and swapping gear would overcap you, but you won't gem larger amounts of +hit unless you miss several pieces of spell hit gear from T6 instances.





All the data comes from Rawr for a 360s fight.
All number will change as you swap gear, so it won't always be 100% correct.

Out of curiousity a grocery list:
Jewelcrafting: 2x Living Ruby - 80g Pendant of Sunfire - 25g + 2x Crimson (100g each?) = 305g Leveling up to 365: ~1000g. Loop of forged - 100g for base mats 5x sunmotes (100g each?) = 600g. So 1800g total

Leatherworking: Leveling up to drums is ~1500g

Enchanting: ~1500g total for both ring enchants and leveling up, however we can exclude this as most people have this already

Tailoring: Both peices of Sunfire cost 2000 gold total. In addition to roughly 1000g leveling up.

So... roughly 4300 gold to go from the standard lw/enchanting, or 5800 gold if you lack enchanting.
#3476SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Nah those numebrs are quite overstated. I know, I have levelled all of those a number of times.

Using malganis price-gouging prices, buying 100% everything form the auction house and not including any profit-recoup from de'ing/reselling grinding mats, heres what grinding the professions will costs:

tailoring: 1200g for 0-375 (hint: you only need 365 for [Sunfire Robe], so you could save a lot of gold there)
leatherworking: 600-800g for 0-350 (all that is needed for drums)
enchanting: 1500-1700g for 0-360 (for ring enchants)
jewelcrafting: 1200-1500g for 0-365 (hint: you only need 365 for [Pendant of Sunfire])

Also, the [Loop of Forged Power]/[Sunfire Handwraps] is BOE.
#3477SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ataxus
I'm Tailoring and Enchanting now. I think it's silly to drop enchanting. Should I

a) Drop Tailoring, get JC for gems, and finally get LW?
b) Keep Tailoring for robe?
#3478SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
I'm wondering if at this point they're going to make enchanted rings pick up Requires Enchanting tags once enchanted. Clearly they were trying to discourage profession min/maxing in the latest PTR patch, but even though I know it would require some new code on their part to "change" an item based only on professions, it seems like leaving Enchanting out of the picture is kind of a glaring hole.

That being said, it's somewhat premature to make predictions on the "best" profession setups when we're still missing most of the loot from a full third of the Sunwell bosses (2/6). I'm not wild about leveling JC or having to re-level Enchanting in WLK if I did drop it for JC now, so I'm not going to resign myself to it until I'm 100% sure we know everything that's coming off of M'uru/Kil'Jaeden.
#3479SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Navaash
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
I'm wondering if at this point they're going to make enchanted rings pick up Requires Enchanting tags once enchanted.
That would be tremendously retarded on Blizzard's part because it would mean you would permanently lose use of those rings unless you took Enchanting again. And if one of the items in question is a rare boss drop, good luck convincing people to give it to you again.

If anything that's an argument towards not forcing profession locks. The only place where it makes sense is Engineering.

Further thought: every profession should have something to offer to all classes in some way so as to compel players to follow a profession, not "pick professions X and Y based on your class". If Blacksmithing had some completely insane BoP caster sword, would you pick it up?
#3480SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Navaash View Post
That would be tremendously retarded on Blizzard's part because it would mean you would permanently lose use of those rings unless you took Enchanting again. And if one of the items in question is a rare boss drop, good luck convincing people to give it to you again.

If anything that's an argument towards not forcing profession locks. The only place where it makes sense is Engineering.

Further thought: every profession should have something to offer to all classes in some way so as to compel players to follow a profession, not "pick professions X and Y based on your class". If Blacksmithing had some completely insane BoP caster sword, would you pick it up?
They would either let you strip the enchant or simply require enchanting for the enchant itself, similar to how the Spellstrike set bonus works.

I would like to see this change made to put all professions on the same level.
#3481SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Navaash
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
They would either let you strip the enchant or simply require enchanting for the enchant itself, similar to how the Spellstrike set bonus works.

I would like to see this change made to put all professions on the same level.
The set bonus requires a specific level of Tailoring, not just having Tailoring. Those are two different things.

That having been said, it would probably require a significant enough recoding of how item enchants work as to not make the time and effort ratio worth it. As it stands, enchanting a ring already binds it to you - granted, not a very good argument since the most coveted rings are BoP anyway, likely done to prevent twinking - but also when some superior craftable comes along like Loop so that you can't get away with getting someone else to enchant it for you so you don't have to level the profession.
#3482SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
Originally Posted by Navaash View Post
That would be tremendously retarded on Blizzard's part because it would mean you would permanently lose use of those rings unless you took Enchanting again. And if one of the items in question is a rare boss drop, good luck convincing people to give it to you again.

If anything that's an argument towards not forcing profession locks. The only place where it makes sense is Engineering.

Further thought: every profession should have something to offer to all classes in some way so as to compel players to follow a profession, not "pick professions X and Y based on your class". If Blacksmithing had some completely insane BoP caster sword, would you pick it up?
It is dumb because Enchanting functions differently from other professions (adding on to existing items rather than creating new ones), but it's been done for every other profession, and if the goal is to stop "profession hopping" as it were, then this would seem to be the next logical step.

For the record I don't think it's going to happen either because of the new code that would be required to make it happen, and moreover that we're talking about an extremely small portion of the population. It's not worth the hassle.
#3483SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Navaash View Post
The set bonus requires a specific level of Tailoring, not just having Tailoring. Those are two different things.

That having been said, it would probably require a significant enough recoding of how item enchants work as to not make the time and effort ratio worth it. As it stands, enchanting a ring already binds it to you - granted, not a very good argument since the most coveted rings are BoP anyway, likely done to prevent twinking - but also when some superior craftable comes along like Loop so that you can't get away with getting someone else to enchant it for you so you don't have to level the profession.
Right. If they can code a set bonus to work only with a specific level of tailoring, why would they be unable to code an enchant to only function at a specific level of enchanting? I am sure it could be done if Blizzard wanted it to, and without a significant amount of new coding.
#3484SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3alvinrod
I don't think it's an overly big deal. Unless the level of balance is incredibly fine, there're always going to be some professions that stand out over others, but that gap has narrowed significantly. LW is obviously the best choice simply based on overall DPS gain, but enchanting, tailoring, and jewel crafting are all fairly close together in terms of what you gain. All things being roughly equal, just pick whichever professions you enjoy the most. At this point we're already entering the realm where your second profession will make as little as a 5 DPS difference. At this point it almost becomes insignificant which you choose considering proper cooldown management accounts for significantly more than that.
#3485SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andersnordic
Arcane mages and professions

I gathered mats ready to powerlvl JC, tailoring and end up at alchemy for the arcane trinket:p With the last change it just got a lot more complicated.. I am LW + enchanting now and was planning on dropping enchanting for either tailoring or alchemy.

[Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone] looks great, on average you will get +960 mana per pot, thats 2880 extra mana in a 5 minute fight (3 pots max). In comparison you will get about 15-20 k mana from your SP.

Considering that the base value of SAS is 7 spell dmg weaker than icon/card (Calculating 70 spelldmg on those to simplify), the added damage would be about 5400.

Getting +30 DPS (For an arcane mage) upgrade from chest/gloves equates to about 10800 dmg during a 5 min fight. For fire spec it would be about +18000 dmg.

JC items (Neck/gems) would add about 7200, slightly better than the alch trinket.

An approach can be to take tailoring, but drop it once you get the arcane items (Spi - chest/gloves). And then pick up JC. But considering these are much better items for locks/SP`s (Fire mages) it would be counterproductive to take the patterns before these classes... So atm. Im really uncertain what to do:/

Its pretty obvious that Blizz is trying to make this as hard as possible for us-.-

PS. For fire mages, its a no-brainer ofc;p

Last edited by Andersnordic : 03/14/08 at 8:07 AM.
#3486SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Domner
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
For those of you that have been testing Rawr.Mage I'd like to hear if you have any suggestions to improve the model. Some ideas I could potentially add in: threat constraint, on hit mechanics like magic absorption or molten shields, survivability vs dps tradeoff constraints, boss specific abilities like resistable silence effects, mana drains. Let me know if anything like this would be of value.
First of all, thanks for an excellent job ont Rawr.mage (and thanks to Astrylian for Rawr itself). I have a couple of suggestions that I've thought of while playing around with the program, but as I'm not sure where the limit goes between Rawr and Rawr.mage I don't know which part of the program my suggestions apply to.

Comparison to a previous gearset
Often when trying out different gearsets it is not only a case of just changing one piece of gear, but rather I may have to change several pieces. I would then like to have a "locked" profile on one side of the screen which would be my starting point and I could see how my changes affect the overall stats after doing them all. One cool way of doing that could be to be able to tell the program to store the current stats, and then as you start doing changes it would show the difference to the stored set. For example, the basic stats frame could look like this:
Stamina: 479 (-10)
Intellect: 557 (+12)
Spirit: 372 (+/-0)
Armor: 1933 (-105)
Health: 8003 (-15)
Mana: 10316 (+45)
Throw in some neat colors as well (green for going up, red for going down?) and it would make it really easy to monitor the total change since your last "store" or "lock".

Profile name in window title
Most programs have the name of the document you are currently working on in the window title. Not having that makes it hard to remember which profile you are working on now, and thereby you don't know where your work will end up when you hit "save".

More tooltips
Large parts of Rawr.mage already has a lot of excellent tooltips explaining the meaning of different values, especially in the stats tab. However, the buffs and options tabs could use some tooltips as well to save time or explain things to noobs like myself. Having a tooltip as you hover over the different set bonuses is an example where I wouldn't have to go browse some websites in case I can't remember exactly what the values of the Spellstrike set bonus is for example. On the options tab I have no idea what values I can put in the "interrupt frequency" field and what effect they will have. Just a couple of examples but you get the idea.

Filtering by profession
Sure if you really want to go all the way you may train one profession, make some BoP stuff, switch to another profession and get the tasty bits of that one etc. Not in my case though, I'm pretty happy with being a tailor & enchanter. For that reason those BoP jewelcrafting gems are not useable to me, and I would like to be able to tell Rawr to not show those items that require me to be a jewelcrafter. Same with the engineering helmet. For a generic solution I think you could have a listing of professions in the options tab with a checkbox next to them where you tick the box to show the items that require you to have that profession in order to get or use the item. Default it to have all boxes ticked and it would work as today.

Filtering by class
I've seen this mentioned elsewhere so it's not my idea, but I'm including it here since I agree with it. Basically just make Rawr.mage hide all the items that require you to be a warlock or priest or something else to use them. This along with the profession thing above would help remove some of the "noice" from the gear listings.

Switch between "current" and "upcoming"
I'm not quite sure if Rawr.mage has implemented the 2.4 changes already, but I think it would be useful to have both the current live patch and the future PTR patch available to choose among. In the case of 2.4 for example we have for some time known of a lot of the changes to the mage mechanisms (haste rating etc.), but the 2.4 patch has also been in testing for quite a while so before it goes live I would prefer to be able to model my current gear while at the same time test out stuff for 2.4 so I know if I need to change my gear when that goes live. So, a setting in the options tab to switch between PTR mode and live mode perhaps?

TPS
You mention threat constraint yourself, and that sounds interesting. A start would be to just show the TPS of your current setup just as you show the DPS, this would give an idea of how one build compares to another in terms of overall TPS.

Last edited by Domner : 03/14/08 at 9:12 AM.
#3487SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post
Arcane mages and professions

I gathered mats ready to powerlvl JC, tailoring and end up at alchemy for the arcane trinket:p With the last change it just got a lot more complicated.. I am LW + enchanting now and was planning on dropping enchanting for either tailoring or alchemy.

[Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone] looks great, on average you will get +960 mana per pot, thats 4800 extra mana in a 5 minute fight (5 pots max). 3840 if only 4 pots. In comparison you will get about 15-20 k mana from your SP.
Last I checked, potions have a two minute cooldown, not 1 minute :o

Using rawr with an arcance spec, +40 mp5 from the trinket on potion spam is +18-22 DPS, which equals +20-24 spell damage.
That makes the trinket a +83-87 damage trinket at most, not much better than other trinkets.

Mind you that clicky trinkets tend to have more value if you can pair AP/IV/Heroism with them.
#3488SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Andersnordic
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Last I checked, potions have a two minute cooldown, not 1 minute :o
Indeed (lack of sleep etc etc. ) /hide

Thank you for the input btw, Roywyn I updated original post for relevance.


Another point that Ive yet to see thoroughly examined is the following;

[Serpent-Coil Braid] seems to be the only trinket that can stack after patch. Lets say you stack it with [Hex Shrunken Head] + AP + haste effects (IV/drum/heroism), enough to get your GCD to 1 sec. AB spam.

Will the combo be good enough to be viable (For arcane spec obviously) in Sunwell. I really doubt any of the existing softwares can correctly evaluate this powerful combo. "Viability" is relative. But as a benchmark. It should be better than a flat 150-160 spelldmg in order to be considered a competitive trinket combo.

Ill try to put down numbers for this.

Last edited by Andersnordic : 03/14/08 at 8:27 AM.
#3489SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
Kavan:

Already mentioned, but a cast sequence / timeline of abilities would be ideal, ala magegraf.

Not as big deal now as it was when raiding SSC, but a % of time spent on boss level vs non boss level mobs would be nice. When figuring out gear for fights like Hydros or FLK knowing I was only going to spend 40% of my time on the actual boss, then trying to figure out what the ideal gear trade off between hit and crit was important.

I assume this would not be possible, but the ability to easily save the current gear + talents within an HTML link would be ideal. Probably to much information to try and store in the string, but maybe somebody knows a hack. This would allow people to easily compare their build + gear to others.

One other suggestion would be a % time for JoW uptime. My guild actually raids with a ret paladin, but when switching targets and other factors, JoW is usually only up for around 60% of the time.
#3490SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Cryic
Originally Posted by Andersnordic View Post

[Serpent-Coil Braid] seems to be the only trinket that can stack after patch. Lets say you stack it with [Hex Shrunken Head] + AP + haste effects (IV/drum/heroism), enough to get your GCD to 1 sec. AB spam.

Will the combo be good enough to be viable (For arcane spec obviously) in Sunwell. I really doubt any of the existing softwares can correctly evaluate this powerful combo.
Kavan + Rawr is already doing this. SCB with an Arcane build is already in the top 3 trinkets, depending upon gear level. Rawr also computes the stacking ability of SCB + haste abilities when you mouse over the Spell Cycles you'll something like this:

Heroism+IV + AP + Hex + SCB + AB: 15 seconds
IV + AP + Hex + SCB AB: 15 secs
#3491SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
Hey Domner, thanks for the awesome feedback. Some of what you suggest is Rawr.Mage specific, so I'll leave that to Kavan, but to touch on a few things... 'Comparison to a previous gearset' is planned, but not started yet. 'Profile name in window title' is a good point, I'll get that added. 'More tooltips' are planned for the Buffs tab, but Kavan'll have to handle tooltips on the Options tab. 'Filtering by profession' isn't on my todo list at this point, but I'll add it, though not a high priority. 'Filtering by class' and 'Switch between "current" and "upcoming"' are both already done and working in our current development build.
#3492SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sinborn
Ok, so the Skull of Gul'dan does not stack with the Icon or the HSH on the test realms at this time, correct?

Has this change been docuented?

I have been stockpiling dkp, waiting for a skull to drop. If this change goes live, I may no longer hold out on the trinket, and finish off my T6 first.
#3493SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ztorm
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
Ok, so the Skull of Gul'dan does not stack with the Icon or the HSH on the test realms at this time, correct?

Has this change been docuented?

I have been stockpiling dkp, waiting for a skull to drop. If this change goes live, I may no longer hold out on the trinket, and finish off my T6 first.
Yes, this change has been documented in the patch notes under item changes and in these forums. Despite the nerfs to the skull, it is still the best trinket in the game if you can utilize the +hit. Given its drop rate, it is probably still worth saving for.
#3494SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 hypetech
I noticed rawr.mage is showing Mage Armor as giving me twice as much damage than Molten Armor across a 480 second fight. What does this take into account?
#3495SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Domner
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
I noticed rawr.mage is showing Mage Armor as giving me twice as much damage than Molten Armor across a 480 second fight. What does this take into account?
That can only be due to mage armor giving you a lot more mana that you can spend on doing damage.
#3496SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
I noticed rawr.mage is showing Mage Armor as giving me twice as much damage than Molten Armor across a 480 second fight. What does this take into account?
480s is 8 minutes, pretty long. Did you assign a shadow priest? If so, with how much mp5? And are you fire or arcane or some mixed spec?

If you have a long fight, you will need mana. Using mana pots prevents you from using destruction pots. Mana gems prevent you from using flame caps. Evocation causes 10 seconds downtime. If you run OOM with all mana options used, your DPS takes a sharp dive.


For arcane specs, Mage Armour is almost always better than molten.
For fire specs, molten is better until you reach the point of bad mana starvation.
It all depends on the fight and the cooldown timers you can use.


In the tab that shows your DPS, mouseover the * below, labeled Spell Cycle.
It lists the cooldowns you use, and whether you have idle time. Check for the difference between molten and mage armour there.

I hope that clears it up, can't tell you more with the sparse info you gave.
#3497SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 hypetech
I didn't see an option to add a shadow priest, so unless it's there by default I don't think I included it. I'm 2/48/11 and with mana gems and mana pots (sacrificing flame caps and destro pots) I haven't gone oom to the point of having to wand in a long time, and I normally use molten armor.

Edit: Just checked it at home and a shadow priest at 175 mp5 is included by default. Shows me 1562.98 dps with molten armor and 1604.32 dps with mage armor. Seems odd that about 82.2 mp5 while casting would be worth more dps than 66.3 crit rating :-\ It's also worth noting that if I scale the fight time back down to 300 seconds, molten armor pulls back ahead by about 40 dps.

Last edited by hypetech : 03/14/08 at 10:28 PM.
#3498SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
I didn't see an option to add a shadow priest, so unless it's there by default I don't think I included it. I'm 2/48/11 and with mana gems and mana pots (sacrificing flame caps and destro pots) I haven't gone oom to the point of having to wand in a long time, and I normally use molten armor.

Edit: Just checked it at home and a shadow priest at 175 mp5 is included by default. Shows me 1562.98 dps with molten armor and 1604.32 dps with mage armor. Seems odd that about 82.2 mp5 while casting would be worth more dps than 66.3 crit rating :-\ It's also worth noting that if I scale the fight time back down to 300 seconds, molten armor pulls back ahead by about 40 dps.
480 seconds of pure chain casting is an extremely long time, it's likely that you are running out of mana with only a 175mp5 shadow priest. Note that I'm fairly sure no encounter in the game includes this much time of chaincasting Fireball at all, except maybe an incredibly incompetent Illidari Council kill.
#3499SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 hypetech
Originally Posted by Sancus View Post
480 seconds of pure chain casting is an extremely long time, it's likely that you are running out of mana with only a 175mp5 shadow priest. Note that I'm fairly sure no encounter in the game includes this much time of chaincasting Fireball at all, except maybe an incredibly incompetent Illidari Council kill.
That's true. I tend to forget TC is based on stand and shoot nonstop.
#3500SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
That's true. I tend to forget TC is based on stand and shoot nonstop.
Try lowering dps time option if you want to simulate fights where you get rest time.
#3501SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Madlax
(I'm neither a mage nor have played one for more than a few seconds).
As I´m currently trying to figure out which classes/specs/changes are best to sustain close to 2k DPS in the 6 min Brutallus fight I´m seeking a little advice from the longer mage theory crafters.
For as far as I came up with numbers, a default 2/48/11 build can hardly sustain ~200 seconds of continuous nuking without a spriest.
What ever thread I look in, it say Fire is better DPS than Frost - but I can hardly find any posts about mana efficiency/sustainability over time.

Considering various scenarios:
10/48/3 - Thats a rough 10% more mana efficiency for loosing 2xIcy Veins
10/x/4x - Doing the same with frost
0/18/43 - With a rough 40% crit rate this build would provide more mana saving than clearcasting - while having all good frost talents.
I think we´ll probably end up doing it with 10/48 and a spriest still, at least that´s my feeling atm.

Anyone with a good insight on this?
#3502SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Jarlyn
Originally Posted by Madlax View Post
For as far as I came up with numbers, a default 2/48/11 build can hardly sustain ~200 seconds of continuous nuking without a spriest.
This isn't even remotely true now, much less in 2.4 when Mage Armor is going to become a lot more effective via spirit buffs.

Edit: to clarify. If your mages don't have a shadow priest, then yes, they'll probably have to chain pot/gem to make it through Brutallus, but even with 2/48/11 builds 200 seconds to OOM is just incorrect - they should be fine for six minutes. Clearcasting extends the timeline to an extent, but if you're looking at Sunwell, you've likely cleared T6, so ask your mages, can they make it through fights like Bloodboil (~5min), Council (~8min), and Illidan (~12min) without mana issues?

If you do give your mages a shadow priest, then they should be 2/48/11 (or arcane/frost or whatever else they choose) and if they're having mana issues, something is wrong. Most of our fights in T6 content now are 3min or less, and I routinely go through all those fights using double destro pot + flame cap, with no Evo. Swapping for gems and mana pots, I'll last six minutes with ease, probably popping flame caps on the last timer to help burn him down under 20%.

Last edited by Jarlyn : 03/15/08 at 1:26 PM.
#3503SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Madlax
Interesting, highly. Guess I´ll have to let them run Dr. Boom for a couple of times.
That would shift shadow priests to healers/warlocks and/or giving mages the shamans.
What spell cycle are you running Jarlyn with your current gear/specc?
#3504SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Jarlyn
All our mages are fire, so everyone scorches 2 times to stack the debuff off the start. Then whoever applied the initial debuff keeps it up - beyond that, it's pure Fireball spam.
#3505SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Theres absolutely no problem with 2/48/11 without a shadow priest on brutallus (I know i've done it), however, be mindful that a resto shaman would greatly ease the mana requirement in such a case and perhaps allow use of destro pot/flame cap.

However, as you gain more sunwell gear, it will* become a problem, because of all the spell haste. But using a moderate 11% haste on ptr I did not run into any issues.
#3506SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by manly View Post
However, as you gain more sunwell gear, it will* become a problem, because of all the spell haste. But using a moderate 11% haste on ptr I did not run into any issues.
If all classes scale the same as mages are going to, then how is it going to be a problem? Right now a ~6 min Brutlallus is going to feel hard, but once a raid is clearing Sunwell, we'll probably see a 5 min or sub 5 min Brutallus, which counteracts the mana problems of haste.

But that is another problem, with all the haste we'll be gaining, whether we want to gain it or not, we may be forced in a position to not equip the haste as it will cause a hitch in our rotations. I'm not sure on this yet, but it does seem that it will happen.
#3507SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Janice
Originally Posted by Madlax View Post
(I'm neither a mage nor have played one for more than a few seconds).
As I´m currently trying to figure out which classes/specs/changes are best to sustain close to 2k DPS in the 6 min Brutallus fight I´m seeking a little advice from the longer mage theory crafters.
For as far as I came up with numbers, a default 2/48/11 build can hardly sustain ~200 seconds of continuous nuking without a spriest.
What ever thread I look in, it say Fire is better DPS than Frost - but I can hardly find any posts about mana efficiency/sustainability over time.

Considering various scenarios:
10/48/3 - Thats a rough 10% more mana efficiency for loosing 2xIcy Veins
10/x/4x - Doing the same with frost
0/18/43 - With a rough 40% crit rate this build would provide more mana saving than clearcasting - while having all good frost talents.
I think we´ll probably end up doing it with 10/48 and a spriest still, at least that´s my feeling atm.

Anyone with a good insight on this?
http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

Mana vs. Damage posted by Roywyn

I'm most worried about manage to keep high dps without flamecap/destuction pots.
I'm not much of a TC'er but I guess that the "extended" 20% phase might help some.
#3508SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Originally Posted by Janice View Post
http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

Mana vs. Damage posted by Roywyn

I'm most worried about manage to keep high dps without flamecap/destuction pots.
I'm not much of a TC'er but I guess that the "extended" 20% phase might help some.
It depends if the dps lost by not using all those DPS consumeables is worth the dps increase of bringing another DPSer in teh place of the shadow priest. Assuming you have enough ways to avoid not running completely dry without slowing down for anything other than evocation of course.

And then if you actually reach a conclusion that it's more worthwhile to run without a shadowpriest (and with a "real" dpser in his place) you have to re-consider arcane VS fire, as currently all arcane numbers assume shadow priest for both specs, which helps arcane more than it helps fire. If the shadow priest DPS increase to the fire mages is bigger than the DPS lost by having a shadow priest over a "real" dpser, though, you can safely assume you will always have a shadow priest in an optimally-tuned raid (though obviously adjust if you happen to not have one).
#3509SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Madlax View Post
(I'm neither a mage nor have played one for more than a few seconds).
As I´m currently trying to figure out which classes/specs/changes are best to sustain close to 2k DPS in the 6 min Brutallus fight I´m seeking a little advice from the longer mage theory crafters.
For as far as I came up with numbers, a default 2/48/11 build can hardly sustain ~200 seconds of continuous nuking without a spriest.
What ever thread I look in, it say Fire is better DPS than Frost - but I can hardly find any posts about mana efficiency/sustainability over time.

Considering various scenarios:
10/48/3 - Thats a rough 10% more mana efficiency for loosing 2xIcy Veins
10/x/4x - Doing the same with frost
0/18/43 - With a rough 40% crit rate this build would provide more mana saving than clearcasting - while having all good frost talents.
I think we´ll probably end up doing it with 10/48 and a spriest still, at least that´s my feeling atm.

Anyone with a good insight on this?
Plugging my current T6 gear (9% haste) + ele shaman with a 2/48/11 build into a Rawr for a 6 minute fight, I get the following:

2021 DPS with 50 mp5 "SP" (=mana spring from elemental shaman).
That's with mage armour, uses Evo, 3 pots+gems, and has 26 seconds AFK wand time.
For some odd reason, I still have 40 seconds Flame Cap time.

2110 DPS with mage armour, Evo, 2 pots, 3 gems, 1 Destruction Potion stacked with MF/BL/IV/CB/FC/SoG'd.
The is still 40 seconds of Flame Caps, odd bug.

2227 DPS with a 350 mp5 shadowpriest, using molten armour, 1 mana pot and the rest on DPS cooldowns.


A 10/48/3 build would yield the following:

2087 DPS with 50 mp5 and molten armour, 2084 DPS with mage armour.
With molten armour, it uses 3 pots, 3 gems and 0.91 Evocation. I.e. it needs nearly the full mana of evocation.
Playing with the numbers, it would run OOM at 6:11 minutes.
With mage armour, it uses 2.83 pots and 3 gems, skipping Evocation no to lose time.

2180 DPS with molten, 2130 DPS with mage armour with a 350 mp5 shadowpriest added.


A 10/0/51 frost build with clearcasting would yield 1929 DPS with molten, 0.77 Evo, 3 pots, 3 gems, 50 mp5.
Adding an 350 mp5 SP increases DPS to 1983 DPS.
(Changed fire necklace and Sunfire enchant too, for completeness.)


A 40/0/21 Arc/frost build with T5 hat/shoulders clocks in at 1980 DPS without and 2164 DPS with an SP.
It always uses all mana options and mage armour. (Changed weapon enchant to +40 damage, flask to supreme power.)
Add around +15 DPS since dual elixirs beat flasking.
// Supreme Power ~= 60 DPS, Pure Death ~= 30 DPS, Blinding Light ~= 40 DPS, Adept's/Draenic ~= 75 DPS




0/18/43 - With a rough 40% crit rate this build would provide more mana saving than clearcasting - while having all good frost talents.
Frost is a heavy tree, 43 skips a lot of talents.
Yes, at high crit rates, MoE returns a bit more mana than CC, about 2% or so? CC works on AE/Blizzard though, and if you trade 18 fire for 18 arcane, you get CC and Meditation (30% regen while casting) and Improved Amplify/Dampen. Fire only gets you MoE, and frost doesn't seem needed in Sunwell from what I saw.



Hope that gives you some figures.
Frost isn't "much more efficient" as everyone tries to preach it. It uses less MPS, but the DPM is about the same.
No idea how correct WE is modeled. It lists 3 summons, but I have no clue what's calculated.

You'll very likely want/need a Blood Pact + Shadow Embrace warlock on Brutallus (from what I heard tanks say in their thread).
A shadow priest increases all magic damage by 5% and shadow damage by 10%, and increases the DPS of grouped mages by ~120. Grouped warlocks receive a benefit in a comparable ballpark I think.

If you don't bring an SP, all other warlocks need to be fire and you need a fire mage. Not sure how the SB/Inci numbers turned out now.
But I think at least one SP is a significant benefit unless you stack hard against casters (reducing the value of 5% magic damage and 10% shadow damage).


Edit:
For arcane/frost specs, Adept's/Draenic Elixir beat a Flask of Supreme Power by ~15 DPS. Added note.

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/16/08 at 2:47 PM.
#3510SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Kavan
The 40 second flame cap increments is more a design issue than a bug. It results from trying to combine 2 min gem cooldown with 3 min flame cap cooldown into a linear constraint. Basically I have to allow either flame cap or mana gem to be in partial increments. By default I decided to make gem integral, but I'll see how it plays out if for non-arcane specs I specify constraint in terms of integral flame cap.

For WE it uses totems, debuffs, heroism, but does not try to stack it against trinkets.

EDIT: I've tried playing with the flame cap constraint a bit more, but I can't find anything that would really behave in a better way. The problem only shows up when it's finding intermediate states when it uses a bit of gems and a bit of flame caps. The main issue is that 1 mana gem is equivalent to 40 seconds of flame cap in terms of cooldowns. So when you have maximum 2 flame caps for example, then next step is transition to 1 mana gem and 80 seconds of flame cap. It could stop at 2/3 mana gem and 60 seconds flame cap, but it'll choose whichever option gets the most total damage. Short of changing it to a discreet problem I don't see how to solve this better, and computational requirements of doing that are a bit too high I'm afraid.

EDIT2: Oh I see what you mean, it used 3 gems and flame cap when gems would use all the time available. 360 seconds was an edge case I wasn't handling in the best way, I put a fix for it in.

Last edited by Kavan : 03/15/08 at 10:44 PM.
#3511SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
EDIT2: Oh I see what you mean, it used 3 gems and flame cap when gems would use all the time available. 360 seconds was an edge case I wasn't handling in the best way, I put a fix for it in.
Speedy feedback! Non-integer gems/caps are fine (I prefer that for stat values actually), was just confused about 3 gem *plus* a cap at 360s fight.
( I *can* actually use 2 caps + 1 gem in a 3 minute fight by opimising cooldowns. )
#3512SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
The constraints I'm using now are as follows ([x] is x rounded down):

For specs where mana gems are preferred:

mana gems + flame cap time/40 < [fight duration/120 + 0.5]

For specs where flame caps are preferred:

mana gems*40 + flame cap time < [fight duration/180 + 2/3]*60

If anyone has a better suggestion let me know.
#3513SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Andorian
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
A 40/0/21 Arc/frost build with T5 hat/shoulders clocks in at 1980 DPS without and 2164 DPS with an SP.
It always uses all mana options and mage armour. (Changed weapon enchant to +40 damage, flask to supreme power.)
I believe [Adept's Elixir] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] turned out being better for 40/0/21 than Flask of Supreme Power.
#3514SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Andorian View Post
I believe [Adept's Elixir] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] turned out being better for 40/0/21 than Flask of Supreme Power.
I totally didn't think about that at all. It's a ~15 DPS increase roughly. Added a note in the original post.

// 40/0/21
// Supreme Power ~= 60 DPS, Pure Death ~= 30 DPS, Blinding Light ~= 40 DPS, Adept's/Draenic ~= 75 DPS
#3515SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pitbuller
Originally Posted by Pitbuller View Post
Best arcane mage comsuables after 2.4 is [Adept's Elixir] + [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom] according Vontre's Simulator.
Page 109.
#3516SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Soraxis
I havent done any numbercrunching on this yet, its just a weird spec idea right now, but I figure I'll throw it out here and see if anybody thinks it is in any way viable.

I've heard some mages say that after 2.4 we will be able to spec arcane/frost, go heavy AB spam and then frostbolt and with a shadow priest actually GAIN mana while frostbolting so you can frostbolt enough to get up to full or however high you want and then arcane blast again. Sounds great to me, but I dont wanna be a cookie cutter spec and after that hits the ground if it is successful it will be cookie cutter.

What Im thinking of, if I spec even heavier arcane and then throw whatever talents are remaining into frost up until icy veins (or farther if I really have a lot of room just for more cooldowns or whatever). Instead of frostbolting, I can start wanding (with wand spec). Obviously this will see greatly reduced numbers in DPS while wanding but on the plus side you will gain a lot more mp/s if wanding instead of casting (this is especially true if you have molten armor up instead of mage armor) and then with faster regen rates you get back into your arcane blast rotation faster and THAT is where the majority of your damage comes from.

So...thats pretty much my idea, any input?
#3517SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duamil
Has anyone done any number crunching on [Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone] vs [Darkmoon Card: Crusade]?
I don't have access to Illidan or Malacrass trinks yet, so I've been using the Icon and DC:C trinks.
Curious if the permanent +63 dmg on the Sorcerer stone outweighs the +80 from the card, assuming there's a good chance that it'll drop at least a few times on most encounters.
My guild is 3/4 TK and 3/6 SSC right now, and in most of those fights, there are several periods where I can see the the card buff dropping and having to charge back up over time (which it does -- I just don't religiously keep track of how often). I don't think exalted w/ Sunwell for the recipe will be too difficult or take too long.

Anyone have any thoughts?
#3518SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Soraxis
I'd say stick with the sorcerer's for pretty much every fight unless both A) you dont run oom period, meaning you can afford to forget to mana gem and still not run oom B) you dont take any damage whatsoever, if its a fight like malacrass where there is heavy AoE against everybody in the raid, in a situation like that you're going to want the extra healing just because its that much easier to stay alive and that much easier on healers (this applies especially if you have low HP)
#3519SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Duamil
I was completely ignoring the +40% from pots since it's generally not a concern. I typically have a shadow priest and/or shaman with me, and with mana gems and their touch/totems, I'm typically OK with mana.
From the damage aspect alone, would the constant +63 outweigh the +80 that has multiple chances to drop throughout certain fights? I don't know about the T6 bosses, but in fights like Hydross during transitions, Lurker during dives, and Solarian when she ports away, there are tons of opportunities for that +80 to drop and have to charge back up.
#3520SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Soraxis
Well without doing any serious number crunching here, you're gonna wanna do about 20 spellcasts to get equal benefit from the +damage over the 20 casts instead of a stable +63. That said, if for example you are the only mage and thus scorch 5 times at the start of the rotation, you can do higher DPS with less spellcasts because your fireballs gain more damage per +spell damage than scorches do (and of course do more DPS), so having low +damage on the scorches isnt a real issue. So uh...rough estimate, if you can get 15 fireballs before the buff resets, its an increase in damage, if you kinda cant get that many fireballs in on it, dont go for it. If you are looking at lurker though, you can avoid this by hitting mobs when they spawn as he ducks underwater and refresh your buff, even if you keep all the mobs sheeped if you really wanted you could hit it with an arcane blast and sheep right after before they do anything to refresh your buff.


*edit, response to dollar*

Originally Posted by Dollar View Post
You can just resheep the mob.
Thats exactly what I said at the bottom of my post? Sorry if I was unclear in what I wrote

Last edited by Soraxis : 03/17/08 at 2:39 AM.
#3521SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Dollar
Originally Posted by Soraxis View Post
Well without doing any serious number crunching here, you're gonna wanna do about 20 spellcasts to get equal benefit from the +damage over the 20 casts instead of a stable +63. That said, if for example you are the only mage and thus scorch 5 times at the start of the rotation, you can do higher DPS with less spellcasts because your fireballs gain more damage per +spell damage than scorches do (and of course do more DPS), so having low +damage on the scorches isnt a real issue. So uh...rough estimate, if you can get 15 fireballs before the buff resets, its an increase in damage, if you kinda cant get that many fireballs in on it, dont go for it. If you are looking at lurker though, you can avoid this by hitting mobs when they spawn as he ducks underwater and refresh your buff, even if you keep all the mobs sheeped if you really wanted you could hit it with an arcane blast and sheep right after before they do anything to refresh your buff.
You can just resheep the mob.
#3522SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Infyrion
Originally Posted by Soraxis View Post

Originally Posted by Dollar View Post
You can just resheep the mob.
Thats exactly what I said at the bottom of my post? Sorry if I was unclear in what I wrote
I think what he meant was that you don't even need to break the sheep (unless you are trying to keep Arcane Blast at 3 debuffs or something) as the Polymorph itself will refresh [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] anyway.
#3523SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Northerner
Originally Posted by Soraxis View Post
I havent done any numbercrunching on this yet, its just a weird spec idea right now, but I figure I'll throw it out here and see if anybody thinks it is in any way viable.

I've heard some mages say that after 2.4 we will be able to spec arcane/frost, go heavy AB spam and then frostbolt and with a shadow priest actually GAIN mana while frostbolting so you can frostbolt enough to get up to full or however high you want and then arcane blast again. Sounds great to me, but I dont wanna be a cookie cutter spec and after that hits the ground if it is successful it will be cookie cutter.

What Im thinking of, if I spec even heavier arcane and then throw whatever talents are remaining into frost up until icy veins (or farther if I really have a lot of room just for more cooldowns or whatever). Instead of frostbolting, I can start wanding (with wand spec). Obviously this will see greatly reduced numbers in DPS while wanding but on the plus side you will gain a lot more mp/s if wanding instead of casting (this is especially true if you have molten armor up instead of mage armor) and then with faster regen rates you get back into your arcane blast rotation faster and THAT is where the majority of your damage comes from.

So...thats pretty much my idea, any input?
I've been toying with 40/0/21 and while I am liking the playstyle, I don't personally think it will be a serious contender for progression dps. We shall see though and I'm looking at it much as I did the old 28/23 specs in the past. It's major perk for now is the 3% free hit and the fairly nice low-mana high-dps 'lust/trinket/IV frostbolt spam phase. As a spec it is still terribly luck-based though and hugely sensitive on crits during the burn phase.

Regardless of that, the issue with your suggestion is that wanding, even with the spec for it, is simply horrid dps. It isn't viable at all. When you are trying to stretch to 2k+ dps it would just seem to me that a period of 300dps would not be worthwhile at all even if you enjoyed ridiculous mana regeneration. Keep in mind that pure AB spam is not even that far ahead of 2/48/11 fireball spam and is certainly no where near enough to offset a period of such hideous damage output. Hell, even Evocation is questionable.
#3524SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Considering I try to avoid using evocation like the plague, I can't fathom playing purposefully with the idea of actually intending to do wanding DPS.
#3525SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
Originally Posted by Soraxis View Post
I havent done any numbercrunching on this yet, its just a weird spec idea right now, but I figure I'll throw it out here and see if anybody thinks it is in any way viable.

I've heard some mages say that after 2.4 we will be able to spec arcane/frost, go heavy AB spam and then frostbolt and with a shadow priest actually GAIN mana while frostbolting so you can frostbolt enough to get up to full or however high you want and then arcane blast again. Sounds great to me, but I dont wanna be a cookie cutter spec and after that hits the ground if it is successful it will be cookie cutter.

What Im thinking of, if I spec even heavier arcane and then throw whatever talents are remaining into frost up until icy veins (or farther if I really have a lot of room just for more cooldowns or whatever). Instead of frostbolting, I can start wanding (with wand spec). Obviously this will see greatly reduced numbers in DPS while wanding but on the plus side you will gain a lot more mp/s if wanding instead of casting (this is especially true if you have molten armor up instead of mage armor) and then with faster regen rates you get back into your arcane blast rotation faster and THAT is where the majority of your damage comes from.

So...thats pretty much my idea, any input?
A typical AB rotation has around 2.8-3.2 dpm tradeoff against AB spam. The best wand even with wand spec and JoW is only at around 4.6 dpm. Wand would have to be around 800-900 base dps to achieve that kind of dpm tradeoff and we're not gonna see that anytime soon.
#3526SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Wizeowel
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Considering I try to avoid using evocation like the plague, I can't fathom playing purposefully with the idea of actually intending to do wanding DPS.
Moreover, isn't it true that wands with shadow-based damage consume destrolock ISB debuffs? In turn reducing the shadowpriest's damage from MF/SWD, mana regen gained from VT, and a DPS reduction for other shadow casters in raid.
#3527SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Soraxis
I think you guys are missing what I was saying, the idea wasnt to do wand DPS and try to outdps people while wanding...thats just crazy stupid lol, the idea is instead to do the majority of your damage from AB and then when that is used up (no mana!) you wand instead of frostbolt, giving you A) 100% of your mana regen because you arent casting and B) not using any mana so you can regen quickly (faster than right now because we will see the new spirit regen in 2.4) and get back into your arcane blast rotation. One thing I like about this -concept- is with the other version of this Ive heard (frostbolt instead of wand while at 0 mana) is the only way to gain mana while frostbolting is if you have a shadow priest, no shadowpriest means you will still stay at 0 mana and wont get to AB until you get mana gems/potions etc up. If you wand instead, gonna get your mana back regardless of if you have a s-priest or not.
#3528SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Cornelium
Originally Posted by Soraxis View Post
the idea is instead to do the majority of your damage from AB and then when that is used up (no mana!) you wand instead of frostbolt, giving you A) 100% of your mana regen because you arent casting and B) not using any mana so you can regen quickly (...) and get back into your arcane blast rotation. (...)
The flaw with your idea is that you think Arcane Blast is a spell so high in Damage Per Mana (DPM) that using it exclusively would make up for the loss of damage during these seconds while you are wanding. This is highly false. I'll list some reasons:
First of all, an arcane mage "with only a few points to take Icy Veins" will surely have Arcane Meditation. Which is a constant 30% mana regen from spirit, regardless of shadowpriests, shamans or any kind of armor you may want to use. Basically, there is a constant flow of mana that effectively makes your mana pool bigger, also reducing the bonus of not casting from 100% to 70%.
Secondly, you will have much higher DPS (over fights longer than your effective mana pool, which is base mana pool + evocated mana + mana regeneration + potions + mana gems + other sources -Blessing of Wisdom, Mana Spring/Tide totems, Vampiric Touch- ) with a standard rotation than with an arcane blast spam. As you can notice by testing it yourself, spamming arcane blast can only last for a minute or so, depending on gear. Given you have 200 mp5 while not casting and 10000 MP, it'll take you 4 minutes to regen your full pool by wanding only. Add potions, gems, evocation, and still you can't get lower than a minute or so. This means that by this method you're gonna be doing extremely poor dps for half the fight's duration!! And you will have wasted pots, evocation, gems, and used horribly your shadowpriest/shaman.

Naturally there's probably more reasons to add and calculations to be made to snuck in some good comparisons, but as the situation stands now, Wand Specialization is still an uthopia. Duh
#3529SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Being "OK on mana" is not enough. If you're using gems, you can use mana pots as well and then at first stop using evocation, then if you still have mana use flame caps, and then if you still have mana use destruction potions. If you're trying to max your DPS evocating over using mana pots is not a good idea even if you use destruction potions.

Since mana potions are the last mana restoring element you should be removing when your mana overflows, the new trinket will almost always have some kind of benefit from the 40% extra from potions. How big that is, though, depends on what it allows you to do. The benefit could be anywhere between nothing (rarely) to allowing you to not evocate (or better, not use mage armor)) depending on fight length, DPS uptime and raid support you're getting.

Note that I'm considering the extra mana better the more you need mana, as the more desperate you are for mana the worse the mana restoring abilities you will use to keep it up, which is why "best case" scenario for the trinket is if you're already using everything AND mage armor, then if you already don't use mage armor it reduces evocation time, etc....

Bottom line is that trinket is quite better than 63 damage. How much better depends on a lot of things, but it's probably enough above 63 damage to make it better than trinkets that would otherwise be better than "just 63 damage". At least from a "I want to do my best, screw the costs" perspective.
#3530SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Akuman
AB spamming and wanding is worse than having AB cycles.
#3531SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
Another way to look at it is that AB is a total waste of mana but is worth it when it comes at the cost of mana you already have in excess, and is even worth sacrificing some ineffective damage boosts for (while non-arcane specs would use at least some of those to boost damage as they can't use the extra mana). It is not, however, worth it to sacrifice mana you do not have in excess in order to cast arcane blast - its DPS (or the dps of any spell you don't have mana to sustain... It just happens that AB is the only spell that is actually not sustainable no matter how much mana you have) is simply not worth spending time wanding.
#3532SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Asahina
Its actually more of a rawr question than a Mage theorycrafting question (although I guess there is a bit of that)

In the next version of Rawr.Mage are the icey viens/Skull changes going to be taken into account in the DPS numbers? The fact we can no longer chain these with other cooldowns/heroisms would seem like a fairly large DPS decrease, I was just trying to find out what sort of loss we'd be looking at.

Although I could have sworn I read that they were reverting the Icey viens/heroism change, but i can't find it anymore, so I might have been dreaming.
#3533SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Smithist
I think you're mixing two different changes up:

Initially Veins was not going to stack with Bloodlust, but this was reverted.
The only change to the Skull is that using it first will incur a cooldown on your other trinkets, the same way all other trinkets do.

You can still use any given trinket while using Veins, which can still be used with BL. The only 'nerf' going live currently is that the Skull is now subject to the anti-stacking rules all other trinkets are.
#3534SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Asahina
Originally Posted by Smithist View Post
I think you're mixing two different changes up:

Initially Veins was not going to stack with Bloodlust, but this was reverted.
Ah ha! Now see I remember reading this as well. However I can't find the blue post for it anymore, and all the patch notes for the PTR on the websites say that it still doesn't stack.

EDIT: I tell a filthy lie, its just the europe PTR notes
#3535SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Smithist
I couldn't find any evidence of it on the US site's notes either, but here's the blue post for anyone else that missed it.
#3536SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Wizeowel
Originally Posted by Soraxis View Post
thats just crazy stupid lol, the idea is instead to do the majority of your damage from AB and then when that is used up (no mana!) you wand instead of frostbolt, giving you A) 100% of your mana regen because you arent casting and B) not using any mana so you can regen quickly (faster than right now because we will see the new spirit regen in 2.4) and get back into your arcane blast rotation.
Apart from what I said about wanding actually disrupting dps from locks and shadow priests, and what others have said about the fact that it will take you at least 2 minutes to wand back to full mana, I'd like to point out that there is a simple calculation you can do to prove to yourself that this idea doesn't work.

average dps = (AB spam dps x M) + (wand dps x N) / M + N

So if AB is 2400 dps for forty seconds and wanding is 300 dps for two minutes, then you are doing average 825 dps. With one evocate, timely use of pots and gems, the shadow priest mana you can maybe get that up to a whole two minutes of AB spam in the first four minutes of the fight, giving average 1350 dps before dropping back to 825 dps.

Now, if your AB spam is 2400 dps then you can probably manage more than 1400 dps with fireball anyway and sustain it for longer - and not need to use gem and pot cooldowns for mana. Do you see the flaw now?
#3537SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Queuetip
The only time there was somewhat serious discussion about Wanding rotations was when AM spam was incredibly broken with TC and MSD. I think it was a debate between wanding or Rank 3 AM. Other than that scenario (which we most likely won't be seeing again), save your wands for a really sloppy Phase 2 RoS fight
#3538SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Nakawe
Serpent-Coil Braid

In 2.4, according to rawr, the Serpent-Coil Braid becomes second best dps trinket in game for a 40/0/21 build with my gear. Is this accurate? If so is it because of the extra mana it brings back? The best is listed as Hex Shrunken Head. The Skull of Gul'dan is listed third.

I am already hit capped so I am assuming that the hit on Serpent-Coil Braid is not the factor.

Last edited by Nakawe : 03/18/08 at 10:38 AM. Reason: spelling errors
#3539SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I can see how serpent-coil brand gets more useful when you're 40/0/21 in a fight that allows exactly 3 gem uses... I don't see how it's all that great though compared to something like the new alchemist stone, especially when you're already hit capped (you should consider how rawr values hit beyond cap, as it's something very hard to estimate since it doesn't have 0 benefit due to being able to drop hit in other slots but it's also far far from the benefit it would have if you wouldn't be able to reach the hit cap).
#3540SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
The thing that makes SCB so good for 40/0/21 is that it's another cooldown you can stack at the same time as trinkets. aka, add on another 225dmg while you're spamming blast during arcane power, with your other trinket on and heroism.
#3541SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
You're forgetting though 1 is a 2 minute cooldown and the other is 3, so you will only fit 1 out of every 3 gems with an arcane power. And I doubt losing the mana and DPS from using gems on cooldown is worth it for the sake of stacking all of them with AP.
#3542SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 Astrylian
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
You're forgetting though 1 is a 2 minute cooldown and the other is 3, so you will only fit 1 out of every 3 gems with an arcane power. And I doubt losing the mana and DPS from using gems on cooldown is worth it for the sake of stacking all of them with AP.
No, but you stack it on the one you get heroism with, and every other one before/after that, which is a significant dps boost.
#3543SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Silentwalker
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
You're forgetting though 1 is a 2 minute cooldown and the other is 3, so you will only fit 1 out of every 3 gems with an arcane power. And I doubt losing the mana and DPS from using gems on cooldown is worth it for the sake of stacking all of them with AP.
If you are to use the SCB and HSH together the braid and the hex are on the same cooldown while AP is on a 3 minute cooldown. If you want to maximize the time spent dpsing with all 3 of the cooldowns (okay so 4 with PoM) you'd generally wait 1 minute do to so except, when it is right down to the wire.
#3544SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
When using scb I normally start fight with cirtrine for the damage boost. I use a mana pot if I run low on mana before 2 minute mark. This give me 3 good gems for over a 6 minute fight. If fight is less then point is rather pointless :P.

I have just gotten hex shrunken head and was using the silver cresent with it. I guess i will have to use scb now.

I have also figured out that my rotation was not good. It reccomends ab, frostb, ab, frostb, ab, frostb, frostb, frostb rinse and repeat for max dps output on longer fight, obviously I would ab on short fights. I was using 3 ab, 3 frostb, this comes back as like 100 less dps. Actually now that I think of it, it doesnt make sense at all, why this is this way. Its the same spells just order mixed up.
#3545SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Astrylian
Originally Posted by Nakawe View Post
It reccomends ab, frostb, ab, frostb, ab, frostb, frostb, frostb rinse and repeat for max dps output on longer fight, obviously I would ab on short fights. I was using 3 ab, 3 frostb, this comes back as like 100 less dps. Actually now that I think of it, it doesnt make sense at all, why this is this way. Its the same spells just order mixed up.
The difference is that when you chain 3 ABs together, building up the debuff, as each AB ends, you start casting the next one before your client gets the result of your previous cast back with the new cast time debuff, so you cast it with the previous cast time. Your rotation looks like:

2.5sec AB at 100% cost
2.5sec AB at 175% cost
2.17sec AB at 250% cost
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
1.5sec AB at 100% cost
2.5sec AB at 175% cost
2.17sec AB at 250% cost
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
etc.

Adding a frostbolt in between each AB gives your client time to get the debuff, so your cast times are:

2.5sec AB at 100% cost
2.5sec FB
2.17sec AB at 175% cost
2.5sec FB
1.83sec AB at 250% cost
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
1.5sec AB at 100% cost
2.5sec FB
2.17sec AB at 175% cost
2.5sec FB
1.83sec AB at 250% cost
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
2.5sec FB
etc.

In other words, for each rotation, looking just at the ABs, you're doing the same damage, with the same mana cost, and casting a 1.5, a 2.5, and a 2.17 in the first one, and a 1.5, a 2.17, and a 1.83 in the second one.

EDIT: No problem. It amazes me how much complexity and subtle intricacies like this that Blizz managed to fit in one spell.

Last edited by Astrylian : 03/18/08 at 2:01 PM.
#3546SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Nakawe
Originally Posted by Astrylian View Post
In other words, for each rotation, looking just at the ABs, you're doing the same damage, with the same mana cost, and casting a 1.5, a 2.5, and a 2.17 in the first one, and a 1.5, a 2.17, and a 1.83 in the second one.

Wow, thankyou. I have learned something today, I will adjust my rotation accordingly.
#3547SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
If you wait on your mana gems, you're losing 1/3 of their boost on average in order to boost them up by 30%. 1.3*2/3<1 so you're actually losing dps if you wait 1 minute every time for it to stack with AP. When it stacks naturally, great, but when it doesn't it isn't worth waiting. I remember when I did the math for IV and icon it was never worth waiting on IV for the icon although it was worth it to have the icon wait for IV if it happened to be less than ~40s wait (so normally not worth it, but if you happened to have <~40s left on your IV you should wait) - most likely same applies to AP and SCB, except the time worth waiting will most likely be quite lower as the mana returns from your mana gems don't get multiplied by AP, and not only you give up trinket uptime you also give up # of gems used in the fight.
#3548SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Kavan
There's roughy a 10% value increase for SCB for Arcane/Frost above what other items gain just from overall damage increase in 2.4. Here's where I see this coming from. It has nothing to do with overstacking. Main difference comes from GCD reduction. In 2.3 best spell during Heroism and IV is Frostbolt. So you would use SCB twice with Frostbolt and once with AB spam. In 2.4 however what you would use during Heroism and IV is AB spam (not Heroism and IV at the same time). Value of damage increase from SCB is much higher for AB spam than for Frostbolt.
#3549SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Madlax
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Plugging my current T6 gear (9% haste) + ele shaman with a 2/48/11 build into a Rawr for a 6 minute fight, I get the following:

2021 DPS with 50 mp5 "SP" (=mana spring from elemental shaman).
That's with mage armour, uses Evo, 3 pots+gems, and has 26 seconds AFK wand time.
For some odd reason, I still have 40 seconds Flame Cap time.

2110 DPS with mage armour, Evo, 2 pots, 3 gems, 1 Destruction Potion stacked with MF/BL/IV/CB/FC/SoG'd.
The is still 40 seconds of Flame Caps, odd bug.

2227 DPS with a 350 mp5 shadowpriest, using molten armour, 1 mana pot and the rest on DPS cooldowns.


A 10/48/3 build would yield the following:

2087 DPS with 50 mp5 and molten armour, 2084 DPS with mage armour.
With molten armour, it uses 3 pots, 3 gems and 0.91 Evocation. I.e. it needs nearly the full mana of evocation.
Playing with the numbers, it would run OOM at 6:11 minutes.
With mage armour, it uses 2.83 pots and 3 gems, skipping Evocation no to lose time.

2180 DPS with molten, 2130 DPS with mage armour with a 350 mp5 shadowpriest added.
Thanks for that. I went and forced one of my mages to a little testing today.

Basic T6 geared mage, using no haste gear, gems and super mana pots on CD, molten armor.
Shaman in group for mana spring. Int buff, no wisdom, no spirit buff.
He lasted 4 minutes before he had to Evocate - which pretty much suffices for a 6 minute calculation.

I´m testing it again with a kinda equally geared mage(9% haste) as you are to see if it still works.
As for the Spriest usage, the main idea was to see if a mage needed one to last 6 minutes.
I´d assume with stacking haste gear that it could get a serious problem, but as it seems now it ain´t yet.
I rather use a Spriest on a warlock and healers in that regard.

Just to justify, since that statement might taunt someone:
6 min casting as warlock with 0 haste and 0 mana regen would wield a consumption of ~53.000 mana and require 22 LT - thats 33 seconds downtime(which is, rounded down 8% lost DPS time - or with 2k DPS 60.000 damage lost).
With, for example 280 haste, we´re going up to 60-65k and even go up in Lifetap downtime by some seconds.

Kudos again for clarifying.
#3550SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Silentwalker
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
If you wait on your mana gems, you're losing 1/3 of their boost on average in order to boost them up by 30%. 1.3*2/3<1 so you're actually losing dps if you wait 1 minute every time for it to stack with AP. When it stacks naturally, great, but when it doesn't it isn't worth waiting. I remember when I did the math for IV and icon it was never worth waiting on IV for the icon although it was worth it to have the icon wait for IV if it happened to be less than ~40s wait (so normally not worth it, but if you happened to have <~40s left on your IV you should wait) - most likely same applies to AP and SCB, except the time worth waiting will most likely be quite lower as the mana returns from your mana gems don't get multiplied by AP, and not only you give up trinket uptime you also give up # of gems used in the fight.
Galzohar, true statement. If you happen to wait on your mana gems you are losing that however I usually have a rotation that I use personally that works for me in particular and boosts my dps in HJ and BT to be one of the top DPSERs in at least my guild. It may not work for others but, it does work for me and my dps at least among the mages is almost unmatched.

My macro combination happens to be is Hex, SCB, IV, Combustion, then I just FrB spam. I usually just have a scorch hit on the boss before I hit my macro. I've done the rotation before and the dps that I do it doesn't do enough dps if I just wait that one minute. The buffs that I get from having everything up at once makes everything much easier on me and from seeing using all of them together maximizing the time that I have Hex and SCB's cooldowns up at the same time.

But, I can see with your numbers and figures how you came to that conclusion. I'll try it sometime thanks Galzohar.
#3551SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Few interesting tidbits i TCed:

40/10/11: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
39/11/11: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I got 40/10/11 as almost 200 more dps fireball filler over frostbolt when winter's chill is NOT up but improved scorch is (and only 30 less dps when winter's chill was up, and that's frostbolt spamming)

39/11/11 is an oddball build i also came up with, basically MM Veins lacks a good spell to presence of mind. I know from PTR experience that there were many times spamming 0.94 second arcane blasts that you just kinda forget. However Pyroblast cast at the tail end of an AP does upwards of double arcane damage (Note: I am factoring in the crit-coefficient, which is leaps and bounds better than when arcane blast crits). That said i'm yet to see anything that models either of these, and have only see losing that point in mind mastery as a ~35 dps loss overall.

Looking to you mage dps modelers to help me out on this one.
#3552SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Madlax View Post
Basic T6 geared mage, using no haste gear, gems and super mana pots on CD, molten armor.
Shaman in group for mana spring. Int buff, no wisdom, no spirit buff.
He lasted 4 minutes before he had to Evocate - which pretty much suffices for a 6 minute calculation.

I´m testing it again with a kinda equally geared mage(9% haste) as you are to see if it still works.
As for the Spriest usage, the main idea was to see if a mage needed one to last 6 minutes.
I´d assume with stacking haste gear that it could get a serious problem, but as it seems now it ain´t yet.
I rather use a Spriest on a warlock and healers in that regard.

Just to justify, since that statement might taunt someone:
6 min casting as warlock with 0 haste and 0 mana regen would wield a consumption of ~53.000 mana and require 22 LT - thats 33 seconds downtime(which is, rounded down 8% lost DPS time - or with 2k DPS 60.000 damage lost).
With, for example 280 haste, we´re going up to 60-65k and even go up in Lifetap downtime by some seconds.
You do realise that giving a warlock a shadow priest to reduce life tap time while forcing your mage to use evocation and to use mana gems/pots during MF/BL/IV/CB/SG is a net DPS loss? Life Tap is more mps than Evocation (also has no cooldown and can be cast while running).

Haste gear does not increase life tap time since haste will reduce the GCD. Your mana consumption will increase by the same rate that your Life Tap GCD will go down.


The difference is quite small if the warlock can't tap on the move, I give you that (using Rawr.mage and Leulier). The added benefit of needed 55 heal/sec less may or maynot be noticable.
In the end, it depends on who your better players are and how you set up your raid with shaman, mana tide/totem of wrath, moonkins to optimise how you make your groups.

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/19/08 at 5:05 AM.
#3553SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Zinaida
Assuming a 350 mp5 shadowpriest, and that life taps give you 1.8k mana each, the shadowpriest will save you 14 life taps. From your numbers, that's about a 5.1% increase in dps.

The mages are losing ~2.5% from using evocation, 3% from using mage armour if needed, and if I remember the numbers correctly off the top of my head, ~2% from using two less flamecaps (maybe higher with cooldown stacking).

With the Sunwell haste gear it will only get worse for mages in this respect, while warlocks will be unaffected due to the gcd changes (although they will require a little more healing). Edit: Now that I think of it, the warlock's initial mana pool will run dry faster, however this is only a small portion of the fight, so the point still stands.

Last edited by Zinaida : 03/19/08 at 8:47 AM.
#3554SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Pintofbrew
Either I don't get what you're saying, Zinaida, or you're mistaken.

What Roywyn said about haste concerning lifetap is correct and you seem to have not got it: Say you cast 10 bolts and 1 lifetap. Increase gear by 100 haste. You'll still have to do 10 bolts and one tap for the same mana consumption. Back when LT would not become faster due to GCD, yes, the ratio of bolt-to-tap ratio would worsen, but now with GCD affecting LT the ratio is exactly the same as before, meaning Haste is irrelevant to your LT time. Yes you'll tap more times but you'll cast more bolts in the exact same ratio increase.
#3555SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Fizwidget
Don't forget, less lifetapping means more ISB uptime, which helps the sPriest DPS and the warlock DPS. More lifetaps is less shadowbolting, and you can't crit with shadowbolts you aren't casting.
#3556SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Zinaida
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew View Post
Either I don't get what you're saying, Zinaida, or you're mistaken.

What Roywyn said about haste concerning lifetap is correct and you seem to have not got it: Say you cast 10 bolts and 1 lifetap. Increase gear by 100 haste. You'll still have to do 10 bolts and one tap for the same mana consumption. Back when LT would not become faster due to GCD, yes, the ratio of bolt-to-tap ratio would worsen, but now with GCD affecting LT the ratio is exactly the same as before, meaning Haste is irrelevant to your LT time. Yes you'll tap more times but you'll cast more bolts in the exact same ratio increase.
I was agreeing with that point, not disputing it. What I added was that the initial mana pool where the warlock is not tapping will be depleted faster with haste. This means they means that they will spend a slightly larger proportion of the fight doing a "shadowbolt-lifetap" rotation, which only begins once the initial mana pool is depleted.
#3557SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Roywyn
Originally Posted by Fizwidget View Post
Don't forget, less lifetapping means more ISB uptime, which helps the sPriest DPS and the warlock DPS. More lifetaps is less shadowbolting, and you can't crit with shadowbolts you aren't casting.
Good point. At least, for a high-crit warlock who is adding more ISB than he consumes. The effect seems rather small to me.

Toying with Leulier's, it would increase ISB uptime by 0.32%, adding roughly 7 DPS at 11k shadow DPS.
Does that seem in line with generally accepted warlock figures? (Not sure if I got that right in the sheet.)


Edit: Taken 11k shadow DPS as extreme value to get an idea. We are a bit caster heavy though (3-5 warlocks, 1-3 shadow priests).

Last edited by Roywyn : 03/19/08 at 4:39 PM.
#3558SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
11k shadow dps ? I remain skeptical.

edit: damn those steam tonks.
#3559SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Evene
Originally Posted by Madlax View Post
Thanks for that. I went and forced one of my mages to a little testing today.

Basic T6 geared mage, using no haste gear, gems and super mana pots on CD, molten armor.
Shaman in group for mana spring. Int buff, no wisdom, no spirit buff.
He lasted 4 minutes before he had to Evocate - which pretty much suffices for a 6 minute calculation.

I´m testing it again with a kinda equally geared mage(9% haste) as you are to see if it still works.
As for the Spriest usage, the main idea was to see if a mage needed one to last 6 minutes.
I´d assume with stacking haste gear that it could get a serious problem, but as it seems now it ain´t yet.
I rather use a Spriest on a warlock and healers in that regard.

Just to justify, since that statement might taunt someone:
6 min casting as warlock with 0 haste and 0 mana regen would wield a consumption of ~53.000 mana and require 22 LT - thats 33 seconds downtime(which is, rounded down 8% lost DPS time - or with 2k DPS 60.000 damage lost).
With, for example 280 haste, we´re going up to 60-65k and even go up in Lifetap downtime by some seconds.

Kudos again for clarifying.
Alternatively your comparison could have a warlock could use super mana pots on c/d in a group with a shaman and yes a mage using mana pots, gems, and evocation, mage armour, reduces his dps. I'd argue if it makes more sense from a raid dps standpoint to switch shadow priest from mages to warlocks either warlocks are entirely to high dps at a low dpm or mages are entirely to low dps at a high dpm.
#3560SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
With 2-3 shadow priests in a raid even any destruction warlock should put up more ISB than he consumes and possibly even affliction. Increasing mp5 by 350, though, will increase ISB uptime by 0.8% on my spreadsheet, which will then increase raid shadow DPS by 0.16% (with 6 shadow users equivalent to less than .96% due to them doing less average DPS than the destruction warlock). Then the 350 mp5 will be increased by 0.56 mp5 which gives less than 0.1 extra dps on my spreadsheet, not to mention the change to ISB uptime is less than 0.01% (meaning spreadsheet doesn't show any difference at all). Note that I find 350 MP5 quite an over-estimation but taking less would just favor the point I'm trying to make even more.

While looking at those cool synergies is nice and all, the reality is that beyond the direct benefit there mostly aren't any "boomerang" effects that are significant.

As for the mage being able to last without a shadow priests - it's not about being able to last or not. Even if he can last, he will do that much more DPS with that much more MP5. Even if he already has incredible mana and only uses mana pots and gems to last, a SP will more or less cover for gems and potions to grant destruction potions and flame caps according to vontre's sheet give over 3% DPS increase. If it reduces evocation time, or in more extreme cases allow you to not use mage armor, you will gain a lot more than that 3% DPS. The most important thing to remember is that the gains of a mage from a SP depend a lot on his spec (arcane in 2.4 (and 2.3 but 2.3 aracne sucks) will gain lots from a SP) and fight duration (although >5min of mostly nuking will generally still possibly require evocation which makes a SP very valueable). Warlocks' gain from a shadow priest doesn't change nearly as much with different fight durations. The DPS increase on my spreadsheet is 94.68 (5.6%) on a 200s fight and 94.73 (5.8%) on a 600s fight.

As for cooldown pairing, I was suggesting that in most cases it is not worth it to wait on your cooldowns to stack, with a few exceptions, mostly the "IV (or AP) will be up soon enough becuase I didn't use my trinket when it came back up" and more importantly the "I'm only getting 1 more use out of it until the fight is over, might as well use it stacked with other cooldowns (especially molten fury+bloodlust)".
#3561SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3diag
Will my dps increase if I fit my rotation with trinket/ring proc as 40/0/21?

e.g.

chain AB when proc

1AB2FB to balance the AB:FB ratio after proc
#3562SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3dakalro
Originally Posted by Evene View Post
Alternatively your comparison could have a warlock could use super mana pots on c/d in a group with a shaman and yes a mage using mana pots, gems, and evocation, mage armour, reduces his dps. I'd argue if it makes more sense from a raid dps standpoint to switch shadow priest from mages to warlocks either warlocks are entirely to high dps at a low dpm or mages are entirely to low dps at a high dpm.
I think it's obvious that any warlock that's remotely serious about his dps is using Super Mana/Rejuv potions on every cooldown since until that point in time that we can cast without lifetapping destro potions are a lot less of a dps increase.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be able to always have mana if you can heal it back up but the difference between basic raid regen (BoW) and full regen is huge, especially if you can manage to sustain 0 Life Taps for a whole fight which makes LT as undesirable as your own usage of potions.

If you still think LT is the end all be all of infinite mana you should try a warlock on a real boss fight, I know at least 1 mage that stopped whining about our infinite mana after his first "where did my mana go" shock on RoS. We've come to the simple agreement that highest dps gets best group and unless the fight is very taxing on healers they don't get any (except the resto shaman, one of which is pure +heal/+haste and uses every bit of outside regen he can get his hands on as his gear regen approaches 0).
#3563SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Evene
Originally Posted by dakalro View Post
I think it's obvious that any warlock that's remotely serious about his dps is using Super Mana/Rejuv potions on every cooldown since until that point in time that we can cast without lifetapping destro potions are a lot less of a dps increase.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be able to always have mana if you can heal it back up but the difference between basic raid regen (BoW) and full regen is huge, especially if you can manage to sustain 0 Life Taps for a whole fight which makes LT as undesirable as your own usage of potions.

If you still think LT is the end all be all of infinite mana you should try a warlock on a real boss fight, I know at least 1 mage that stopped whining about our infinite mana after his first "where did my mana go" shock on RoS. We've come to the simple agreement that highest dps gets best group and unless the fight is very taxing on healers they don't get any (except the resto shaman, one of which is pure +heal/+haste and uses every bit of outside regen he can get his hands on as his gear regen approaches 0).
My point was the post I quoted compared a warlock with 0 mana regen(assume this mean no pots/mana spring) to a mage using pots on c/d with mana spring. The post also didn't show the dps loss from not using destruction pots, flame caps, and lost time for evocation, but focused on the dps loss from LT time.

I have raided occasionaly on my warlcok...LT is infinite mana. Affliction has insane regen is you raid buff your imp and LT with destruction is still unlimited with a bit of healing(some of which you do for yourself). RoS is one instance in which the mechanics of two of the phases make LT non infinite both phases are farily short and you get full mana/health in between them.

Ideally you'd try to setup dps groups. My point was a mage is mana limited a warlock is not(Minus phase 1/2 souls). Your arguement is a class not limited by mana(with imo much more raid utility) is doing so much dps a class limited by mana(with little raid ultility) if that's the case I would say mages eitheir need more raid ultility or hgher dps talents and less mana talents.
#3564SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Evene View Post
My point was the post I quoted compared a warlock with 0 mana regen(assume this mean no pots/mana spring) to a mage using pots on c/d with mana spring. The post also didn't show the dps loss from not using destruction pots, flame caps, and lost time for evocation, but focused on the dps loss from LT time.

I have raided occasionaly on my warlcok...LT is infinite mana. Affliction has insane regen is you raid buff your imp and LT with destruction is still unlimited with a bit of healing(some of which you do for yourself). RoS is one instance in which the mechanics of two of the phases make LT non infinite both phases are farily short and you get full mana/health in between them.

Ideally you'd try to setup dps groups. My point was a mage is mana limited a warlock is not(Minus phase 1/2 souls). Your arguement is a class not limited by mana(with imo much more raid utility) is doing so much dps a class limited by mana(with little raid ultility) if that's the case I would say mages eitheir need more raid ultility or hgher dps talents and less mana talents.
Infinite mana is meaningless in the long run. You only need enough mana to nuke for a given duration of X seconds. I do find it interesting how mages complain about evocating burning dps time while expecting us to lifetap, burning dps time.

IMO, RoS is a fight where your mana situation is a lot more desirable than ours; because your mana pools are larger, you have mana gems, and master of elements. I have to lifetap at least once on RoS p3 because I blow through my initial mana pool so much faster.
#3565SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Life Tap is more mps than Evocation (also has no cooldown and can be cast while running).
I wouldn't make this a blanket statement; it depends on the amount of shadow spell damage your lock has and the mana pool of the mage in question. Plus, in a 6 min. Brutallus, can't you Icy Veins your Evocate?
#3566SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3dakalro
My point was that mana is finite for a lock in any fight longer than 1 minute for maximum, after that you lose dps.

A mage is as mana limited as a warlock that refuses to Life Tap. The regen is there you just don't want to use it. You pay in damage boosters if you want to regen, we pay in casting time. Same thing, different means. On this note I do agree mage dps isn't as high as it should but it's close.

Going from spriest + resto shaman + potting to just potting is about same dps loss for a warlock that is for a mage a mage having to gem, mana pot and maybe evo and mage armor. There's no higher need for a shadow priest for mages, just for the highest dps players.

The raid utility and dps ... moot point, you've never had 2 warlocks//40 man raid period so you have no bussiness saying you're in a bad position, when you get to become SS/HS bot outside the instance and CoE/CoR bot inside just outdps-ing the tanks then you can whine, until then mages are competitive and can break 2k dps with ease given group and consumables (same as for warlocks). Affliction is in such a sorry state that it's questionable if it's actually usefull in Sunwell considering the needs.
#3567SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
Life Tap is more mps than Evocation (also has no cooldown and can be cast while running).
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
I wouldn't make this a blanket statement; it depends on the amount of shadow spell damage your lock has and the mana pool of the mage in question. Plus, in a 6 min. Brutallus, can't you Icy Veins your Evocate?
At the end of Sunwell, a gnome mage with BoK and an Evostick (107 from ZA) maybe able to break 2k Evocation ticks.
I'm currently hovering just between 1850 - 1900 ticks.
2000 mana every 2 seconds is 1500 mana every 1.5s, which requires 1150 shadow damage.

Going with 1250 base shadow damage (T6) and 350 from raid buffs, we're at 1860 life taps. 1/3 more mana/sec than Evocation, roughly.


IV+Evocation isn't as good as it sounds, it prolongs your IV buff by 7 seconds (10s Evo instead of 3s FB).
You'll also have all CDs stacked during Evo, but you can work with that somehow.

You definately can't do it in a 6 minute fight, since you'll use use IV exactly two times. First time will be at the start, second time will be at 20%. Evocation isn't useful at either moment.
You'll use your 2m and 3m CDs at the start (0:30), reuse the 2m CDs at (2:30), and reuse your 2m and 3m CDs at (4:30) when he drops below 20%.
#3568SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3 manly
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
Infinite mana is meaningless in the long run. You only need enough mana to nuke for a given duration of X seconds. I do find it interesting how mages complain about evocating burning dps time while expecting us to lifetap, burning dps time.[...]
Clearly, you haven't dealt with the atrocious mage mana regen on chain pulls. Mage mana regen is excellent for bosses, but for chain pulls, its beyond a nightmare. Even if you do a SCB-swap, pop gem, swap back hex shrunken head in between every pull, and use mana pots on trash, I'm still garanteed to be totally unable to handle any kind of chain pulling irregardless of context.

I get your point that infinite mana is moot, but it definately matters on chain pull. If anything, I maintain that mana mechanics are stupid.
#3569SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Phren
First of all, thank you to all the great and very informed people here, it has been very valuable in refining my mage.

I have recently switched to using the [Mind Quickening Gem] for the Akama fight with amazing results. With BL, IV, and the MQG my fireball casting time gets pushed to 1.5 second cast.

I wanted to model at what length of fight does the MQG, presuming being used during molten fury range, gets beat by a multi-use trinket like the Icon. For instance: does the Icon beat the MQG at two uses, three uses, etc.

Thanks in advance for any information.
#3570SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Krazen
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
At the end of Sunwell, a gnome mage with BoK and an Evostick (107 from ZA) maybe able to break 2k Evocation ticks.
I'm currently hovering just between 1850 - 1900 ticks.
2000 mana every 2 seconds is 1500 mana every 1.5s, which requires 1150 shadow damage.

Going with 1250 base shadow damage (T6) and 350 from raid buffs, we're at 1860 life taps. 1/3 more mana/sec than Evocation, roughly.


IV+Evocation isn't as good as it sounds, it prolongs your IV buff by 7 seconds (10s Evo instead of 3s FB).
You'll also have all CDs stacked during Evo, but you can work with that somehow.

You definately can't do it in a 6 minute fight, since you'll use use IV exactly two times. First time will be at the start, second time will be at 20%. Evocation isn't useful at either moment.
You'll use your 2m and 3m CDs at the start (0:30), reuse the 2m CDs at (2:30), and reuse your 2m and 3m CDs at (4:30) when he drops below 20%.
What happens if you change this to using both at the 1:00 mark (thus Evocating at 1:19), the 2m CDs at the 3:00 mark, and both again at the 5:00 mark?
#3571SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
Evene
My response was to post #3549 reread the full post. The comparison had several errors.
-gems and super mana pots on CD(with value for dps loss due to flame caps)
-no dps loss from evocation
-Shaman in group for mana spring for the mage
-warlock with 0 haste and 0 mana regen(I assume this means no shaman and no mana pot)

I don't mind the comparison I'm just point out the implications of it and that if one is made it should be done correctly. Someone else posted 3% diff for dest pots/flame caps but a 5.6% difference for warlocks(unsure if this assumes mana pots/spring for the warlock) obvious as the fight goes longer lost time due to evocation then the change from molten to mage(3%).

I know their is loss dps to LT, and in several fights infinite mana isn't a factor(The mechanic is still there it is still infinite)

Mages may be slighty better off for RoS mana mechanics, but really focusing on one fight with odd mechanics........I mean honestly how many fights are mage unfriendly???

People forget pre bc 1. There where/still are fire immune resist bosses in raiding and no shadow immune 2. In Naxx(where most people focus) there where fights that favored fire 3. The ignite roll was only assigned to one mage his dps was unrealistically high while the others where much lower comparing that mage to another dps class was flawed. 4. There where other spare/filler dps classes besides mages.

Currently 1 . Ignite is no more 2. An additional shadow damage class is in most all raids making you want at least 3 warlock as long as they have reasonable dps output 3. 25 man raids don't have a whole lot of spare dps slots

I see affliction similar to a survival hunter it's a spec for raid benefit not for personal dps.

It's no so much warlock v mage as it is a mage is a pure dps calls with almost no really useful raid utility/buffs our utility/hybrid abilities is simliar to that of a rogue but our dps potential is far below. You can make similiar arguments for say a if a BM hunter has higher or equal dps output then a mage or to a lesser extent a dps warrior. Also consider many fight in BT/HY are fairly shor and icy vein use and c/d stacking(caps, destruct, trinkets) makes mages dps higher then it would be for say a longer fight. Currently with WWS and WWS scoreboard you can get a relative idea of class performance at optimal levels.

[Mind Quickening Gem] could be interesting especially for short fights unsure what the infliction point would be. I think it's roughly 20% haste at level 70 a normal trinket probably gives 3% maybe so I'd say around 6 times the duration or under 2mins. Not many fights go under that amount of time.

Last edited by Evene : 03/20/08 at 4:13 PM.
#3572SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
I think we all agree less than 3 warlocks in a raid is compeltely silly while there is no minimum requirement on mages. The "warlock vs mage" argument is only more relevent for party setups than for raid composition, although if you do find that warlocks hand down beat mages in all situations there's little reason to bring mages (as in, only reasons being sheeping requirements and sheer attendance/availability).

Affliction warlocks are nothing like survival hunters - survival hunters are a matter of "will EW beat out the DPS loss?" while affliction is "hey the tank just survived with 3% HP before the heal landed, we win" instead of "crap another tank death wipe" - the DPS cost is nothing for what you're gaining in terms of making fights easier at least in my experience as both a DPSer and a healer.

When it comes to mana buffing, remember mana is as good as the DPS you could gain by not needing to regen that mana for yourself. The DPS a warlock would gain is quite constant on different fight durations while a mage would gain very different amounts of DPS on different fights. The one that actually benefits more depends on what mana regen the mage can drop for more DPS - if he can drop mage armor and/or evocation he'll most likely benefit more, while if he'll only be able to drop a mana potion or 2 the warlock will benefit more. Anything in between requires more accurate calculations not to mention the actual warlock VS mage DPS. Note that on some fights warlocks can tap on the move possibly wasting mana regen - every 1.5s you spend moving and not LTing because your mana is full(while being able to LT from a survivability standpoint) is a major waste of mana - 2000 mana the mage could've had (or 1-3k extra damage done).

Warlocks who aren't mana potting are just as bad as mages doing the same. In such a case probably give the shadow priest to the mages as you're trying to be cheap and cheap mages will go oom while cheap warlocks will lifetap more. This isn't relevent for any fights that are any kind of a challenge, though, as everyone should be using potions on every cooldown.

Mind quickenning gem was already quite subpar in long-term-dps at level 60, so I would doubt there's any point to keep it at 70.
#3573SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Evene
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
What happens if you change this to using both at the 1:00 mark (thus Evocating at 1:19), the 2m CDs at the 3:00 mark, and both again at the 5:00 mark?
I'm guessing at the 1:19min mark you won't need a full evocate additionally it depends on how accurate you could predict the fight duration as losing a c/d if the fight goes quickly(4min) or running out of mana if the fight goes long(6-9mins). It'd still be roughly a 20% increase mps at the loss of dps which would be less mps then LT. You also have to consider that using iv evocate at that time may affect the number of mana gems, pots you'd use for the fight.
#3574SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Evene
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
Affliction warlocks are nothing like survival hunters - survival hunters are a matter of "will EW beat out the DPS loss?" while affliction is "hey the tank just survived with 3% HP before the heal landed, we win" instead of "crap another tank death wipe" - the DPS cost is nothing for what you're gaining in terms of making fights easier at least in my experience as both a DPSer and a healer.
.
That's basically my point affliction will be a viable spec even if the personal dps suffers due to greater raid benefit. I'd say you can look over WWS and WWS scoreboard and draw your own conclusions about mage dps.
#3575SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
What happens if you change this to using both at the 1:00 mark (thus Evocating at 1:19), the 2m CDs at the 3:00 mark, and both again at the 5:00 mark?
Then I use Evocation while having Flame Caps up.
And that means I use trinket 1 at 1:00, Evo at 1:19 (until 1:29), and trinket 2 at 1:30. That mean I'll have to delay Heroism by 10 second to fit both trinkets (20s+20s) into it.
Hero+CDs+trinket1 at 5:10, trinket2 at 5:30, end T2 and heroism at 5:50.

If you finish the boss 15 seconds before the enrage timer, a lot of your cooldowns were wasted.

You gain another 7 seconds of 20% haste at the cost of losing 10 seconds of Flame Caps and a horrible Evocation timing.

I'm not sure where you're going at, but using Evocation 1/4 into a fight that is mana heavy towards it's end (Heroism, and 2 out of 3 haste trinket/drum uses after Evocation) doesn't seem possible to me.
#3576SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Sancus
Originally Posted by dakalro View Post
The raid utility and dps ... moot point, you've never had 2 warlocks//40 man raid period so you have no bussiness saying you're in a bad position, when you get to become SS/HS bot outside the instance and CoE/CoR bot inside just outdps-ing the tanks then you can whine
The game mechanic situation pre-bc has no bearing on the situation today. Repeat this to yourself 100 times. People who make the argument "you can't complain because we were worse off 2 years ago" are insane retards, it doesn't fucking matter in the slightest, balance demands that you look at how things are NOW. Warlocks consistently, on-average, outdps mages by a significant margin while using their utility curses. All you have to do is look at the scoreboard to confirm this. If Warlocks are actually allowed to use damage curses(this should never, ever happen in TBC), they outdps everyone in the game except for Warglaive rogues. This is unbalanced, period.
#3577SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3andastra
Originally Posted by Krazen View Post
What happens if you change this to using both at the 1:00 mark (thus Evocating at 1:19), the 2m CDs at the 3:00 mark, and both again at the 5:00 mark?
There's also mana gems to consider. You're going to want to use the first one at around 0:30 and a second one around 2:30 so you can use a flame cap at <20%. You'll also want to use all three combustion charges before 1:30 so it'll be up again around 4:30. Combustion adds crits and therefore mana regen due to MoE. Evocation at 1:19 just means you'll be using it when you only need 2 seconds out of 10 to get back to full mana and run the chance of going oom near the end when you get heroism and pop icy veins and haste trinkets at the same time.
#3578SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Astrylian
Nevermind, thinking of the wrong thing. Sorry.

Last edited by Astrylian : 03/21/08 at 10:03 PM.
#3579SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Risingstar
Originally Posted by Astrylian View Post
I thought the GCD bottomed out at 1sec, which would be Heroism+Icy Veins alone; all haste from gear and trinkets would be wasted for those 40sec, wouldn't they?
Yeah but IV only lasts 20 seconds.
#3580SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3
Edited onPatch 2.3.3
 Astrylian
Nevermind, again thinking of the wrong thing. Sorry.

Last edited by Astrylian : 03/21/08 at 10:02 PM.
#3581SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Roywyn
Originally Posted by Astrylian View Post
I thought the GCD bottomed out at 1sec, which would be Heroism+Icy Veins alone; all haste from gear and trinkets would be wasted for those 40sec, wouldn't they?
Andastra was talking about Flame Caps, that means a fire spec, that means haste isn't actually limited.
Yeah, the GCD caps at 1s there, but your primary nukes will be above the cap.

Haste caps are as follows.
Fireball - caps at 300% (3s/1s) cast speed (+200% haste)
IV = 120%, BL = 130%, 3.00/(1.20*1.30) = 192% speed needed to cap under BL+IV.
That's +92% haste, or 1440+ haste rating.
Frostbolt - caps at 250% (2.5s/1s) cast speed (+150% haste)
IV = 120%, BL = 130%, 2.50/(1.20*1.30) = 160% speed needed to cap under BL+IV.
That's +60% haste, or 940+ haste rating.

Arcane Blast
At 2.5s with IV/BL caps at +60% haste, or 940+ haste rating.
At 2.13s with IV/BL caps at +38% haste, or 610+ haste rating.
At 1.83s with IV/BL caps at +17% haste, or 275+ haste rating.
At 1.5s with BL, it caps at +15% haste,or 240+ haste rating.

You gear will have 419 - 526 haste. The latter if you stack haste.
You can get up to 320 MSD + 320 EoQ + 330 MQG + 280 BoWiz haste from procs/trinkets if you stack them for no reason, but you should only have 175 as trinket clicky in a proper setup.

So, you'll have up to 419+175=594 haste in a good setup, and up to 1776 haste with an inferior setup.
So, your AB1 will get close to the cap and AB2/3 will drop unter the cap, all other spells won't reach the cap yet.
#3582SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Northerner
R.E. Warlocks:

I think it should be obvious that haste increases ISB uptime given that it has only two factors. Those being a static time element (scales nicely with haste) and a charge component (which scales linearly with haste from increased applications). With respect to haste itself only the first component still scales of course.
#3583SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
While it's nice to make yourself slightly more accurate by taking into account extra ISB from haste, in reality the effect is quite neglicible, just like the effect of having less shadowbolts affected by SP/shaman regen and thus lifetap will be making up a bigger % of your casts is quite neglicible as well.

When making generalizations it's important to pay attention which benefits are extremely tiny and which are not.
#3584SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Silentwalker
Originally Posted by Northerner View Post
R.E. Warlocks:

I think it should be obvious that haste increases ISB uptime given that it has only two factors. Those being a static time element (scales nicely with haste) and a charge component (which scales linearly with haste from increased applications). With respect to haste itself only the first component still scales of course.
What Galzohar was talking about was correct but it should be obvious on the other side that the ISB uptime would only be increased if the warlocks had more haste than the other shadow damage dealers in the raid (IE Shadow Priests). If the warlocks and the shadow priests have the same amount of haste the ISB is negated. Exactly what Galzohar was talking about.

I just wanted to add to what Galzohar was saying if that is not minded by Galzohar.
#3585SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Madlax
First off, thanks for the replies - solved a bunch of thoughts.
2nd - a little feedback for the case-scenario:
1) No run time, so no good LT time
2)
The mages are losing ~2.5% from using evocation, 3% from using mage armour if needed, and if I remember the numbers correctly off the top of my head, ~2% from using two less flamecaps (maybe higher with cooldown stacking).
Gonna see with Molten/Mage armor tomorrow if any of the mages drops by - though I don´t think they will need Mage Armor.
I´m aware that with increasing haste gear the viewpoint will change slightly.
Also I´ll change the test setup slightly - trying to get 2 bloodlusts ~25%.

You do realise that giving a warlock a shadow priest to reduce life tap time while forcing your mage to use evocation and to use mana gems/pots during MF/BL/IV/CB/SG is a net DPS loss?
Proving that is the whole purpose of the assumption.
#3586SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Evene
If you do this again I hope your comparison includes a warlock with mana regen from mana spring and mana pots if you're comparing him to a mage who's using pots and has mana spring.
#3587SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Ivorthemage
Given the impact of mana regen on dps for arcane mages, has anyone done the theorycrafting for 40/0/21 and leatherworking, to see if drums of restoration actually add more dps than drums of battle?
#3588SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Ivorthemage View Post
Given the impact of mana regen on dps for arcane mages, has anyone done the theorycrafting for 40/0/21 and leatherworking, to see if drums of restoration actually add more dps than drums of battle?
Maybe it has been a while since I last played deep arcane, or that I even had mana problems, but isn't the point of TheoryCrafting to reach your maximum potential. A 40/0/21 spec still falls behind a deep fire build in aspects of overall raiding efficiency and overall output of damage. There should be no reason to find a justification, or minimal dps boost for such a failing idea of a spec anyways.

[Drums of Restoration] is such a bad item anyways. It suffers from the same reason Mana Gems for so long sucked so badly. It doesn't restore enough mana. 40mana/sec for 15 seconds, when a ramped up AB costs 600 mana, is wasting that GCD for 1 extra spell worth it? Hardly.
#3589SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3galzohar
The amount of mana consumeables a warlock is using will have no real effect on the DPS (#, NOT %) he gains from more mana. Each ~2k mana is 1.5s more spent casting, while for a mage using evocate with 10k mana each 1500 mana is another 2s spent casting. Of course when the mage stops using evocate already then every additional mana will not be used as efficiently as each gem you drop for a flame cap doesn't provide as much damage as dropping evocate did - but it is extra damage. That's why it's extremely complicated - while the warlock gets rather fixed gains from mana regen, the dps a mage gains from mana regen are quite fight and raid dependant.

Of course the warlock should use mana potions, but it doesn't really mean anything (at least not significant although I actually don't see how the warlock's regen from other sources would have any effect whatsoever) for the shadowpriest dps increase comparison. While if a mage doesn't use mana potions he artificially increases his need/gain of/from a shadowpriest by forcing himself to evocate, while a warlock would lifetap anyway. So while both classes should pot, for mages need to have mana pots modeled while for warlocks it doesn't really affect the result of this specific comparison (although for general comparisons you should obviously include warlock pots, no reason not to).
#3590SourcePosted on Patch 2.3.3Searix
Actually drums of restoration are per person, so in a stacked dps caster group that's 3000 raid mana and health per person that pops it. Really if you're looking at just yourself benefitting from the drums, that's 600 mana/health vs. 20 spell haste (if you distribute both over 2 minutes).

Btw my theorycraft is still showing 40/10/11 as more dps than 40/0/21 if you get improved scorch but not winter's chill
#3591SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Ivorthemage
"Maybe it has been a while since I last played deep arcane, or that I even had mana problems, but isn't the point of TheoryCrafting to reach your maximum potential. A 40/0/21 spec still falls behind a deep fire build in aspects of overall raiding efficiency and overall output of damage. There should be no reason to find a justification, or minimal dps boost for such a failing idea of a spec anyways."

You havent read the re-assessments of the spec that have been coming out recently. The mana changes make arcane blast spam far more viable, particularly for those of us who have 2-piece T5 but no T6. Not everyone is at the same gear level.

"[Drums of Restoration] is such a bad item anyways. It suffers from the same reason Mana Gems for so long sucked so badly. It doesn't restore enough mana. 40mana/sec for 15 seconds, when a ramped up AB costs 600 mana, is wasting that GCD for 1 extra spell worth it? Hardly."

I would prefer an answer that had math, but thank you for your opinion.
#3592SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0diskape
With PTRs and TTRs finally being closed (for good) and a very good chance that the patch will hit the live servers tomorrow - can someone sum up everything that EJ mage community have learned during the past couple of weeks? Things like "what is THE new 2.4 dps spec and why" and such. It'll be a great help for many EJ readers. Thanks in advance guys.
#3593SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Mystz0r
Has someone made a cookie-cutting set of gear anywhere? I might've missed it, apologies if I did!
#3594SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Beska
Originally Posted by diskape View Post
With PTRs and TTRs finally being closed (for good) and a very good chance that the patch will hit the live servers tomorrow - can someone sum up everything that EJ mage community have learned during the past couple of weeks? Things like "what is THE new 2.4 dps spec and why" and such. It'll be a great help for many EJ readers. Thanks in advance guys.
I think this'll be absolutely great. This thread is pretty much all over the place and a new thread summing up 2.4 would help.
#3595SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Ivorthemage View Post
You havent read the re-assessments of the spec that have been coming out recently. The mana changes make arcane blast spam far more viable, particularly for those of us who have 2-piece T5 but no T6. Not everyone is at the same gear level.
Seems like you haven't read much about it either. Keep in mind that the haste changes are at least as important as the spirit change.

Originally Posted by Ivorthemage View Post
"[Drums of Restoration] is such a bad item anyways. It suffers from the same reason Mana Gems for so long sucked so badly. It doesn't restore enough mana. 40mana/sec for 15 seconds, when a ramped up AB costs 600 mana, is wasting that GCD for 1 extra spell worth it? Hardly."

I would prefer an answer that had math, but thank you for your opinion.
You can do that yourself easily. Calculating over a 2 minute duration (that's the drum cooldown), Drums of Restoration are 5*600 mana, or 125 mp5, and Drums of Battle are 80*5*30s/120s = +100 haste ~= +112 damage, -37 mp5.

That means you gain 142 mp5 at the cost of 112 damage. Which is nearly as bad as using the [Redeemer's Alchemist Stone]. Yes, the healing one.

Read up in http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html about your way to trade mana for damage.
#3596SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Evene
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
The amount of mana consumeables a warlock is using will have no real effect on the DPS (#, NOT %) he gains from more mana. Each ~2k mana is 1.5s more spent casting, while for a mage using evocate with 10k mana each 1500 mana is another 2s spent casting. Of course when the mage stops using evocate already then every additional mana will not be used as efficiently as each gem you drop for a flame cap doesn't provide as much damage as dropping evocate did - but it is extra damage. That's why it's extremely complicated - while the warlock gets rather fixed gains from mana regen, the dps a mage gains from mana regen are quite fight and raid dependant.

Of course the warlock should use mana potions, but it doesn't really mean anything (at least not significant although I actually don't see how the warlock's regen from other sources would have any effect whatsoever) for the shadowpriest dps increase comparison. While if a mage doesn't use mana potions he artificially increases his need/gain of/from a shadowpriest by forcing himself to evocate, while a warlock would lifetap anyway. So while both classes should pot, for mages need to have mana pots modeled while for warlocks it doesn't really affect the result of this specific comparison (although for general comparisons you should obviously include warlock pots, no reason not to).
My point is his comparison had a mage using mana pots in a group with mana spring he equated that to a certain amount of time till the mage was oom. However for a warlock he used ZERO mana regen and equated time spent life tapping for the same fight duration to loss damage. Warlock using mana pots and having mana spring life taps less which directly affects damage output for a set duration fight. A more accurate comparison would eitheir decrease the number of lt's for mana spring/pots or compare to the amount of time a mage can last without pot and mana spring. I don't see how it isn't obvious in a comparison for who should get a shadow priest comparing a mage using mana pots with mana spring to a warlock with zero mana regen is flawed.
#3597SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Ivorthemage
"Seems like you haven't read much about it either. Keep in mind that the haste changes are at least as important as the spirit change."
I have read a lot about it, and I am well aware of the haste changes. Haste is a bit problematic for this spec though, as it chews through mana faster, and

You can do that yourself easily. Calculating over a 2 minute duration (that's the drum cooldown), Drums of Restoration are 5*600 mana, or 125 mp5, and Drums of Battle are 80*5*30s/120s = +100 haste ~= +112 damage, -37 mp5.

That means you gain 142 mp5 at the cost of 112 damage. Which is nearly as bad as using the [Redeemer's Alchemist Stone]. Yes, the healing one.

Read up in [Mage] TC after 2.3 about your way to trade mana for damage.
Trading mana for damage is what this spec is all about. The problem is that I haven't seen a handy metric yet for converting mana regen to damage with this particular spec.

Anyway, I figured out a way to answer my own question.

600 mana over 120 seconds is 5 mp5, inside the 5 second rule. With the spirit changes, 1 spirit gets you about 1mp5, *outside* the 5 second rule. So 5mp5 is worth ~7 spirit for an arcane mage with mage armor up. The reason why I translate into spirit is that magegraf allows me to add spirit, but not MP5.

When I plug 7 spirit to current stats in magegraf, I get a 2 dps increase.

Drums of Battle get me the equivalent of 20 haste. 20 haste is a 15 dps increase.

So yes, Drums of Battle are a lot better.
#3598SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
Ivorthemage
"Seems like you haven't read much about it either. Keep in mind that the haste changes are at least as important as the spirit change."
I have read a lot about it, and I am well aware of the haste changes.

You can do that yourself easily. Calculating over a 2 minute duration (that's the drum cooldown), Drums of Restoration are 5*600 mana, or 125 mp5, and Drums of Battle are 80*5*30s/120s = +100 haste ~= +112 damage, -37 mp5.

That means you gain 142 mp5 at the cost of 112 damage. Which is nearly as bad as using the [Redeemer's Alchemist Stone]. Yes, the healing one.

Read up in [Mage] TC after 2.3 about your way to trade mana for damage.
Trading mana for damage is what this spec is all about. The problem is that I haven't seen a handy metric yet for converting mana regen to damage with this particular spec.

Anyway, I figured out a way to answer my own question.

600 mana over 120 seconds is 5 mp5, inside the 5 second rule. With the spirit changes, 1 spirit gets you about 1mp5, *outside* the 5 second rule. So 5mp5 is worth ~7 spirit for an arcane mage with mage armor up. The reason why I translate into spirit is that magegraf allows me to add spirit, but not MP5.

When I plug 7 spirit to current stats in magegraf, I get a 4 dps increase.

Drums of Battle get me the equivalent of 20 haste. 20 haste is a 14 dps increase.

So yes, Drums of Battle are a lot better. I know you knew that, but for me how one arrives at an answer is as important as the answer itself.

Last edited by Ivorthemage : 03/25/08 at 10:52 AM.
#3599SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 Cryic
Originally Posted by Hate Monkey View Post
Maybe it has been a while since I last played deep arcane, or that I even had mana problems, but isn't the point of TheoryCrafting to reach your maximum potential. A 40/0/21 spec still falls behind a deep fire build in aspects of overall raiding efficiency and overall output of damage. There should be no reason to find a justification, or minimal dps boost for such a failing idea of a spec anyways.
Using Rawr.mage, here's the numbers I posted to my guild's forums based on our current progression and the way we normally set up the groups (2 to 3 mages, warlock, shadow priest and sometimes a shaman of various specs). I plugged in buffs based on what we / I normally use: iSpirit, 3 paladin buffs, 250mp5 spriest, flame caps. I normally do not use destruction pots, nor drums. We sometimes have iCoS.

We just killed Illidian last night, so the need to spec something different then fire to help on Illidian is still needed. Yes, I'm sure most guilds can kill with whatever specs, but we need to reduce the time of phase 2 as much as possible, which means non fire specs atm.

Here's the post:


Current Gear:

40 / 0 / 21 Spec:
When Using AB Cycles (ugh):
WC up by another mage + improved CoS: 2,146
No Deep frost mage present: 2,089 dps
+ No iCoS Up: 2,050 DPS
+ No JoW Up: 2,001 DPS (expected)
+ No Spriest or he dies early: 1,883 dps
Interesting Note: Mage armor used (gains only 20 dps though). SCB mage trinket is 2nd best for this spec.
Cycle is basically (AB+FrB)*3, FrB and then fill with a scorch if needed depending upon haste. Extremely complicated shit.

Edit: Dicked around with the cycles some more, you can basically just spam AB until OOM and Frostbolt and do about 99% the damage as the AB cycles. 2,130 dps vs 2,146.

Deep Frost spec:
1,762dps:
JoW Does not Matter (just have to chain chug)
+ no Spriest: 1737dps
Basically Stays the same.

Deep Fire:
1,919dps
+ No JoW: 1909
+ No Spriest: 1773.15

Full BT / MH Gear:
40 / 0 / 21 Spec:
When Using AB Cycles (ugh):
WC up by another mage + improved CoS: 2,288
No Deep frost mage present: 2,240 dps
+ No iCoS Up: 2,196
+ No JoW Up: 2,140 DPS (expected)
+ No Spriest or he dies early: 2,017 dps

Deep Fire:
2119.60 dps
+ No JoW: 2,102
+ No Spriest: 1,880

Deep Frost:
1928
+ No JoW: 1,927
+ No Spriest: 1,991

Sunwell Gear:
40 / 0 / 21 Spec:
When Using AB Cycles (ugh):
WC up by another mage + improved CoS: 2,561
No Deep frost mage present: 2,494 dps
+ No iCoS Up: 2,447
+ No JoW Up: 2,395 DPS (expected)
+ No Spriest or he dies early: 2,284 dps

Deep Fire:
2,500
+ No JoW: 2,467
+ No Spriest: 2,193
Or +No Shaman: 2,359

Deep Frost:
2,238
+ No JoW: 2,235
+ No Spriest: 2,155
40 / 21 falls behind Deep fire at the very end, but until then, it's extremely competitive, if not better (assuming the shit doesnt hit the fan).

I usually raid as Deep fire, mainly because I hate the thought of chain chugging mana pots to do decent dps on semi farm mobs, so please don't take this as an Arcane Zealot post I like all specs
#3600SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Xenophon
Given that I do not have 4-piece T6 yet, our other mage is deep frost, and we generally have CoS up but not CoE, I have a feeling that 40-0-21 would be the best spec for me post-2.4. However, I have a question about cast sequence: I've been playing around with Vontre's magegraf, and it seems to be giving me some rather odd advise...

Its ideal cast sequence over a 5 min fight is

Arcane Blast x 15
Cold Snap
Arcane Blast x 56
Frostbolt x 7
Arcane Blast x 3
Frostbolt x 3
Arcane Blast
Frostbolt
Arcane Blast x 6
Frostbolt x 6
Arcane Blast x 3
Frostbolt x 4
Arcane Blast x 3
Frostbolt x 20

And has me at -3000 mana at one point.

I presume a more realistic scenario would be:

Pop trinkets, AP, and Icy Veins, AB spam till AP ends, cold snap to extent Icy Veins
Evocate
AB x 3
FB x3
Repeat the two above till AP/trinkets are back up
Pop trinkets, AP, Icy Veins, and heroism, AB spam till AP ends and/or mob is dead.

Let me know if I am too far off the mark here.
#3601SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
 manly
try this:

40/0/21 <rotation-less>

1- stack up AB to 3 marks. you can either do this by casting {AB, AB, AB} (or 4, depending on context), or do {AB, frostbolt, AB, frostbolt, AB} (edit: or debatably, {AB, AB, frostbolt, AB} since the 2nd AB is cheap enough that you can ignore the cost)
2- once you have 3 marks, oddly enough, never let it fall off.
3- spam AB when mana allows, if you need to stagger mana consumption, cast frostbolt.

heres the part thats currently debatable and not backed by TC:
--------------------
-> when using cooldowns (bloodlust or IV), depending on how much haste you have, cast frostbolt or AB. The simple version of it is that if you can cast faster than 1s, then switch from AB to frostbolt spam to avoid going sub 1s GCD. bloodlust + IV will put you under, so possibly consider pure frostbolt spam ?

If you have, somehow, just IV up (which should not happen with 40/0/21, you should always double IV during lust, but well you get the idea), then you need 240 (? needs to resolve '1 = 1.5 / (1 + x)') spell haste to get 1s AB. Likewise, you need to know how much haste caps for only bloodlust up if you want to get more technical, but the same principle applies : if your cast goes below 1s GCD, switch spell.

-> another loophole that TC has not checked is whether or not you should, intentionally, not stack bloodlust with IV (!!!) for the express purpose of cramming more AB during bloodlust/AP, which is double good since that is an actual DPM gain. Does the cost outweight the benefit? Hard to say. I have a vague idea of the answer, but its nothing more than a gut feeling as far as I'm concerned.

-------------
Another contingency point

40/10/11 (or even 39/11/11) -- as pointed out by Searix

I haven't personally checked the math for the build, but it does strikes me as making sense, with the one conterintuitive notice that the builds seems senseless upon first sight. Can the loss of an extra icy veins (arguably a bit minor-ish given lack of cooldown stacking since you stack all on your first IV) coupled with the loss of 'deep frost' tree synergy be outdone by the base fireball dps (+ scorch up) ? I think the idea has serious merits, as long as everyone understands that you end up relying more on your raid force to succeed. As long as you understand that the build only works if someone else puts up scorch, and that you (arguably?) get COE too. This means ultimately better DPM -> more dps.

Last edited by manly : 03/25/08 at 3:32 PM.
#3602SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Xenophon
Originally Posted by manly View Post
try this:
If you have, somehow, just IV up (which should not happen with 40/0/21, you should always double IV during lust, but well you get the idea), then you need 240 (? needs to resolve '1 = 1.5 / (1 + x)') spell haste to get 1s AB. Likewise, you need to know how much haste caps for only bloodlust up if you want to get more technical, but the same principle applies : if your cast goes below 1s GCD, switch spell.
I imagine in a typical fight over, say, 4 min, you would have IV available twice. So you could start with an AP/IV/AB spam and have both AP and IV up at the end for a heroism/IV/FB spam.

I'll have to play with it a bit to get a feel of mana consumption rates.
#3603SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
That's grossly inefficient.
Always AP during bloodlust, not during IV. The whole point of the section I wrote 'currently not backed by TC' is that I have not went through the math behind it, but I do have a good gut feeling of what to expect. The reason for this is that AP/AB spam is a DPM gain. You want to gain as much DPM as possible, so you stack with the best haste modifier: ie; bloodlust, not IV. IV/frostbolt spam is just incidental to that previous fact, and the counterbalance to the massive 'mana burn' of the AB spam.

Your goal is to avoid frostbolting like the plague. However, if your AB run below 1s, then try and avoid AB and go for frostbolt. However, AP increases AB DPM, which is why I proposed the 'intentional unstack of IV / bloodlust' so that you can spam AB during both bloodlust and IV.
#3604SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Evene
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
40 / 21 falls behind Deep fire at the very end, but until then, it's extremely competitive, if not better (assuming the shit doesnt hit the fan).

I usually raid as Deep fire, mainly because I hate the thought of chain chugging mana pots to do decent dps on semi farm mobs, so please don't take this as an Arcane Zealot post I like all specs
Using Lhivera calc assuming I'm not messing anything up I get roughtly

dps dpm
1,604.0 Arc Blast x3/Frostbolt x3 w/AP+IV avg'd 15.38
1732?? (X1.08? for winters chill and mal) 16?

dps
1,674.20 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV avg'd 13.79

I used molten, consumables t5 2 piece for 40/21 and 4 piece t6 for fire iv. Also arcane/frost was left at 164 hit, but given an extra 100 spell damage(assumed to gain from gear while magically maintaining hit rating an impossible scenario), no haste values where used as this would clearly be more positive for deep fire.

There doesn't appear to be an option to have another mage doing wc or to separte mal from coe/cos, also doesn't have a way to model for ab spam to end at zero mana.

This provides a bit different picture as you don't do more dps with 40/21 while your rawr assumptions(not entirely sure stats you used) yield more dps before a deep frost mage over fire. I'll mess around with Vontre's spreadsheet and rawr and see what I come up with there.
#3605SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Ivorthemage
Lhivera is using a 3xAB 3xFB rotation, rather than the "rotation-less" rotation that Manly was talking about.

The most annoying thing about the 40/0/21 spec is that is extremely hard to model. Magegraf shows its work, at least, but some of the spell sequences don't make intuitive sense. AB drops off a lot and has to be restacked, without even working in the 8 second timer.
#3606SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
Xenophon
Originally Posted by manly View Post
That's grossly inefficient.
Always AP during bloodlust, not during IV. The whole point of the section I wrote 'currently not backed by TC' is that I have not went through the math behind it, but I do have a good gut feeling of what to expect. The reason for this is that AP/AB spam is a DPM gain. You want to gain as much DPM as possible, so you stack with the best haste modifier: ie; bloodlust, not IV. IV/frostbolt spam is just incidental to that previous fact, and the counterbalance to the massive 'mana burn' of the AB spam.

Your goal is to avoid frostbolting like the plague. However, if your AB run below 1s, then try and avoid AB and go for frostbolt. However, AP increases AB DPM, which is why I proposed the 'intentional unstack of IV / bloodlust' so that you can spam AB during both bloodlust and IV.
Fair enough. Than IV-AP-AB spam at the start, AB/FB rotations in the middle depending on mana availability, and IV-AP-Bloodlust-AB spam at the end -if- it doesn't bring AB below 1.0 cast time, otherwise ditch the IVs at the end and use them earlier.

Or are you suggesting that AP should only be used once during the fight due to the mana cost?

Last edited by Xenophon : 03/25/08 at 1:54 PM.
#3607SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 Astrylian
Originally Posted by Xenophon View Post
Fair enough. Than IV-AP-AB spam at the start, AB/FB rotations in the middle depending on mana availability, and IV-AP-Bloodlust-AB spam at the end -if- it doesn't bring AB below 1.0 cast time, otherwise ditch the IVs at the end and use them earlier.
There's got to be some cutoff of spellhaste where it's still more effective to IV during Bloodlust, doesn't there? I'm not sure off-hand whether IV and Bloodlust are combined additively or multiplicatively... If additive, then IV+Bloodlust, with 0 spellhaste, makes AB 1.0sec cast time. If multiplicative, 0.962. And I doubt any of us at T6+ level are running with 0 spell haste. But despite that, it still seems like it'd be most effective to stack IV during Bloodlust. It seems like there should be some cut off point of gear haste rating that makes it better to use all your IVs outside of Bloodlust. Can anyone figure that math out? Maybe I'm wrong about this, I don't know, it's just a gut feeling, so please take this with a big grain of salt.
#3608SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Cwealm
I apologize if this has already been discussed, but has there been any determination whether a +15 spirit enchant is better for the chest for pve than the mp5?
#3609SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Akston
Best chest enchant according to Rawr is the stats enchant.
#3610SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0vallkyr
Stacking IV with heroism gives no additional dps unless it is paired with ap/molten fury/trinket or some other nonhaste based dps incrasing ability. Stacking haste with haste (like iv+skull) in general has no benefit over using them apart from eachother if there is no other dps boost around. Risking to get below the 1 sec gcd, or with skull triggering the trinket cd in 2.4, it is actually almost always better to use them apart.

With arcane spec, you pair IV with AP and other cds during heroism, the other IV that you get via coldsnap can be used during/before/after it should not matter since it wont get any other boost but heroism. Having 20% haste for 20 sec and having 30% haste for 20 after is the same as having 50% haste for 20 sec and 0 after, unless the fight ends before that 40 seconds ofcourse.

Same goes for fire, IV should be stacked with Hex-Shrunken Head and not with skull even if you use flamecap+destropot. Stacking haste with haste has no benefit at all if you have time to use both the haste effects after each other as well. Having +211 dmg for IV and combustion is a lot better than just pairing skull with IV and using Hexhead after.
#3611SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0inphared
Well Ive been away from WoW for a couple weeks so I havent been able to read too much about the upcoming patch in regards to the ghost EP bug. Im jsut wondering if it is indeed still there or if I will be having to get my hit back up to 164 again.
#3612SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Evene
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Using Rawr.mage, here's the numbers
40 / 21 falls behind Deep fire at the very end, but until then, it's extremely competitive, if not better (assuming the shit doesnt hit the fan).

I usually raid as Deep fire, mainly because I hate the thought of chain chugging mana pots to do decent dps on semi farm mobs, so please don't take this as an Arcane Zealot post I like all specs
I have absolutely no idea how you're arriving at those numbers. Using rawr and several sets of bt/hyall gear I'm alway getting fire>>40/21. Same thing with Vontre's spresheet and Lhivera's calc which I posted earlier. I also question how rawr values int/spirt gems>>spell damage(??). Was using version b12.1.
#3613SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
 manly
Originally Posted by vallkyr View Post
Stacking IV with heroism gives no additional dps unless it is paired with ap/molten fury/trinket or some other nonhaste based dps incrasing ability. Stacking haste with haste (like iv+skull) in general has no benefit over using them apart from eachother if there is no other dps boost around. Risking to get below the 1 sec gcd, or with skull triggering the trinket cd in 2.4, it is actually almost always better to use them apart. [edit: unproven TC, debatable]

With arcane spec, you pair IV with AP and other cds during heroism, the other IV that you get via coldsnap can be used during/before/after it should not matter since it wont get any other boost but heroism. Having 20% haste for 20 sec and having 30% haste for 20 after is the same as having 50% haste for 20 sec and 0 after, unless the fight ends before that 40 seconds ofcourse.

Same goes for fire, IV should be stacked with Hex-Shrunken Head and not with skull even if you use flamecap+destropot. Stacking haste with haste has no benefit at all if you have time to use both the haste effects after each other as well. Having +211 dmg for IV and combustion is a lot better than just pairing skull with IV and using Hexhead after.
There are soo many mistakes in that post I won't bother pointing them out. (edit: hint, look at the bold areas)
RE-EDIT: in fact, I don't agree with a single thing you said.
Particularly you seem to have a major misunderstanding the following:

Haste effects are multiplicative.
Spell haste rating is additive.

final_cast_time = 3 / (1 + total_spell_haste_rating%) / 1.3 (bloodlust) / 1.2 (icy veins)

Last edited by manly : 03/25/08 at 3:22 PM.
#3614SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
vallkyr
Ye i see, haste effects being multiplicative is the thing i didn't know. Just ignore then.

Last edited by vallkyr : 03/25/08 at 4:36 PM.
#3615SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
Andorian
Evene, I posted this a few weeks ago. The reason you may be getting DPS differences may be due to different total fight times.

Originally Posted by Andorian View Post
These are the numbers I'm getting in Rawr.Mage for top end gear for a 5 min. fight.

40/0/21: Mage Armor

2589 DPS (CoS 13%, Basic Raid Setup)
2657 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 10%)
2762 DPS (CoS 13%, CoE 13%, WC, Never Going to Happen)

As time decreases from 300s to 280s Arcane DPS is at 2696 (CoS 13%, CoE 10%).
As time increases from 300s to 320s Arcane DPS is at 2615.
At 360s, 2552 DPS.
At 420s, 2572 DPS.
At 480s, 2505 DPS.

2/48/11: Molten Armor

2635 DPS (CoE 10%, Basic Raid Setup)
2707 DPS (CoE 13%)

Fire:
As time decreases from 300s to 280s Fire DPS is at 2670 (CoS 13%, CoE 10%).
As time increases from 300s to 320s Fire DPS is at 2605.
At 360s, 2568 DPS.
At 420s, 2564 DPS.
At 480s, 2494 DPS.

It looks like just under 5min is the sweet spot for fire but arcane appears to be a viable spec come 2.4. I personally think I'll be going arcane for the extra ice block, trash DPS, and AoE perks.

Thanks again for Rawr, it's simply amazing.

Edit: Both specs were using optimal gear/enchants/consumables for each but with the same raid buffs.

Last edited by Andorian : 03/25/08 at 3:38 PM.
#3616SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
Like every TC, proper emphasis needs to be done on what were comparing. The biggest point where nobody agrees with another is what 'normal raid/group buffs' constitutes.

Personally I think this is the 'standard' cases:
2/48/11 + spriest, elemental shaman
2/48/11 + spriest, elemental shaman, coe
40/0/21 + spriest, resto shaman, 13% cos
40/0/21 + spriest, resto shaman, jow, 13% cos

moonkin, ret pally (3% more crit) as possible %crit increase which I think should be outside of the 'standard' definition for sake of comparison. Personally I would also add:

40/10/11 + spriest, elemental shaman, 13% cos, scorch
40/10/11 + spriest, elemental shaman, 13% cos, scorch, coe
40/0/21 + spriest, resto shaman, 13% cos, wc, coe

The major point where I don't 'agree' with your numbers above is that I don't think the comparisons are actually equal. Elemental shaman with an arcane mage is 'stupid', however, in the case where you get scorch, that means you have fire mages, which usually mean you have a group of {shaman, spriest, 3x mage} hence why I put elemental shaman above. In the numbers you gave us I assume you put resto shaman for all specs, which I don't really agree with.
#3617SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
Evene
40/0/21: Mage Armor--2589 DPS (CoS 13%, Basic Raid Setup)

My point is more using b12.1 what should be a near prefect pre 2.4 gear and full raid and group buffs I'm getting fire at around 2200 dps or 2000dps and arcane/frost at under 2000....How are you getting 500 more dps?

Last edited by Evene : 03/25/08 at 4:46 PM.
#3618SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Xenophon
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Personally I think this is the 'standard' cases:
2/48/11 + spriest, elemental shaman
2/48/11 + spriest, elemental shaman, coe
40/0/21 + spriest, resto shaman, 13% cos
40/0/21 + spriest, resto shaman, jow, 13% cos

moonkin, ret pally (3% more crit) as possible %crit increase which I think should be outside of the 'standard' definition for sake of comparison. Personally I would also add:

40/10/11 + spriest, elemental shaman, 13% cos, scorch
40/10/11 + spriest, elemental shaman, 13% cos, scorch, coe
40/0/21 + spriest, resto shaman, 13% cos, wc, coe
Given my current raid setup, I'll most likely have spriest, elemental shaman (since going in the resto shaman group would require giving up a consistent shadow priest), 13% cos, wc, and jow (most of the time). That seems to be almost the ideal setup for a 40/0/21 spec.

We usually run two mages, myself (formerly 2/48/11) and a deep frost mage, so locks generally put up only CoR and CoS.
#3619SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
You can always put yourself with a resto shaman and give the warlock an elemental shaman. For warlocks and fire mages it would definitely be a DPS increase, for an arcane mage I hadn't done the numbers but even if an elemental is an increase over a resto it's definitely going to be smaller than a warlock/firemage increase (since warlocks and fire mages have worse mana->dps conversions than arcane mages). The only way an arcane mage could possibly get more dps from an elemental shaman than a fire mage is if the arcane mage has noticeably more DPS than a fire mage - enough to make the fact he loses more dps from not having a resto shaman than a fire mage.

To simplify:
Each mage/warlcok will lose crit totem, and gain mana - both will have similar gains from crit, but fire mage/warlock will have lower gains from mana. Therefore for arcane mage to have priority on the elemental shaman not only the crit would have to outweight the mana losses, it will need to outweight it by enough to justify putting the fire mage/warlock with the resto shaman.

Regarding dropping under the 1s GCD, wether it's worth avoiding or not really depends how much you drop below it and what cooldowns you stack. Obviously with infinite haste frostbolting would be much better, while with ~1s cast time you're at the same position as if you hadn't dropped under the GCD in the firstplace. Therefore any realistic sub-GCD cast times will have to be looked at individually to actually determine what should be used when, remembering just about any cooldown will multiply any other active cooldowns. Only things that are additive and can be used just fine seperately (provided all are used with AB as it has higher relative and absolute DPS gain per every stat increased during the cast except haste and maybe crit) SCB+hex shrunken head or quag's eye proc + skull of gul'dan or possibly some other equall or less likely combinations. AP, IV, BL, haste rating, spell damage, crit rating and hit rating all multiply eachother so stacking them has a benefit.

What matters at the end is if the haste wasted by dropping under 1s cast is more of a loss than the gain of stacking everything together over seperating it and the loss of using frostbolt over AB during those cooldowns. This is so dependant on so many factors that there is probably no better way than just modeling all the options for varying fight lengths and seeing the difference.

Another thing to keep in mind is that while fight length can be estimated, it has random elements as well. Unless you're learning an enrage timer fight in which case you can assume duration=enrage timer and worst case you lost dps becuase the boss died early (in which case you didn't top meters but grats on the kill). On any other fight (with soft enrage timers (vahsj, al'ar, azgalor, kaz'rogal) or non-realistic enrage timers that you're simply not supposed to even get close to like on FLK or najentus), fight duration is rather random so while you can assume it'll take around 3.5 minutes but you can't really tell if it'll take 3 minutes or 4 minutes and thus not really knowing if you'll get 1 or 2 uses of your 3 minute cooldowns and possibly even get a 2nd use of your 2min cooldowns at extreme cases. Of course the average and the variance change a lot between different fights and different raid groups so it's very hard to model, but it's important to at least avoid giving "extra dps" due to a biased fight duration that fits 1 spec/setup/rotation/gear better than another.
#3620SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Kavan
Rawr.Mage should give you an accurate picture of when stacking Heroism+IV+AB is no longer benefitial. The way it works (using an LP solver) it actually does take into account all possible combinations of cooldowns and selects the best one.
#3621SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 Astrylian
Originally Posted by Kavan View Post
Rawr.Mage should give you an accurate picture of when stacking Heroism+IV+AB is no longer benefitial. The way it works (using an LP solver) it actually does take into account all possible combinations of cooldowns and selects the best one.
I wish it did, but the current checked in version is broken for cooldowns, Kavan.
#3622SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Kavan
Originally Posted by Astrylian View Post
I wish it did, but the current checked in version is broken for cooldowns, Kavan.
What exactly is broken? My local copy seems ok.
#3623SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 Astrylian
Ah, nevermind, you fixed it last night with your 'stats deep clone' checkin. Before that, it was valueing trinkets very very wrong, and not using any cooldowns. Fixed now.
#3624SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0troll02
Sorry if this is repetative

I got scared by the 145 pages so i decided i would just ask if anyone has come up with a number at which adding more spell haste becomes unhelpfull? (or a spell haste cap so to say)
#3625SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Devilscoffin
/phear

Im with troll02. I've been outta the loop for like 4 months.... I quit WoW due to me need to work and such... Can I get a quick summary, and opinions on WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator

as a raiding specc.
#3626SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Jarlyn
Depends on spec. Arcane runs into the 1.0s GCD very quickly with ramped-up AB's, which is an effective cap. I don't believe it's going to be realistically possible with Fire or Frost specs to reach the GCD, so in essence the "cap" is out of reach for those specs.

On a practical matter though, isn't it time to restart this thread with the 2.4 version? It has become pretty massive.
#3627SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Another contingency point

40/10/11 (or even 39/11/11) -- as pointed out by Searix

I haven't personally checked the math for the build, but it does strikes me as making sense, with the one conterintuitive notice that the builds seems senseless upon first sight. Can the loss of an extra icy veins (arguably a bit minor-ish given lack of cooldown stacking since you stack all on your first IV) coupled with the loss of 'deep frost' tree synergy be outdone by the base fireball dps (+ scorch up) ? I think the idea has serious merits, as long as everyone understands that you end up relying more on your raid force to succeed. As long as you understand that the build only works if someone else puts up scorch, and that you (arguably?) get COE too. This means ultimately better DPM -> more dps.
40/10/11 is a so-so build, seems to depend on gear and buffs.
Take a 6 minute fight, 350 mp5 (50 totem, 300 VT), T5 head/shoulder, rest Sunwell gear

40/0/21 - 2518 DPS with WC, 2422 DPS without WC
FrB+WC: 2037 DPS, +24 mps regened
FrB-WC: 1865 DPS, +24 mps regened
FB+ISC: 1452 DPS, -14 mps consumed


40/10/11 - 2464 DPS with Imp. Scorch, 2304 DPS without Imp. Scorch
Add +10 DPS on top of those figures as you can use a Sunfire Enchant.
FrB+WC: 1631 DPS, +3 mps regened
FrB-WC: 1534 DPS, +3 mps regened
FB+ISC: 2016 DPS, -7 mps consumed
FB-ISC: 1753 DPS, -7 mps consumed


So, Trispec beat Arc/Fro if and only if you have ISC but no WC. It's like Arc/Fro having WC up half the time.

Notice that Trispec is *much* more dependent on ISC than Arc/Fro is on WC.
It loses 161 DPS without ICS, while Arc/Fro loses 96 DPS without WC.
Trispec FB consumes 31mps more than Arc/Fro FrB, or 155 mp5 more.
It's slightly less DPS without WC, and more DPS with WC. Without ISC it loses by quite a margin.


The basic issue are the different design of the fire and the frost tree.
Frost is toploaded. When going down past 20/21 points, you gain 5% damage, 5% crit, 10% scaling and your pet.
Fire is bottomloaded. Past 20 points, you gain, 17% damage, 11% crit, 15% scaling.
Arcane/Frost can get most of the DPS talents for frost, while Arcane/Fire misses the talents that make fire hit so hard.


Redoing the numbers for a 4 minute fight (and Sunfire Enchant for Trispec):
2471 DPS - Trispec, no ISC
2583 DPS - Arc/Fro, no WC
2617 DPS - Trispec with ISC
2672 DPS - Arc/Fro with WC
2736 DPS - Fire/IV

Checking the numbers for a 2T5 + T6 level gear and a 3 minute fight, Trispec with ISC loses even to Arc/Fro without WC.


40/10/11 seems pretty bad overall. It offers a DPS benefit in one situation, but relies even more on a debuff it can't bring itself (ICS). Its filler spell is also a lot less mana-efficent, which means less AB time and more filler time, which means even more reliance on CoE.
#3628SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post

40/10/11 seems pretty bad overall. It offers a DPS benefit in one situation, but relies even more on a debuff it can't bring itself (ICS). Its filler spell is also a lot less mana-efficent, which means less AB time and more filler time, which means even more reliance on CoE.
You would be much more likely to have another fire mage in the raid than a deep frost mage however.
#3629SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
 Cryic
Originally Posted by Evene View Post
I have absolutely no idea how you're arriving at those numbers. Using rawr and several sets of bt/hyall gear I'm alway getting fire>>40/21. Same thing with Vontre's spresheet and Lhivera's calc which I posted earlier. I also question how rawr values int/spirt gems>>spell damage(??). Was using version b12.1.
Evene,

It would be helpful if you listed the numbers you are coming up with at the BT / MH gear level. I should have explained better in my initial post.

I am using Rawr 12.1 also. For 40/0/21 I used the following gear (not the absolute best, but the best I expect to have):

t6 Helm: Chaotic Gem, +12
Transulenct SpellThread Neck
t5 Shoulders: 10 Int, 5 int, 2mp5 (blue gem req)
Cloak of Illidari Council
t6 Chest: 10 int gem x2, 10 spirit (blue gem req) Gems are a bit odd, but it's what Rawr Suggest
Cuffs of Devastation: 12 dam
t5 Hands
Anetheron's Noose
t6 legs (Leggings of Channeled Elements a tiny bit better)
Slippers of the Seacaller
Band of Eternal Sage
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
Hex Shrunken Head
Serpent-Coil Braid
Zhar'doom Staff
Carved Witch Doctor's Stick (12 dam)

Buffs: iDS, iMark, Bok, Shaman for Inspiring Presence and Wrath of Air Totem, iBoW, Flask, Food, Mage Armor, 200 mp5 Spriest + 50 mp5 for Mana Spring, Misery, CoE, CoS and Heorism. (no dest pots or drums used) 300 second fight.

The second DPS number is for when you do not wish to do AB Cycles, and you would rather do AB Burns, FB until mana back up etc, You can achieve this by unchecking both AB Cycles and Smart Optimization)

iCoS, WC, JoW: 2,288 / 2,271 dps (Currently have this as we jsut killed Illidian, but not expected)
iCos, JoW: 2,240 dps / 2,208
Jow: 2,194 dps / 2,167 (expected)
2,140 dps / 2,109
No SPriest: 2,042, 2003


-----

For 2/48/11 I used the following gear (not the absolute best, but the best I expect to have, some gems are not up to date with the new haste gems, but should be close enough). Also, hit rating is 12.73%, so it's missing .27 hit rating, not enough to switch gear, but a gem switch should have been done:

t6 Helm: Chaotic Gem, +12
Transulenct SpellThread Neck
Hatefury Mantle: 7 Stam / 6 dam (blue), 6 dam, 5 spell crit (should be swapped for haste now)
Cloak of Illidari Council
t6 Chest: 7 Stam / 6 dam (blue), 6 dam, 5 spell crit x2
Focused Mana Bindings
t6 Hands: 12 dam
Anetheron's Noose: +12 damage x2
t6 legs: +12 damage (Leggings of Channeled Elements a tiny bit better)
Slippers of the Seacaller: +12 damage x2
Ring of Ancient Knowledge x 2
Hex Shrunken Head
DarkMoon: Crusage
Vengeful Gladiator's Spellblade
Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Carved Witch Doctor's Stick (12 dam)

Buffs: Same, except Molten Armor and Flame Caps used, still no Dest pots or Drums (how I raid)

JoW: 2119.60 (Edit: With 41 Elemental Shaman and Totem of Wrath: 2,175)
no JoW: 2102 (Edit: with ToW: 2,157)
+no CoE: 1,911 (Edit: with ToW: 1,961)
or no Spriest: 2,029. (Edith with ToW: 2,083)

The numbers / gear etc are not perfect, but it is the raid makeup for my typical group comp and the consumables we use.

Edit: The above numbers do not inclue Mana Tide of Totem of Wraith, due to the fact that we do not always have an elemental shaman. Mana Tide would be a nice bust to the Arcane Build (Rawr.mage does not support Mana Tide currently), while Totem of Wraith would be a really nice bust to the Fire build, might be a wash?

Last edited by Cryic : 03/26/08 at 10:30 AM.
#3630SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Etti
Did anyone else notice that the change to mana regen only added around 30 MP5 while casting as arcane? I was expecting it to be a little more than that.


Back to 0/50/11
#3631SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Fyre
Experienced Mages: Whats best spec after 2.4

I havent extensively tested yet but with all the new gear available and the minor changes to mages, what is the best dps spec?

I have heard a few conflicting views that Arcane has once again surpassed deep fire. I cant prove this either way but thats why im posting to get some input from this knowledgeble forum since Im new to it.

Currently I am 2/48/11 I was 0/50/11 feeling it was the better DPS spec of the deep fire specs.

Now that HASTE is more easily attainable, would it be worth it to build a good haste set, gem it up, and mix in tier or off set pieces.

mana usage is always an issue but dps wise which spec would be most feasible to take over.
#3632SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Neuromaster
This is the theorycraft thread. At least until (if?) a new one is created for 2.4 TC.

The "help me" thread is thataway ==> [Mage] Help me please?

To be completely clear: this is not the appropriate location to beg for quick answers or because you can't be bothered to do your own homework.
#3633SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
stuff
As I said, 40/10/11 only makes sense if you have scorch from other mages, if you don't, don't bother. The whole point of the build in contrast to 40/0/21 is that you rely on scorch which is more likely to be available. I'd love to compare 40/0/21 with WC/coe to 40/10/11 with scorch/coe, although I don't know what that will bring.

If anything, might as well throw in 40/18/3 and go for rotationless AB/fireball spam (and have your own scorch up too).
#3634SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Evice
Moderators, can the mage community have a seperate [Mage] TC after 2.4 new thread so we can retire this thread? I am kindly asking this because there will be alot of discussion with changes with 2.4.

In my opinion, 2p T5 and 4pT6 arcane spec might be better choice of dps, this is just intiution, nothing tested yet.
#3635SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Jarlyn
It's been shown multiple times that 40/x/x builds are competitive (or better, in some cases) with 2/48/11 when 2pc T5 is still a viable option. But once you have access to Sunwell gear in most slots, the sheer stats difference from T5->Sunwell puts 2/48/11 squarely back on top.
#3636SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0jula
Thinking about how to manage my CDs to max dps.

CDs:
2 min cds: skull , hex shrunken , destruction pot
3 min cds: flame cap, combustion, icy veins
1xheroism

assume 6min fight (exactly 6 mins).

The best i came up with is this:
0:00 pull
0:02 use hex shrunken + flame cup
0:22 use all available cds
2:02 use hex shrunken
2:22 use skull + pot
4:57 use flame cup
5:17 use heroism + hex shrunken
5:37 use all available cds
6:00 boss death

Not including drums on purpose. I don't have them
I was thinking if maybe i should use some other trinket instead of hex shrunken, now it can't stack with skull anymore, but can't think of anything better.
#3637SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
A main thread that will have all the major info would be awesome to avoid all the repetitive questions (which in the case of this thread, are not really avoidable since the information is near-impossible to find). Of course the main post will need to be constantly updated by someone reliable
#3638SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Kavan
Originally Posted by Etti View Post
Did anyone else notice that the change to mana regen only added around 30 MP5 while casting as arcane? I was expecting it to be a little more than that.


Back to 0/50/11
You obviously don't have gear suitable for arcane if that is all you saw. For me it was a very noticeable increase, more in the 150 mp5 range, AB spam uptime was considerably higher than in 2.3.
#3639SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Sinless
In fact, as Kavan stated earlier in another post, AB spam with the new mana regen is, well, spamtastic
#3640SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Capsaicin
Since I went from 50/0/11 to 40/0/21 with 2.4 it is necessary again to watch out for spellhit for me. Hitting the 10% mark (due to the ghosthit) is just possible with regeming, which causes a horrible problem - the meta gem requirements. That problem leads to a question:

Since the msd has been nerfed heavily, it just seems useful while spamming ab with 3 debuffs to me. How does the chaotic skyfire diamond affect the DPS with an arcane specc now (assuming that it can proc while spamming ab, but also can proc while dpsing with frostbolt)? I am not the guy who is very familiar with formulas, but I can't really imagine that the msd is still worth the effort.
#3641SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Kavan
Originally Posted by Capsaicin View Post
Since I went from 50/0/11 to 40/0/21 with 2.4 it is necessary again to watch out for spellhit for me. Hitting the 10% mark (due to the ghosthit) is just possible with regeming, which causes a horrible problem - the meta gem requirements. That problem leads to a question:

Since the msd has been nerfed heavily, it just seems useful while spamming ab with 3 debuffs to me. How does the chaotic skyfire diamond affect the DPS with an arcane specc now (assuming that it can proc while spamming ab, but also can proc while dpsing with frostbolt)? I am not the guy who is very familiar with formulas, but I can't really imagine that the msd is still worth the effort.
As far as I know MSD was never a good option for arcane other than for 2.2 AM spam. CSD is still the best choice.
#3642SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0hec
Please forgive me if this question has already been answered, but:

Does ele. precision still grant 3% "ghosthit" in 2.4?
I had heard some rumours about it being removed.

I was going to give 40/0/21 a shot.
Obviously I´d like to shed as much +hit as possible while still remaining hit-capped (for arcane and frost).

Next question:
Does anybody have some "hard" numbers on 40/0/21?
Or could give some insight whether 40/0/21 performs well in SP (i.e. Brutallus)?
#3643SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0LiquidHAL
I can confirm that [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] does indeed work with fireball dots now, not sure about ignites since I was frost specced but I'd imagine it does.

#3644SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Undeadthing
Hello everyone, I've been lurking these forums for a while now, and I just thought now would be as good a time as ever to start contributing.

Lhivera has already did a few calculations I thought I should post here.

It's a 10% proc. With a 30% crit rate (34% on Scorch):

Average cast time for 8x Fireball 1x Scorch rotation and 99% hit chance:
((8 * 3) + (1.5 / 0.99)) / 9 = 2.835

Average crit chance:
((8 * 0.3 * 0.99) + (0.34 * 0.99)) / 9 = 0.3014

Average time to crit:
2.835 / 0.3014 = 9.406 seconds

Ignite uptime:
4 / 9.406 = 0.4253

Average Ignite ticks per second:
0.5 * 0.4253 = 0.2126

Fireball DOT is refreshed every time the Fireball hits. This means it will only tick every 3 seconds:
0:00: Fireball hits
0:02: DOT ticks
0:03: Fireball hits
0:05: DOT ticks
0:06: Fireball hits
0:08: DOT ticks
etc...

So, total DOT ticks per second:
0.2126 + 1/3 = 0.5459

Thus the average number of seconds between DOT ticks is:
1 / 0.5459 = 1.8317

And the proc rate of the trinket is 10%, and it has a 15 second internal cooldown, so average time to proc is:
1.8317 / 0.1 + 15 = 33.3173 seconds

The trinket will have a 17% miss rate and, if it uses your generic spell crit, a 21% crit chance, so its average damage will be:

(285 + 475) / 2 * (1 + (0.21 * 0.5)) * 0.83 = 348.517

...and the added DPS will therefore be:
348.517 / 33.3173 = 10.46

...on top of what the +44 damage gets you.

Once again, credit for the math goes to Lhivera.
#3645SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 hypetech
How much dps is the proc alone on [Icon of the Silver Crescent] worth? Does this new trinket beat out the Icon for 2/48/11 ?
#3646SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
The answer is a resounding no, however, if that thing eats up ISB charges it might be worth it
#3647SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Searix
Originally Posted by Undeadthing View Post
Hello everyone, I've been lurking these forums for a while now, and I just thought now would be as good a time as ever to start contributing.

Lhivera has already did a few calculations I thought I should post here.

It's a 10% proc. With a 30% crit rate (34% on Scorch):

Average cast time for 8x Fireball 1x Scorch rotation and 99% hit chance:
((8 * 3) + (1.5 / 0.99)) / 9 = 2.835

Average crit chance:
((8 * 0.3 * 0.99) + (0.34 * 0.99)) / 9 = 0.3014

Average time to crit:
2.835 / 0.3014 = 9.406 seconds

Ignite uptime:
4 / 9.406 = 0.4253

Average Ignite ticks per second:
0.5 * 0.4253 = 0.2126

Fireball DOT is refreshed every time the Fireball hits. This means it will only tick every 3 seconds:
0:00: Fireball hits
0:02: DOT ticks
0:03: Fireball hits
0:05: DOT ticks
0:06: Fireball hits
0:08: DOT ticks
etc...

So, total DOT ticks per second:
0.2126 + 1/3 = 0.5459

Thus the average number of seconds between DOT ticks is:
1 / 0.5459 = 1.8317

And the proc rate of the trinket is 10%, and it has a 15 second internal cooldown, so average time to proc is:
1.8317 / 0.1 + 15 = 33.3173 seconds

The trinket will have a 17% miss rate and, if it uses your generic spell crit, a 21% crit chance, so its average damage will be:

(285 + 475) / 2 * (1 + (0.21 * 0.5)) * 0.83 = 348.517

...and the added DPS will therefore be:
348.517 / 33.3173 = 10.46

...on top of what the +44 damage gets you.

Once again, credit for the math goes to Lhivera.
Not so fast manly, all evidence thus far points to this trinket essentially being a recolored lightning cap.

This means the following:
It IS affected by +hit (to shadow spells)
It IS affected by +crit (to shadow spells)
It DOES get amplified by ISB (unsure if it consumes).
It IS amplified by shadow based debuffs (CoS, Misery, Shadow Weaving)

Case in point: Elenya - WWS
Observe the Shadow Bolt spell, his timbal's crit for 1100 (824 max non crit, 640 average)
From this we can also theorize:
It does NOT have 17% chance to resist, judging by the resist rate, % hit from gear does appear to work (but not talents).

Using this new information, and actual sunwell mage stats:

32% shadow crit with ele sham, 41% crit with fire, 2.8 second fireballs 1.4 scorches
Full shadow debuffs




It's a 10% proc. With a 41% crit rate (45% on Scorch):

Average cast time for 8x Fireball 1x Scorch rotation and 99% hit chance:
((8 * 2.8) + (1.4 / 0.99)) / 9 = 2.646

Average crit chance:
((8 * 0.41 * 0.99) + (0.45 * 0.99)) / 9 = 0.4103

Average time to crit:
2.646 / 0.4103 = 6.449 seconds

Ignite uptime:
4 / 6.449 = 0.620

Average Ignite ticks per second:
0.5 * 0.620 = 0.31

Fireball DOT is refreshed every time the Fireball hits. This means it will only tick every 3 seconds:
0:00: Fireball hits
0:02: DOT ticks
0:03: Fireball hits
0:05: DOT ticks
0:06: Fireball hits
0:08: DOT ticks
etc...

So, total DOT ticks per second:
0.31 + 1/2.8 = 0.667

Thus the average number of seconds between DOT ticks is:
1 / 0.667 = 1.5

And the proc rate of the trinket is 10%, and it has a 15 second internal cooldown, so average time to proc is:
1.5 / 0.1 + 15 = 30 seconds

The trinket will have a 4% miss rate and, if it uses your generic spell crit, a 32% crit chance, so its average damage will be:

((285 + 475) / 2 * (1 + (0.32 * 0.5)) * 0.96) *1.05*1.1*1.15* (assuming 75% uptime ISB) 1.15 = 646 (which is RIGHT in the ballpark of the WWS)

...and the added DPS will therefore be:
646 / 30.0 = 21.55

...on top of what the +44 damage gets you.

So despite some pretty optimistic math, this still falls short of darkmoon card. But that's probably where it should be for a normal mode trinket drop.
#3648SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Zen Satori
Within Your Specialization Manly

Manly,

I'm looking at your spec after I swung blindly at the talent editor to see if I could create my ideal 2/48/11, before gleaning from other mages' similar specs. I have a quick question for you regarding the minutia of the frost tree picks: I noticed you went for 5/5 Improved Frostbolt. I know some of the choices in the frost tree for this spec are whatever suits your fancy. Is there any reason not to take 2/2 Improved Frostnova (for limited PvE usefulness and also PvP fun)? Is there content I've yet to experience that really benefits from quicker Frostbolts if you're spec'd deep into fire? And does this content turn up often enough to validate going 5/5 there and not 2/2 Imp. Nova, 3/5 Ice Shards and 2/5 Imp. Frostbolt?

Thanks. I'm only wondering if there are raid encounters where one might be using Frostbolt while spec'd 2/48/11, therefore making Imp. Frostbolt a better choice over Imp. Frost Nova.

I'm returning to the game after a break so any input is cheerily welcomed. Thanks again,

Satori

Here is a link to the spec I chose: WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator
#3649SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Shawn
I like 5/5 Improved Frostbolt as well. I'm using Max Rank Frostbolts against mobs that are immune to fire (Al'ar, Fire Elementals, Flames of Azzinoth) and Rank 1 Frostbolts for a fast snare (Shadow Demons). With two points in Ice Shards and another Mage providing Winter's Chill my damage was quite okay in phase 2 of Illidan for the past months of farming Black Temple.
#3650SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Icicles
How about [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] for an AM setup? Since it apparently works off channeled spells such as Mind Flay, any chance this + TLC would be a nice combination for a haste-stacked AM spammer?
#3651SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0aznxk3vi17
Arcane Missiles has never functioned as a normal channeled spell. It is a spell that periodically shoots off individual spells, instead of a constant stream. This is also why AM had a chance to proc on every wave of missiles, and why other channeled spells like Mind Flay and Drain Life do not.
#3652SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
Originally Posted by Zen Satori View Post
stuff about frost talent choices in 2/48/11
To be honest Its purely a matter of preference. I don't pvp at all, and if I were I wouldn't be deep fire, so I don't give much value to imp nova. The other choices are just purely a matter of 'best dps' in case I ever need to deal out frost damage, which is close to never. Its nice to have for illidan phase 2, but that's about it. Not like firespec is worth trying to top meters on that fight anyway. I mean, I couldn't care less about the talents, as long as I get 3 EP and IV I'm happy.
#3653SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Duodecimal
Originally Posted by aznxk3vi17 View Post
Arcane Missiles has never functioned as a normal channeled spell. It is a spell that periodically shoots off individual spells, instead of a constant stream. This is also why AM had a chance to proc on every wave of missiles, and why other channeled spells like Mind Flay and Drain Life do not.
If you want to get real technical, it's a channeled DoT that's gotten patched repeatedly to make it work less like a DoT. It barely acts like one now except for the fact that it (still?) took (takes?) an invisible debuff slot.
#3654SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Antiphonal
I suppose the issue with AM is if it "counts" as periodic damage for the purpose of the trinket proc. If so, then the trinket _might_ be worth having for an arcane mage. The proc will never happen as a frost mage, and apparently you get some (but not great) benefit from the fireball and ignite DoTs.

Still, it looks like it was intended for Shadow Priests to me.
#3655SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0aznxk3vi17
Originally Posted by Antiphonal View Post
I suppose the issue with AM is if it "counts" as periodic damage for the purpose of the trinket proc. If so, then the trinket _might_ be worth having for an arcane mage. The proc will never happen as a frost mage, and apparently you get some (but not great) benefit from the fireball and ignite DoTs.

Still, it looks like it was intended for Shadow Priests to me.
The point was that it doesn't, so that it's pretty much worthless

All-in-all, leave this one to the Warlocks and Shadow Priests (as has been stated before already).
#3656SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0WiPe|Domin
Today on Brutallus kill as a 2/48/11 grped with sp and resto shaman i went oom at 5%...... I've been going over it in my head and i just dont get it how it was possible. No evo used. WWS -> Wow Web Stats
#3657SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
Well, to be honest I had similar results. I'm using {gem, gem, flame cap} and {destro, mana, destro} for brutallus (which doesn't run in those issues). The major contending point is that you cant mana pot on the firrst set of cooldown because you haven't lost enough mana to have it be worthwhile. So that means DPS consumables on first rotation. Then you have no choice to use DPS consumables on last rotation. That leaves the 2nd rotation for mana consumables (anyway it doesnt syncs with 3 min timers so its not a big deal). The only contention point is {flame cap, gem, flame cap} but that puts you in a risky situation, given your last flame cap will begin at 5min under perfect conditions (unlikely). I would rather not risk it, to be sure my cap is up at the opportune time. You could pre pop flame cap just before the pull, but that strikes me as not too interesting.
#3658SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
galzohar
Today on Brutallus kill as a 2/48/11 grped with sp and resto shaman i went oom at 5%...... I've been going over it in my head and i just dont get it how it was possible. No evo used. WWS -> Wow Web Stats
You had enough total mana (assuming 10k starting mana) to cast ~116 fireballs. 6 minute fight has enough time to cast 120 fireballs if you cast from start to finish, a little less if you count scorch applications and a little more if you count bloodlust/IV. You seem to have casted 122 fireballs and 2 scorches which makes sense since BoW ticks don't show on WWS which would account for ~3500 more mana or ~8-9 more fireballs. Ignoring scorches and taking IV/BL into account you should've had the time to cast 127.5 fireballs.

The destruction potion you used was worth several thousand damage, but if you had the time to cast 1-2 more fireballs (1 would probably be more or less enough, and 2 fireballs almost definitely enough) a mana potions instead of one of the destruction potions would've actually done you better. I'm assuming you were already using flame caps as I see no mana gems used although I hadn't noticed the flame cap buff on WWS.

Bottom line is on fights ~6+ mins, even with a resto shaman and an uber shadow priest, you're still going to need a mana potion (or a judgement of wisdom kept up...).

Even if you had the mana just to go oom at 0% with a shadowpriest, without one you'd have to use gems pots and evocation - costing 8 seconds of DPSing (mana not used during those 8 seconds counted as extra mana so you can count the 8 seconds as wasted time), and several thousand damage for each of the 2 flame caps that were lost and each of the 3 destruction potions that were lost, and would still be 3500 mana short which would mean you'd still have to use mage armor to last through the fight or lose 7-8 more fireballs which is worse than losing 3% crit, meaning you should've mage armored as well.

Damage that would be lost for not having a shadowpriest is at LEAST 4% (very rough and lowballing figure! wouldn't be surprised if the accurate figure is closer to 10%) before taking into account the 3% crit lost from mage armor that would've costed a bit under 3% more of the DPS (exact amount requires to figure out the OO5SR regen to see if with mage armor you could've spent less time evocating and thus not losing the "full" ~2.6-2.7%).

Keep in mind 6 minutes of straight nuking is quite an extreme, and not having to keep scorch up is even more of a special case. For example if you'd have to move 10% of the time your mana would've lasted fine with you doing exactly the same as you did on the WWS.

Conclusion
At least for brutallus and probably for other fights (at least longer ones) giving shadow priests to warlocks over mages is just plain silly.
Short fights is where it gets complicated as warlocks keep getting the same benefits while mages' benefits shrink quickly, mostly once you're capable of keeping yourself going with pots and gems and no SP/evocation. Even in that situation of a short fight I'm not sure if a warlock would benefit more but at least the results won't be as obvious as they are in a fight like brutallus where mages should have significant priority.

Estimating SP DPS required to be worth bringing is harder, but at least on your WWS he was dealing 1400 DPS which should be enough considering about 100 of the warlock's DPS and about 200 of each of the 2 mages' DPS came from the shadow priest's mana regen. It seems borderline enough though to be worth calculating more accurately (as in, take your gear/stats and calculate exactly how much damage you'd lose with no SP), especially for shorter and/or more movement-heavy fights.

On a side note seeing you hit the enrage timer yet the SP is in a healer group rather than a DPS group - is tank+raid healing that intensive that you can't afford the SP for a 2nd DPS group since you already brought a 2nd one? Then again looking at all the attempts none was even close to killing him so DPS probably wasn't your #1 problem (then again it doesn't mean healing was either at least not without looking at all the attempts individually...).


*Note haste gear was neglected completely, as I can't see your armory, but I doubt it would be anywhere near enough to change your mana consumption to need any more than a single super mana potion, *maybe* 2 if you really have a noticeable amount of haste.

Last edited by galzohar : 03/27/08 at 7:59 PM.
#3659SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0KamiCrazy
Has anyone tried Arcane blast on brutallus?

I've given it a go a couple of time but I couldn't really gleam any useful theory out of the experiences.

I'm wondering what the best rotation for it would be, I'm currently using AB/bolt/AB/bolt.

Right now consumables wise I'm just straight mana pot + gem as every drop of mana is needed to squeeze out more AB's.
#3660SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
 manly
Actually, we've got our kill today. I opted for a 1-tick evocation which turned out to be unnecessary, but i would have had finished stupidly low otherwise.

Wow Web Stats
2 flame cap
2 destro pot
1 mana pot
1 evo tick (unnecessary)

I could have used a mana gem in between the 2 flame caps, but I didn't want to risk it. Maybe I should have.
In any case, my dps is what you get from a solo fire mage, given I did all the scorching and didn't get an innervate. If pets were counted in, I would have been #4, losing to double lust hunter.

In any case, it shows 125 fireballs and 16 scorch. I kinda like having more haste; I get to do really slick scorch rotation, literally refreshing it with sub-1s scorch left.

EDIT: and ironically, flame caps are still not combat logged.

Last edited by manly : 03/28/08 at 11:24 AM.
#3661SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
dakalro
Not sure if this would be the best place but can you ask your warlocks why they even considered using destro pots when mana potions are pretty much worth double the dps of a destro potion in any case considered (except maybe on the last CD if they happened to be at high enough mana to not need any LT till the end)? Especially seeing the abysmal luck they had with crits.

For an empirical but reasonable explanation, http://elitistjerks.com/604775-post1005.html

Last edited by dakalro : 03/28/08 at 5:41 AM. Reason: spelling ofc
#3662SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
For warlocks wether you have a SP or not, it's common sense to use mana pots over destruction pots normally. There are quite a few *exceptions* of fights with intensive movement when you can lifetap on the move and not really lose DPS to it. Most fights, though, mana pots would reduce your lifetap needs and thus increase DPS more than a destruction pot would. Same goes for a mage using evocate - it's even more noticeable as mages gain a lot less mana/sec from evocate than warlocks get from lifetaps.

Regarding the mana gem between the flame caps, while it might cause a little loss on flame cap uptime, it probably allows a full destruction potion usage which would be very much worth it. Keep in mind in tight timer fights you can safely assume the fight will last to the very last second, and if it happened to end early then grats you got your kill so it doesn't matter your DPS wasn't optimized. But if you were having it "on the edge" and having the fight last the whole 6 min then you do your max DPS.

Keep in mind that evocation several times less effective than non-stacked destruction potions, so during the stacking you'll have to be doing several times your normal damage which probably doesn't happen (although accurate values can be calculated to make sure). When it comes to 1 evocation tick, though, it gets closer. But considering it wasn't even needed in your case it's kind of moot to discuss this very unique case of having to choose destruction pot during cooldown stacking + 1 evo tick VS a mana pot.
#3663SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
Searix
@manly

Our brutallus kill last night too (we beat you guys but :x). I was also solo fire mage, a shadow priest, and no shaman (same as you) with a group swap for 20% hero. Only difference between you and me is that i continue to use skull/braid for the pairing combo for the extra burst during cooldowns (and it completely negates any mana problems, and you can pair all at :30 into, then a set of 2 minute timers and a big finale with everything at 20% hero, destro potting every time). Only difference between me getting 4th and you 3rd is probably me having to get out during the hero because i had a 2nd burn.

Oh, and t6 belt mages unite :P

Edit: Have you ever wished you were a troll for the racials?

Last edited by Searix : 03/28/08 at 8:44 AM.
#3664SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
I admit searix its not an easy choice, trinketwise. I mean, skull not stacking with mojo madness is really frustrating. At least it 'works' with flame caps, which you get to use when you don't equip serpent-coil braid. Although, with my new belt, I am back in the sub-hitcap area, I could almost see myself use SCB. It does strikes me as a really tough call. Theres a number of suboptimal play I know I have done, most of which related with trinkets not stacking that I haven't yet adapted to. Maybe SCB will simplify things. Gotta rerun the numbers again.
#3665SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0WiPe|Domin
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
You had enough total mana (assuming 10k starting mana) to cast ~116 fireballs. 6 minute fight has enough time to cast 120 fireballs if you cast from start to finish, a little less if you count scorch applications and a little more if you count bloodlust/IV. You seem to have casted 122 fireballs and 2 scorches which makes sense since BoW ticks don't show on WWS which would account for ~3500 more mana or ~8-9 more fireballs. Ignoring scorches and taking IV/BL into account you should've had the time to cast 127.5 fireballs.

The destruction potion you used was worth several thousand damage, but if you had the time to cast 1-2 more fireballs (1 would probably be more or less enough, and 2 fireballs almost definitely enough) a mana potions instead of one of the destruction potions would've actually done you better. I'm assuming you were already using flame caps as I see no mana gems used although I hadn't noticed the flame cap buff on WWS.

Bottom line is on fights ~6+ mins, even with a resto shaman and an uber shadow priest, you're still going to need a mana potion (or a judgement of wisdom kept up...).

Even if you had the mana just to go oom at 0% with a shadowpriest, without one you'd have to use gems pots and evocation - costing 8 seconds of DPSing (mana not used during those 8 seconds counted as extra mana so you can count the 8 seconds as wasted time), and several thousand damage for each of the 2 flame caps that were lost and each of the 3 destruction potions that were lost, and would still be 3500 mana short which would mean you'd still have to use mage armor to last through the fight or lose 7-8 more fireballs which is worse than losing 3% crit, meaning you should've mage armored as well.

Damage that would be lost for not having a shadowpriest is at LEAST 4% (very rough and lowballing figure! wouldn't be surprised if the accurate figure is closer to 10%) before taking into account the 3% crit lost from mage armor that would've costed a bit under 3% more of the DPS (exact amount requires to figure out the OO5SR regen to see if with mage armor you could've spent less time evocating and thus not losing the "full" ~2.6-2.7%).

Keep in mind 6 minutes of straight nuking is quite an extreme, and not having to keep scorch up is even more of a special case. For example if you'd have to move 10% of the time your mana would've lasted fine with you doing exactly the same as you did on the WWS.

Conclusion
At least for brutallus and probably for other fights (at least longer ones) giving shadow priests to warlocks over mages is just plain silly.
Short fights is where it gets complicated as warlocks keep getting the same benefits while mages' benefits shrink quickly, mostly once you're capable of keeping yourself going with pots and gems and no SP/evocation. Even in that situation of a short fight I'm not sure if a warlock would benefit more but at least the results won't be as obvious as they are in a fight like brutallus where mages should have significant priority.

Estimating SP DPS required to be worth bringing is harder, but at least on your WWS he was dealing 1400 DPS which should be enough considering about 100 of the warlock's DPS and about 200 of each of the 2 mages' DPS came from the shadow priest's mana regen. It seems borderline enough though to be worth calculating more accurately (as in, take your gear/stats and calculate exactly how much damage you'd lose with no SP), especially for shorter and/or more movement-heavy fights.

On a side note seeing you hit the enrage timer yet the SP is in a healer group rather than a DPS group - is tank+raid healing that intensive that you can't afford the SP for a 2nd DPS group since you already brought a 2nd one? Then again looking at all the attempts none was even close to killing him so DPS probably wasn't your #1 problem (then again it doesn't mean healing was either at least not without looking at all the attempts individually...).


*Note haste gear was neglected completely, as I can't see your armory, but I doubt it would be anywhere near enough to change your mana consumption to need any more than a single super mana potion, *maybe* 2 if you really have a noticeable amount of haste.
Talked to my Sp and i now know what happend, he had to move when he got burn and late in fight he had to help heal so thats the mistery solved. Less than intended crit rate (unlucky random ;/ ) didnt help on mana returns from moe too.

We didnt hit the enrage, we had 5 sec left when he dropped dead. WWS is rly weird, it counted burn dmg to some players like for example to manly o_O.

@ manly
Where you grped with ele shamy ? Your "high" crit rates makes me wana kill random number generator ;/
#3666SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
Are you implying that your raid got me burned ? Bastards !

(to answer your question: ret pally +3% crit and elemental shaman. 41% crit rate is slightly below what I was supposed to get critwise. Ishaxa got 46% for reference, and no resists)

Originally Posted by dakalro View Post
Not sure if this would be the best place but can you ask your warlocks why they even considered using destro pots when mana potions are pretty much worth double the dps of a destro potion in any case considered (except maybe on the last CD if they happened to be at high enough mana to not need any LT till the end)? Especially seeing the abysmal luck they had with crits.

For an empirical but reasonable explanation, http://elitistjerks.com/604775-post1005.html
Yes they know. And destro pots are guild-bank-provided, so I doubt they would intentionally avoid using them. Group was
{ishaxa f.m, manly f.m, furiotoo d.l, eswedge el.s, siawyn s.p}. The other locks were all destro locks, but had resto shaman and no s.priest.
#3667SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
WiPe|Domin
No ofc not Just browsing through Brutallus WWS kill's shows a lot of plp getting credited Burn dmg as their own dealt, increasing raid and personal dps and total dmg done which is weird

Bah, ret paly and ele shaman

Btw we didnt have a single warglaive rogue in raid I wonder how many guilds without warglaives killed him pre-enrage.

For any plp interested, i'll be releasing kill movie tommorow.

Last edited by WiPe|Domin : 03/28/08 at 12:20 PM.
#3668SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
dakalro
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Are you implying that your raid got me burned ? Bastards !

(to answer your question: ret pally +3% crit and elemental shaman. 41% crit rate is slightly below what I was supposed to get critwise. Ishaxa got 46% for reference, and no resists)


Yes they know. And destro pots are guild-bank-provided, so I doubt they would intentionally avoid using them. Group was
{ishaxa f.m, manly f.m, furiotoo d.l, eswedge el.s, siawyn s.p}. The other locks were all destro locks, but had resto shaman and no s.priest.
Ah, that answers that (as in they used the provided destro pots x3 instead of mana). I've got a few hundred mana pots to burn through myself and didn't even consider destro pots, though they would have some use on the last cooldown use when I life tap too much but that already means I messed up somewhere.

And in the end I preffer the resto shaman for myself even if in theory I'd get 3% crit ... Crit can prove very unreliable (the 2 warlocks without ele shaman are ~5% under if they're close to best set) and minimum hit I can get is 183. I get tide back, decent enough and somewhat reliable dps boost.

Last edited by dakalro : 03/28/08 at 12:18 PM.
#3669SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
I'll give you a protip. Try to mooch innervates from druids. With 2.4 our druids literally don't even use their own innervates.
#3670SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Mystiq
Something I've been agonizing over with my guild master about, and I haven't been able to find a clear and well-explained answer to are the following:

Who benefits more from a Shadow Priest: Mage or Warlock?
Who benefits more from an Elemental Shaman: Mage or Warlock?

My current belief is that the Shaman goes to the Mages, while the Spriest goes to the locks, on account of the Mages not needing the mana because we have Evocation + Gems, relieving the Warlocks of Life Tap, and the Fire Mages benefit greatly from Heroism, with crit giving additional mana regen. Currently, most nights the Warlocks in my guild get the Shaman and the Priest, letting the Mages with either a BM Hunter or a Resto Shaman (if spared). I get called out as being whiny every time I ask the two to be split up: the GM's argument is if gives the Spriest and Shaman additional regeneration -- but what about the non-hybrid DPS classes?

Somewhat recently, we compared lost DPS due to using Evocation vs. Life Tap and I conceded that more time was lost to Life Tap given no additional raid buffs (granted predicting Evocation's time is easier, since Life Tap scales with DPS and not Intellect).

However, I've been somewhat out of the loop and from what I've read here the goal is to avoid Evocation, and favor Flame Caps over Mana Gems. That leads me to believe it should be the reverse: Shaman to Warlocks due to need for +hit and Spriest to Mages to avoid Evocation and gemming. In the past, when my mana seemed to not drop due to a Spriest, I spammed Arcane Blast so I could use it.

@Manly: Our Healing Priests mooch Innervates. I got lots of innervates one day in Tempest Keep when we were steamrolling it, but that's the extent.
#3671SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
Zwink
I'm really curious about a further comparison between giving Mages Shadow Priests on Brutallus over Warlocks. To me it seemed like the Warlock damage was considerably worse for a 6 minute duration fight without one compared to Mages not having one. Even when chain mana potting it seemed they were doing poorly in damage. The warlock damage in EJ's Brutallus WWS is considerably lower than the Warlocks in ours (link). Phobophile was 40/0/21 so ignore that, but the other Warlocks had a Shadow Priest, Resto Shaman, and 2 sets of drums. The mage group had a BM hunter, resto shaman, and 5 sets of drums (4 haste, 1 resto), so using our WWS for a comparison between warlocks w/ shadowpriest and mages w/o doesn't seem entirely possible. Not too mention I know I didn't use consumables perfectly and the same goes with others in our raid.

Using Rawr assuming the best pre Sunwell gear, max consumable useage, and no moonkin or ele shaman I'm getting ~100 dps difference between having a Shadow Priest (375 more mp5) and not having one. I know I'm forgetting to include every detail of how I have my rawr for Mages configured and I couldn't find an option for mp5 for rawr for Warlocks, but I'm hoping the debate over who to give the Shadow Priests too can be further clarified in a situation where no Elemental Shamans are used, meaning Mana Tide is always there.

Last edited by Zwink : 03/28/08 at 1:00 PM.
#3672SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0 manly
Well, in our case all 3 warlocks were destro.
Furiotoo - elemental shaman, s.priest, 1 bloodlust (3 drums from me)
Gilliam - resto shaman (2 drums)
Lailla - resto shaman (2 drums)

this means, no maledictioned COS amongst other things. I know Gilliam is usually our token affliction warlock, so his destro lock gear is probably not optimum.
#3673SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Cwealm
Originally Posted by Mystiq View Post
Something I've been agonizing over with my guild master about, and I haven't been able to find a clear and well-explained answer to are the following:

Who benefits more from a Shadow Priest: Mage or Warlock?
Who benefits more from an Elemental Shaman: Mage or Warlock?

My current belief is that the Shaman goes to the Mages, while the Spriest goes to the locks, on account of the Mages not needing the mana because we have Evocation + Gems, relieving the Warlocks of Life Tap, and the Fire Mages benefit greatly from Heroism, with crit giving additional mana regen. Currently, most nights the Warlocks in my guild get the Shaman and the Priest, letting the Mages with either a BM Hunter or a Resto Shaman (if spared). I get called out as being whiny every time I ask the two to be split up: the GM's argument is if gives the Spriest and Shaman additional regeneration -- but what about the non-hybrid DPS classes?

Somewhat recently, we compared lost DPS due to using Evocation vs. Life Tap and I conceded that more time was lost to Life Tap given no additional raid buffs (granted predicting Evocation's time is easier, since Life Tap scales with DPS and not Intellect).

However, I've been somewhat out of the loop and from what I've read here the goal is to avoid Evocation, and favor Flame Caps over Mana Gems. That leads me to believe it should be the reverse: Shaman to Warlocks due to need for +hit and Spriest to Mages to avoid Evocation and gemming. In the past, when my mana seemed to not drop due to a Spriest, I spammed Arcane Blast so I could use it.

@Manly: Our Healing Priests mooch Innervates. I got lots of innervates one day in Tempest Keep when we were steamrolling it, but that's the extent.

I guess we are either doing things wrong, or our mage lead is setting up the group, but our mage group is me and another mage, a boomkin, an ele shaman, and a shadowpriest. The locks are in with another shadow priest.
#3674SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
Read my above analysis... You don't compare lifetap time and evocation time, you compare evocation time needed to gain X mana and then the lifetap time needed to gain that same amount of mana. You will always get that the time spent evocating to get X mana would be greater than the time spent lifetapping for getting that same amount of mana. A mage in the "evocation zone" will pretty much always benefit more from a SP than a warlock, but it gets more complicated when the mage wouldn't need evocate even without a SP, as destruction potions/flame caps are simply not as good as avoiding evocation.


Regarding elemental VS resto shaman, both mage and warlock would gain more DPS from an elemental shaman. You can claim crit variance makes crit less good but in reality it's completely not true, as increasing crit increases your average expected crit as well as your "minimum (and maximum) reasonable expected crit". In other words adding crit increases the # of crits you would have in an "I got unlucky scenario" as well as the "I got lucky" scenario, and the end result is that the fact crit is luck-based makes absolutely no difference on how good it is.

Resto shaman is ~4800 mana while 3% crit is 40~50 dps or so which over 6 minutes of chain casting is in the area of 17k damage. That's quite a good deal (to trade the resto for an elemental) no matter what caster you are - the question is for which casters it would actually be a "better" deal than others, or in other words which class would gain more absolute DPS by losing 4800 mana and gaining 3% crit, since the damage lost by losing 4800 mana depends on your class and for a mage also on what mana situation you're in (will you need evocate to make up for it? mana pots? gems? each have different "DPS cost"), and 3% crit isn't exactly equal either (although quite close with mages getting 210% crits and warlocks increasing ISB uptime, and both get in the area of 2.5-3% DPS increase from it).
#3675SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Mystiq
Originally Posted by Cwealm View Post
I guess we are either doing things wrong, or our mage lead is setting up the group, but our mage group is me and another mage, a boomkin, an ele shaman, and a shadowpriest. The locks are in with another shadow priest.
But why set the groups up that way? (Minus the Boomkin, please, sorry :P)
#3676SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
Usually the most skilled/geared players would benefit the most from having *a* shaman. Even more if it's an elemental shaman. This whole discussion is assuming equal skill and gear in your raid, which isn't true for a lot of raids. Buffing people that suck is quite a waste of buffs. So if your mages are doing more DPS than your warlocks it's probably a better idea to give the shaman to the mages. Regarding the boomkin it's hard to comment as every person you ask will claim a completely different DPS figure for the boomkins, some so low that the boomkin isn't worth his raid spot regardless of his crit buff.
#3677SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Searix
You do *not* need mana pots or shadow priest or resto sham on brutallus if you serpent braid Mana Emerald, just something to keep in mind.
#3678SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
galzohar
Math already shows that to replace the shadow priest you would've needed full mana pots, full mana gems and an evocation and still come 3500 mana short. SCB would help make up for some of that mana so I suppose if you actually run it without a shadow priest the trinket can be good.

SCB though is overall rather weak when you already have a shadow priest and don't need to evocate, and possibly don't even need mana gems (at worst you'll need mana pots over destro). But looking at the numbers I don't see why you would not give mages a shadow priest for a 6 min straight-up nuking fight - the DPS gain for them is bigger than for any other class and should be big enough to justify their lower personal DPS.

Anyway just gemming with SCB with no shadow priest (even if you have a shaman) will *not* be enough, not even close. you will also need evocate and mana potions. The DPS loss even if you use all these to last through the fight is quite significant.

Shadow priests weren't really about turning classes to be viable, I'm sure you can do decently without them, but at the longer fights their DPS increase is quite significant especially for mages who pay with noticeable DPS especially on the longer fights.

Last edited by galzohar : 03/28/08 at 3:29 PM.
#3679SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Jarlyn
We had a couple sub-5% wipes on Brutallus last night with a resto shaman + 3 mages + shadow priest, it's pretty much required that you use some form of mana return on that fight, even with a shadow priest. The first time we made it to enrage, I had been using all flamecap + destro pots and ran completely oom, and had to evo for a couple ticks.
#3680SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
We had a couple sub-5% wipes on Brutallus last night with a resto shaman + 3 mages + shadow priest, it's pretty much required that you use some form of mana return on that fight, even with a shadow priest. The first time we made it to enrage, I had been using all flamecap + destro pots and ran completely oom, and had to evo for a couple ticks.
Did you not have JoW up on the boss? I know that in all my attempts last night, I was no where near running dry. Had Ele shaman and JoW.
#3681SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
Your shadowpriest probably doesn't put up the same DPS as the shadowpriest in the WWS, or you have a lot more haste than that mage, as you're only supposed to come slightly short on mana which can be fixed by shoving a mana gem in betwen the flamecaps (and thus losing some minimal flamecap uptime unless you *exactly* use the first one at 0:00, gem at 3:00 and 2nd cap at 5:00 and end the fight at 6:00), and your shadowpriest is bad enough replace the 2:00 mark destruction potion with a mana potion. A JoW with 100% uptime would be more than enough as an alternative allowing you to keep using 3 destruction potions and not losing any flamecap uptime, but that depends if a paladin is able to safely stand in judgement range of the boss to keep it up and spend 1.5s every 20s to keep it up there.
#3682SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Jarlyn
No, we didn't have JoW full time. Usually do but we had a couple people out of town this week so our retadin was healing. Wasn't an issue of spriest DPS either, he's pretty consistent at around 1400-1450. JoW was applied at times, but due to the healing requirements of the fight our paladins pretty much said there's no guarantees.
#3683SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0diag
I've read the whole thread once, and I couldn't find any TC about the advantage of AB + FB spam over cycle (maybe I missed). It is hard for me to believe AB+FB spam is better than cycle, since cycle+spam AB with extra mana has better DPS and dpm than AB+FB spam. Can someone point me to a TC showing AB+FB spam is better?
#3684SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0
Edited onPatch 2.4.0
galzohar
The reason is primarily the debuff applying improperly, causing you to cast at a slower cast time while paying the higher mana cost.

But did you guys try simulating AB-frostbolt-AB-frostbolt-AB-frostboltX3-repeat? Then again there's the debuff fall-off issue that is much less significant if you just spam lots of ABs and then lots of frostbolts etc in big blocks (and still put a frostbolt between each non-fully-debuffed AB).

Last edited by galzohar : 03/28/08 at 6:58 PM.
#3685SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Prom
Originally Posted by Jarlyn View Post
We had a couple sub-5% wipes on Brutallus last night with a resto shaman + 3 mages + shadow priest, it's pretty much required that you use some form of mana return on that fight, even with a shadow priest. The first time we made it to enrage, I had been using all flamecap + destro pots and ran completely oom, and had to evo for a couple ticks.
I popped a mana gem in the beginning or in the middle of the fight on our kill. Was just making sure I wouldnt need to evocate before execute.
#3686SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0KamiCrazy
Just killed brut with no shadow priest.

Although I had a resto shammy + ele shammy in the group too.

Had to chain pot and chain gem + 3 evoc ticks

Mana was fine the entire time, still came out with 1900+ dps (double lusts).
#3687SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Humpr
How do I get scorchio working?
#3688SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Cwealm
Originally Posted by Humpr View Post
How do I get scorchio working?
Someone posted a fix here.
#3689SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0Vulkaire
Originally Posted by manly View Post

In any case, it shows 125 fireballs and 16 scorch. I kinda like having more haste; I get to do really slick scorch rotation, literally refreshing it with sub-1s scorch left.
I was doing this on our kill shot. Unfortunately, I had 4 scorch resists which meant having to restack scorch as I was only mage in raid. Our WWS report got bugged out somehow and no longer works, but I ended at 1930dps. Not too bad considering no CoE or ele shaman and having to restack scorch so much. I had a sp, resto shaman, and JoW and never came close to going oom using only flame caps and destro pots.
#3690SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.0galzohar
I really should take the time to calculate wether the DPS loss of scorch is worth the risk of restacking it:

1. Doing a tight rotation that makes it fall off with a single resist will have 1% chance every rotation to have to restack.

2. Doing the scorch a little earlier and doing 2 scorches (or waiting for server response to see if the first scorch resisted which would most likely be inferior to just 2Xscorch) would cost a little DPS but reduce the "need to restack chance" significantly - to 0.01%.

3. Doing the scorch early enough so you can fireball and still have time for a 2nd scorch after the fireball before scorch falls off should cast less scorches on average and still keep the 0.01% chance for scorch to fall off every rotation. It does have a little more rotations per fight, though.

I don't have the time to calculate at the moment but I would love to see results. My guess is that #2 will lose to #1 and #3 but I'm not sure if #1 is actually better than #3, although reducing the chance of scorch-restack DPS loss by 0.99% might be enough to justify somewhat higher frequency on scorch casting. But really it needs to be calculated wether 0.99% chance to restack scorch every rotation is more or less of a DPS loss than simply scorching somwhat more often.
#3691SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Nickolina
Is there any data available on the new meta gems (Ember Skyfire Diamond) dps increase vs the already decent Chaotic Skyfire Diamond.
#3692SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 hypetech
Originally Posted by Nickolina View Post
Is there any data available on the new meta gems (Ember Skyfire Diamond) dps increase vs the already decent Chaotic Skyfire Diamond.
The CSD is most definitely worth more than 14 spell damage. The +2% int seems like a pretty silly bonus. Even if you had 1k intellect raid buffed that would only give you 20 int (200 mana) more. More of a shadow priest meta imo.
#3693SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Madlax
I was about to ask the same question as on last page regarding elemental shamans and groups.
Wow Web Stats
Thats from our Brutallus kill.
Mages with spriest and resto shaman - 2 LWers.
2 Destro locks with the hunter and resto shaman - 1 LW.
1 Bloodlust each.
Mages gained 21k mana from the spriest whereas the locks tabbed 33/32k in 15(+2pot)/17 taps.
Just to add: It was maledicted CoS.

As for the Elemental shaman group(and correct me if wrong):
Mage crit gives 150% damage + 40% of those 150% as ignite damage.
Thats 150*0.4 = 60 => 210% of the base spell.
Warlocks get 200% + 4 "potential" ISB charges.

I´d easily say that a warlock benefits more from the 3% crit for the raid DPS in that regard.
Adding Sunwells itemization and a slight lack of hit for warlocks, they would also benefit slightly on that.
As for the 101 spelldamage, I can´t give a statement on who benefits more from that - I´d leave that to you.

But I´m always there to get proven wrong
#3694SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 hypetech
Originally Posted by Madlax View Post
I was about to ask the same question as on last page regarding elemental shamans and groups.
Wow Web Stats
Thats from our Brutallus kill.
Mages with spriest and resto shaman - 2 LWers.
2 Destro locks with the hunter and resto shaman - 1 LW.
1 Bloodlust each.
Mages gained 21k mana from the spriest whereas the locks tabbed 33/32k in 15(+2pot)/17 taps.
Just to add: It was maledicted CoS.

As for the Elemental shaman group(and correct me if wrong):
Mage crit gives 150% damage + 40% of those 150% as ignite damage.
Thats 150*0.4 = 60 => 210% of the base spell.
Warlocks get 200% + 4 "potential" ISB charges.

I´d easily say that a warlock benefits more from the 3% crit for the raid DPS in that regard.
Adding Sunwells itemization and a slight lack of hit for warlocks, they would also benefit slightly on that.
As for the 101 spelldamage, I can´t give a statement on who benefits more from that - I´d leave that to you.

But I´m always there to get proven wrong
The 3% crit would be better for overall raid dps if all your warlocks don't end up going fire with the new changes.
#3695SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Xenophon
Haste and 40/0/21

Having recently switched to 40/0/21 from 2/48/3 (at least till I get 4-piece T6), I'm somewhat torn regarding how to value haste. Using my stats in Lhivera's TC tool, for example, gives me 1 haste rating = 1.4 damage, making it the single most valuable stat for me. However, I've already reached the point where stacking IV/Bloodlust brings my ABs down to 0.9 seconds, running into the GCD (with Bloodlust alone, its 1.1 seconds).

So there are really two separate questions I have:

- What is the best way to value haste given the opportunity cost of unsyncing bloodlust and IV, and what would be a good rule of thumb for comparing haste to crit rating or damage?

- What is the point at which it becomes better to unsync bloodlust and IV?
#3696SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 hypetech
So I just re-plugged my buffed stats into Lhivera's TC script for the first time in a while and I saw an interesting trinket change. It shows quag's eye as being more dps for me now than the icon.

60.41 Quagmirran's Eye
59.42 Darkmoon Card: Crusade (3-minute restack)
58.65 Icon of the Silver Crescent

Has something changed with the Quag trinket to make it more worthwhile?

Crit has also seemed to gain a decent amount of value relative to spell damage, but of course not as good, but I assume that's just because of the higher gear level. Last time I used the TC script was early T5.
#3697SourcePosted on <=2.0.0galzohar
Wasn't Lhivera's said to be quite off? Hadn't had the chance to actually take a hit at it (and don't remember anyone linking to it either). If you get a stat so much better than others that you should stack it over anything it's quite worth your time to verify you're doing proper calculations ;p

Especially with AB's great spell damage coefficient (DPS per spell damage = modifiers X 2.5/1.5 while most spells get around 1 instead of the 2.5/1.5) and the fact that your mana efficiency isn't increased for a spec that gains a lot for being more mana efficient, along with looking at vontre's spreadsheet and magegraph, make me wonder if those values are correct.
#3698SourcePosted on <=2.0.0arch
Originally Posted by Searix View Post
You do *not* need mana pots or shadow priest or resto sham on brutallus if you serpent braid Mana Emerald, just something to keep in mind.
Full JoW uptime and a draenei shadowpriest doing very good dps turns out to be enough aswell.
#3699SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Kikler
Originally Posted by arch View Post
Full JoW uptime and a draenei shadowpriest doing very good dps turns out to be enough aswell.
Full JoW is arround 5k on this fight which is two Cooldowns you can use on damage consumables
#3700SourcePosted on <=2.0.0jula
Originally Posted by Kikler View Post
Full JoW is arround 5k on this fight which is two Cooldowns you can use on damage consumables
From my experience its only about 2500 - 3500 mana if you only fireball.
mana tide and mana spring each about 3k mana,
Master of Elements ~ 7k+ mana
VT ~23k mana
#3701SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Vhad
That's not 100% uptime then. From our kill I got 22,5k mana from VT but that's with 10% w/o a spriest, 7k MoE and 5,1K from JoW.
#3702SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Sinborn
This is probably a complex question to answer, but is the Serpent Coil Braid worth using over Flame Caps? The stealth buff the SCB got with the mana gem change makes me wish I didn't pass on it back then (I had Crusade/TLC and was arcane). Now with the Skull not stacking with HSH, is this the right way to go? I will say mana gems are alot easier to farm than flame caps...
#3703SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Gaspar
Manly, do you think the 2300ish dps Ishaxa put out on your Brutallus kill is the upper limit for mages on that encounter with current gear levels? With best-in-slot Sunwell/BT/MH/ZA gear do you think 2500 is attainable with a reasonable group comp?

After scrolling through some top rdps parses I found Ishaxa's to be somewhat irregular, especially in crit rate. I also found your crit rate to be quite low.
#3704SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
Well, if you check closely the log you see a few details that helped the numbers. If anything, I didnt get anything out of the norm, basically only 1 lust, spriest, elemental shaman, and pretty much did all the scorching. My DPS is lower than it should have been, given I had to cast 3 drums (3 lost GCD) and had to do a semi-evocation (2-3s of lost dps time). Otherwise my DPS is pretty much what I expect any mage to pull off on it. And yes, my crit rate was low.

Lots of mages get 2 bloodlust on most parses I have seen, yet do less damage. I am not sure how. Problem is, next week I don't wear the same gear as I did this week, so the more it progresses the more the numbers will vary.

I think 2500 DPS is doable without any sunwell gear. Give me 2 bloodlust and its a done deal. Or give me a moonkin (why in gods name would you bring a moonkin to brutallus is beyind me, but ignoring this detail) and I expect numbers to be fairly close to that. Or possibly more than yourself as the only drummer in the group. I don't believe the figure is any kind of unrealistic. Although watch out next week since its going to be darkmoon faire, and I expect lots of people posting 2700+ dps parses thanks to the cheese buff.
#3705SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Setia
I managed 2413 DPS with two Heroisms on a 1% wipe last night. My crit, at 48%, was close to the expected value (Chain of the Twilight Owl + ele shaman + ret paladin), and I was scorching, so I don't really understand how I managed to get that high (I didn't go past 2250 on any other attempts). Maybe I got lucky and landed solid crits with cooldowns on the few Nightfall procs we got. That's with not-quite-optimized gear (Archimonde never dropped a single Tempest since our first kill on October 2nd, my OH and wand ar not up-to-par either). If I had that gear and iCoE, I would probably have gotten that 2500.

WWS - Yes, we suck.

Last edited by Setia : Yesterday at 2:21 PM. Reason: Linked wrong WWS
#3706SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
That parse shows 36% crit rate, 2 bloodlust, and 2153 dps. I guess you were using recount to get that number ?

(if that is the case, yes, recount and wws dont count the same way. given your 57% scorch crit rate, I guess recount gave you an average crit rate for all your casts, which gave you 48% somehow.)
#3707SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Mathris
You linked the wrong try Setia.

Try 12 is the right one

Wow Web Stats
#3708SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
Well, getting freak crit rates can give absurd numbers. Just ask Koosha to link you that teron parse with 2700 dps and see what I mean.

In any case, the problem of comparing parses has always been the compounding effect of variable raid buffs, and RNG. Hitting your crits during your cooldowns will help a lot. I don't think anyone will ever agree to what is 'common' raid/group buffs. For some people draenai aura is always assumed. For some other its elemental shaman. Some always assume JOW. Some assume moonkin. I don't even get COE consistently. I don't believe the group crit necklace changes numbers a whole lot, nor does drums, unless you have a bunch of drummers in the group. Or the 4 nightfall procs. In any case, I think the double lust is really what makes the big difference.

Edit: to further add to my point, a post-enrage kill/wipe will naturally boost firespec numbers, due to long time spent on execute range.

Last edited by manly : Yesterday at 2:20 PM.
#3709SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Lots of mages get 2 bloodlust on most parses I have seen, yet do less damage. I am not sure how. Problem is, next week I don't wear the same gear as I did this week, so the more it progresses the more the numbers will vary.
Given that the second bloodlust is not in mf range, it's giving approximately 1.3*40s / 360s = 3.33% dps increase(napkin math aside). That's not much more than an elemental shaman totem. Most guilds don't use elemental shaman.
#3710SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
First, the 2nd bloodlust stacks with other cooldowns. Second, if you kill him post enrage with people dying left and right, you can actually possibly fit almost 2 bloodlust on execute range.

edit: and not to sound snarky, but even 3% is definately non-trivial.
#3711SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Vhad
Not so sure why you are disliking moonkins, they add much more to the raid than an elemental shaman I would say. We have always had a moonkin since day one in TBC raiding and I've never regretted it, 3% hit for all melee is wonderful and I can use the extra 2% crit over 3% hit, especially considering how we get 1% hit from our shamans.

Wow Web Stats The kill. I think the least problem with this fight is actually dps, or it was for us, biggest issue for us was burn healing and the wonderful stomp+mh+oh hits that just annihilated our tanks.

Edit: I think it'll be possible to do quite close to 2500 dps, our top mage in the kill didn't use destruction potions as he had run out and got lucky with crit either way, add destruction potions and less moonkins dying and he'd have been 2500 easily especially if I was scorching.
#3712SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 Nurru
For Alliance:
Elemental Shaman: 3% crit, 4% hit, 101 dmg, ~50 mp5 and Heroism
Moonkin: 5% crit

How can you possibly say the Moonkin is better?
#3713SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Vhad
Uh, what keeps us from putting a resto shaman with our group?

The trade off is -3% hit, +2% crit to group and +3% hit to the _entire_ raid. I'm quite sure elemental and moonkin dps is quite comparable, equal at best.

Edit:

Caster groups for our kill were like this;

Destro
Destro
Spriest
Resto shaman
SM/ruin lock with malediction/SE

Fire mage
Fire mage
Spriest
Resto shaman
Moonkin

We're only losing 3% hit that I can't even lose from my gear at this point and gain mana tide, and 3% hit to the total of 9 physical dmg dealing classes. Not so sure why you can't see how that is better?
#3714SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Inoko
Originally Posted by Nurru View Post
How can you argue 3% Crit/hit + Heroism + Wrath of Air vs 5% Crit?

Because there's also the added 3% hit to the entire melee portion of the raid, along with utility in the form of Innervate and Rebirth.

Not saying one or the other is better, but there's more to it than just 5% crit, unless you're only talking from a singular PoV for your damage, not raid damage.
#3715SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 Nurru
Originally Posted by Vhad View Post
Uh, what keeps us from putting a resto shaman with our group?

The trade off is -3% hit, +2% crit to group and +3% hit to the _entire_ raid. I'm quite sure elemental and moonkin dps is quite comparable, equal at best.
I'd still rather have the Elemental Shaman and Resto shaman in the raid despite the +hit to melee, rather than a Moonkin and a Resto Shaman. This allows another group to have the Resto shaman and still gives a second Heroism to the raid. It seems to get more out of less, but I suppose opinions will vary. I'll concede arguing it because initially I was simply looking at a per group basis.

edit: damn it, people keep editing.
#3716SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Korval
Deleted

Last edited by Korval : Yesterday at 3:42 PM. Reason: Decided this was better suited to [Mage] Help me please
#3717SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Korval
Double post

Last edited by Korval : Yesterday at 3:41 PM. Reason: Decided this was better suited to [Mage] Help me please
#3718SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by manly View Post
First, the 2nd bloodlust stacks with other cooldowns. Second, if you kill him post enrage with people dying left and right, you can actually possibly fit almost 2 bloodlust on execute range.

edit: and not to sound snarky, but even 3% is definately non-trivial.
The point is ele shaman single lust vs resto shaman with double lust will produce similar parses on a 6 minute kill given that you can use Two caps and three destro pots either way. A mage with a moonkin in his group would see larger benefit than a mage without a moonkin but two bloodlusts.

Also, like i said it was just napkin math to answer your questioning of double lust parses. To be completely accurate I would probably just compare them in a spreadsheet.

Edit: Of course the flip side is the mages in said parses just aren't reducing cast latency as well. It seems this is the largest factor in mage dps along with being poor at cooldown management.
#3719SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Grai
Originally Posted by Inoko View Post
Because there's also the added 3% hit to the entire melee portion of the raid, along with utility in the form of Innervate and Rebirth.

Not saying one or the other is better, but there's more to it than just 5% crit, unless you're only talking from a singular PoV for your damage, not raid damage.
Many moonkin don't take imp faerie fire. They instead go into resto to get regen and -threat talents coupled with all the balance damage talents. Also, the value of imp FF is a function of how many rogues/2-handed Warriors you take. So I feel that the +3% hit argument is difficult to make.

Innervate is situational at best, especially with the new regen mechanics. Rebirth is alright if you have raiders that die a lot, but again, provides no damage unless you're using it to rez a dead DPS.

Totems from an elemental shaman provide significantly more group DPS then +5% crit. Lust is yet another bonus.
#3720SourcePosted on <=2.0.0galzohar
You're assuming that the elemental shaman gets removed from the raid in favor of a resto shaman and the moonkin is taking a free spot. This is not possible unless you were previously raiding with 24 people in which case adding any class would be a huge benefit... When you bring the moonkin to the raid *something* gotta get out of the raid and I really doubt there's a class worth taking out - and even if there is one there is probably a better class to bring in than a moonkin (yet *another* shaman or a mage/lock/hunter for example).

On a side note 101 damage alone is not much under the moonkin aura and is much better than the 2% difference between moonkin aura and the shaman totem. Not to mention shadow priest would benefit noticeably more from the spell damage than the crit (which is a must-have for either elemental shaman or moonkin as far as I know) and innervate is probably far from making up for those differences especially counting the extra 50 mp5 for the party.


As for using WWS parses, even casting something like 200 fireballs (and you won't even reach close to that in a real fight) will still produce a noticeable variance in DPS just due to crits without even taking other (although also less noticeable) random factors into account, with 40% crit you should expect a standard deviation of ~3.5% in your crit, or when dealing 2200 DPS around 50-60 DPS difference between equally played parses. With just 100 fireballs it goes up to ~5% or ~75 DPS difference. Of course the actual expected variance will be a bit higher if you take other random factors into account like # of procs and wether your crits happened during cooldowns/procs or not.

These factors obviously have no effect on your average theorycrafted DPS but they do have an effect on how uneffective your WWS measurements as a tool to backup your theory are.
#3721SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by Sinborn View Post
This is probably a complex question to answer, but is the Serpent Coil Braid worth using over Flame Caps? The stealth buff the SCB got with the mana gem change makes me wish I didn't pass on it back then (I had Crusade/TLC and was arcane). Now with the Skull not stacking with HSH, is this the right way to go? I will say mana gems are alot easier to farm than flame caps...
http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html
I should put that into my signature or so.

It's strong point is that it stacks as trinket. It's weak point is that it relies on using mana gems which may not the optimal thing in your situation at hand.

Ghost hit on Elemental Precision in 2.4?
Did Illidan with 3 mages. Swapped staff to lower my hit on Flame adds (Fire/IV), had another fire mage and a frost mage (less than 13% hit, more than 10%, as far as I know).
Total resists of frost attacks on Flames were 0.7%. Total resis rate of my frostbolts was 0.9%.
Not a proof, but at least a decent indication that ghost hit still seems to be in.
#3722SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Delrain
Gem TC

Wasn't sure which thread would be the best for this question since it has some overlap but figured this thread would have the most Rawr users.

For the 40/0/21 spec rawr some gear yields higher DPS when socketing with +10 int, +10 spi and/or +5int/2mp5 than +12 dmg or dmg/crit combos. Based on the TC that more mana/regen gives rise to more AB spam time and hence higher dps. I understand the TC but was curious what people have found in game using this gemming scheme in raid fights.
#3723SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Sinborn
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html
I should put that into my signature or so.

It's strong point is that it stacks as trinket. It's weak point is that it relies on using mana gems which may not the optimal thing in your situation at hand.
Thank you for the link. Very comprehensive explanation of how you trade damage for mana.
#3724SourcePosted on <=2.0.0plopinou
Don't forget that one of the biggest RNG factor which has a great influence on your DPS is your luck with partials resists.

On a previous WWS posted, like this one : Wow Web Stats
the difference between the 2 mages is huge :
1.7% for Rinald
4.6% for Vhad

Considering that the real DPS loss is not correctly logged, and a medium factor of 1.6 to get the true partial resistance value, the real DPS loss for both are :
2319/(100-1.7*1.6)*100 - 2319 ~= 65dps
2186/(100-4.6*1.6)*100 - 2186 ~= 174dps
We get a number as high as a 109 dps difference only due to the luck factor on partial resists.

Note : In case information about the partial resist being incorrectly logged to show the real DPS loss in a raid environnement are not well known, i would be glad to post a topic about it as i made some research concerning this fact.
#3726SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1galzohar
Originally Posted by plopinou View Post
Don't forget that one of the biggest RNG factor which has a great influence on your DPS is your luck with partials resists.

On a previous WWS posted, like this one : Wow Web Stats
the difference between the 2 mages is huge :
1.7% for Rinald
4.6% for Vhad

Considering that the real DPS loss is not correctly logged, and a medium factor of 1.6 to get the true partial resistance value, the real DPS loss for both are :
2319/(100-1.7*1.6)*100 - 2319 ~= 65dps
2186/(100-4.6*1.6)*100 - 2186 ~= 174dps
We get a number as high as a 109 dps difference only due to the luck factor on partial resists.

Note : In case information about the partial resist being incorrectly logged to show the real DPS loss in a raid environnement are not well known, i would be glad to post a topic about it as i made some research concerning this fact.
Are you sure that's a rather unlikely example? With partial resists expected to average at 5%, I'd expect the deviation to rarely be as high as that WWS parse shows. If you assume the average 5% loss is something like 15% chance for 25% resist and 2.5% chance for 50% resist (and rest 0% resist) you get ~1.7% deviation on the % of damage lost to partial resists (and average damage lost 5%, obviously). 1.7% partial resist is 3.3% away from the average which is almost 2X1.7%. That has quite low chance of actually happening (although not nearly extreme enough to call it impossible). Remember I took assumptions of how partial resists derive over the different amounts which is just a rough guestimation but you won't get very different results using different (but realistic) resist breakdowns as long as you keep the average damage lost to partial resists at 5%.

So while that example shows how luck can mess up your WWS "experiements" or "tests", the specific example of partial resists doesn't normally cause as much deviation as seen in this WWS. Although it is probably the 2nd largest luck factor that affects your DPS after crit.
#3727SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1plopinou
Well, this is why i'am talking about the partials resists being incorrectly logged to show the real DPS loss in a raid environnement.
Partials resists, in the way they are currently logged and shown on WWS, don't represent the real DPS loss you got.
I will post a complete topic about this matter very soon, so stay tuned (i just have to translate it in english as it's in french on my hard drive for the time being).
#3728SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 Vontre
Ok, so... I may have made a rather huge mistake. As it turns out, I've had the wrong spell coefficient for Arcane Missiles for quite some time now... needless to say this changes a lot. I'll follow up on this later when I have more conclusive data, but right now deep arcane specs are looking VERY good...
#3729SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 Cryic
Originally Posted by Setia View Post
Maybe I got lucky and landed solid crits with cooldowns on the few Nightfall procs we got. That's with not-quite-optimized gear (Archimonde never dropped a single Tempest since our first kill on October 2nd, my OH and wand ar not up-to-par either).
Just to clarify, you guys are using an offtank of some kind with a [Nightfall]?? I've seen the various post asking if it's still viable, this is the first I've seen from a top end guild actually using one. I went to look at your parse for the buffs /debuffs gained, but the parse has been deleted.
#3730SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 manly
Yes Cryic nightfall is commonplace for brutallus. Not much a prot warrior can do when hes not actually tanking on brutallus. It doesnt work on any fight except brutallus.
#3731SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Grai
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Ok, so... I may have made a rather huge mistake. As it turns out, I've had the wrong spell coefficient for Arcane Missiles for quite some time now... needless to say this changes a lot. I'll follow up on this later when I have more conclusive data, but right now deep arcane specs are looking VERY good...
This is one of the most interesting things I've read in days. Is your oversight currently commonly held among the mage community, or is it simply a mistake in your spreadsheet or on magegraf?

Get ready to break out those Lightning Capacitors
#3732SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 Maligne
Originally Posted by Grai View Post
This is one of the most interesting things I've read in days. Is your oversight currently commonly held among the mage community, or is it simply a mistake in your spreadsheet or on magegraf?

Get ready to break out those Lightning Capacitors
I thought Vontre was the mage community?

Anyway he has shared the numbers with me and I have tested on live and the results are pretty amazing to say the least. I would recommend making sure you have enough gold for a respec before your raids this week.
#3733SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Antiphonal
Ok, everyone else is too worried about getting banned - but April 1? Somebody had to say it.
#3734SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Avenic
Haste + Arcane Missiles

Originally Posted by Grai View Post
This is one of the most interesting things I've read in days. Is your oversight currently commonly held among the mage community, or is it simply a mistake in your spreadsheet or on magegraf?

Get ready to break out those Lightning Capacitors
I joined a guild working in BT and did not have the hit to do competitive DPS as deep fire. As a late commer to the guild I knew I'd be low on the list for the upgrades I'd need to raid competitively as deep fire. While my old guild had been collapsing, I'd been running ZA and had collected all of the spell haste gear out of the instance except for the weapon off the last boss. I started raiding with an AM haste build. All the theorycrafting I'd heard about and read said that I should not have been able to do well with the spec, but it worked well for me with the gear I had.

My raid group was SP, ES, Moonking, Mage, Mage. Recently I got 4p T6 but then I switched to deep fire. Currently I'm playing with a Hasted Scorch build. I spoke to some of our best theorycrafters and was told that the way I was thinking about haste was wrong, the math I was using.

I was taking the 1% haste = 1% dps literally. So I built around the following math. Damage(45% empowered arcane missiles)+Damage =x Then I took X(Haste%)=y Then I took x+y=z This number was what I used to build my theorycrafting around.

It will be intersting to hear what basic formula is wrong in the current models.
#3735SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1
Edited onPatch 2.4.1
 manly
I can't tell if this is a trolling attempt, a 1st april's fool, or just a very sad attempt at bad TC.

No, you will not bring TLC back from the dead. Neither MSD. They got nerfed to the ground to a point where they are borderline unusable. And please, don't try and make timbal work. Maybe ashtongue could give you something worth trying out due to lwoered GCD, but thats about it as far as 'broken' items go. Likewise, scorch spam will never work because the talents don't support the spell. AM will never work for the exact same reasons -- the underlying formula used to calculate its damage is far too bad to make it compare 'fairly' with any other build. And I'm not even talking about DPM, just DPS.

In any case, if you were serious and are topping meters with AM spam or scorch spam, I feel extremely sad for your raiders. I don't think I can put it in much politer terms. In both cases you're taking a severe DPS loss by using those as primary dps spells. And it should consequently put you in a bad position on DMs. If that isn't enough to get you off the top on DMs, then it is pretty much indicative of another problem.

EDIT: just to be clear. ashtongue is the best aoe trinket. but for main dps single target use its not good.

Last edited by manly : 04/01/08 at 3:40 PM.
#3736SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Keyne
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Ok, so... I may have made a rather huge mistake. As it turns out, I've had the wrong spell coefficient for Arcane Missiles for quite some time now... needless to say this changes a lot. I'll follow up on this later when I have more conclusive data, but right now deep arcane specs are looking VERY good...
Anyone who pays attention to Vontre's sig box should already know that he has the unmost distain for AM both as a spell and as a strategy. So just in case anyone missed the joke, this seems most definitely to be an April Fools prank. As you are well aware, there is a segment of the mage community that has developed an irrational fondness for AB and/or AM. It's just not nice to play with these peoples' feelings like that. You, sir, should be ashamed.
#3737SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Grai
Originally Posted by Antiphonal View Post
Ok, everyone else is too worried about getting banned - but April 1? Somebody had to say it.
As I was driving home, I was thinking of this. I think I got suckered in big time.

Well played sir
#3738SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1galzohar
I was like... "Wait was my coefficient wrong too? I thought I had it right!" apperantely I did have it right...

A better joke would be screenshotting a vendor selling warglavies and S3 gear (or better, actually having a vendor in-game sell them and have an NPC spawn and point&laugh when you try to buy it).
#3739SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Vulcana
Well played, Vontre. Almost had me on that one.

Now a question about Timbals- a mage in my guild is adamant about getting a Timbals because he thinks it is an overpowered Arcane/AM spec trinket, as he believes it procs off of AM ticks. To my best understanding, AM does not count as a channeled spell, but as a series of individual casts, thus allowing proc based buffs to... well, proc on each hit... subsequently not allowing timbals to proc.

So, since I have DE'd any hope of seeing a Timbals (nor would I take it over my Shadowpriest), is there any proof that AM does in fact proc Timbals? (keep in mind that I am disregarding the fact that AM is a terrible spell post TLC/MSD nerf).
#3740SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 Smithist
While it's true individual AM bolts have been capable of proccing things like MSD / TLC in the past, Timbals isn't based simply on spell hits but rather dot ticks. AM does not apply an actual dot to your target, so I don't think Timbals will work.

[e]Also a hidden cooldown of 10-15 seconds has already been confirmed, so it doesn't really matter anyway.
#3741SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1
Edited onPatch 2.4.1
Roywyn
[Timbal's Focusing Crystal] does not work with AM.

Tried 2 minutes of rank 1 AM, and then max rank AM until OOM, no procs.
No, I didn't log or have a recount screenie or whatever.


Tested it a bit as fire spec, did ~0.7% of my damage on Dr. Boom.
Then tried it in BT and got 3 procs in a minute fight. I think it tries to tell me something.

Last edited by Roywyn : 04/01/08 at 7:27 PM.
#3742SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Vulcana
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
[Timbal's Focusing Crystal] does not work with AM.

Tried 2 minutes of rank 1 AM, and then max rank AM until OOM, no procs.
No, I didn't log or have a recount screenie or whatever.
That's what I thought. Thanks for testing it, Roywyn. Time to go slap a mage upside his pointy head.
#3743SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1
Edited onPatch 2.4.1
taciturn
Finish [------|------|------|------|------|------] Start
         8  7 6      5     4    3  2          a  1



1. 0:00- Flame cap/Destro pot/IV/Combustion/Skull
a. 0:20- Icon/head
2. 2:00- Mana Pot/Skull
3. 2:20- Icon
4. 3:00- Gem
5. 4:00- Nothing! i'm retarded put a number here
6. 5:00- Flame Cap
7. 5:20- Icon(Not skull yet)
8. 5:40- Skull, Destro/IV/Combustion

Hero Should be at 5:15ish.
Does this look about right for brutalus? slightly modified of what jula posted earlier

Last edited by taciturn : 04/01/08 at 7:36 PM.
#3744SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1
Edited onPatch 2.4.1
Roywyn
Originally Posted by taciturn View Post
Finish [------|------|------|------|------|------] Start
         8  7 6      5     4    3  2          a  1



1. 0:00- Flame cap/Destro pot/IV/Combustion/Skull
a. 0:20- Icon/head
2. 2:00- Mana Pot/Skull
3. 2:20- Icon
4. 3:00- Gem
5. 4:00- Nothing! i'm retarded put a number here
6. 5:00- Flame Cap
7. 5:20- Icon(Not skull yet)
8. 5:40- Skull, Destro/IV/Combustion

Hero Should be at 5:15ish.
Does this look about right for brutalus? slightly modified of what jula posted earlier
*) If you truly min-max, then Combustion only synergises with Destro<Icon<Hex in that order. So, you should Combustion at 0:20 and 5:20.

// But Combustion will lose a charge when you activate it with a fireball mid-air and that crits.
// So, I prefer a Scorch => Combustion sequence. According to some reports, that can bug out as well though, so not sure what is best.

[Edit]: So, Scorch breaks that too, and my point was moot. Meh.


*) Heroism at 5:15 - I think it should be 20% time at 5:00, maybe 5:10 already, so you can Skull/Dest/IV/(Comb) when heroism comes, and use Icon/(Comb) right after.


One huge downside is that I think it's laid out too tight. You pop all cooldowns on the pull and hope they hit and you don't crit.
Popping cooldowns at 0:10 is what I'd call very aggressive, any earlier and you're playing threat roulette, especially with Combustion.

Last edited by Roywyn : 04/02/08 at 6:16 AM.
#3745SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1
Edited onPatch 2.4.1
taciturn
Only destro and flame cap would be time restricted, the others could safely be pushed back quite a bit.

Last edited by taciturn : 04/02/08 at 3:37 PM. Reason: I am bad and grammar. :(
#3746SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Vanor
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
But Combustion will lose a charge when you activate it with a fireball mid-air and that crits. So, I prefer a Scorch => Combustion sequence. According to some reports, that can bug out as well though, so not sure what is best.
I can confirm that if you combustion straightly after scorch combustion stacks to two and uses a crit charge if the scorch is a crit.
#3747SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Vulcana
Originally Posted by Roywyn
stuff
Originally Posted by Vanor View Post
I can confirm that if you combustion straightly after scorch combustion stacks to two and uses a crit charge if the scorch is a crit.
So the verdict would be...

Scorch5 (or how ever many, based on the number of mages)
Fireball
Wait for impact, possibly pop drums?
Combustion/IV/etc
Fireball


blahblahblah

That seems to be the only way I can see to avoid all the bugging, however having the first fireball crit isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless you're being threat capped. The point of combustion would be to increase your crit chance, so it's not all bad I suppose.
#3748SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1galzohar
Crit is never bad, but it is sometimes not any good either. This is becuase if you're threat capped you have to assume your next spell crits even if you only have 1% crit so you have to give the tank enough threat for a single crit to not pull aggro, so critting will never get you killed. On the other hand, if you're threat capped critting will mean you just skip the next spell (as you can't cast another without risking it critting and pulling aggro) so critting didn't help either.

Bottom line is having more or less crit isn't going to ever reduce your DPS due to threat, but in certain situations it might not help either. Practical conclusions from that is that popping combustion (as well as other cooldowns) would be more useful when you're not threat capped, which might happen in that very fight if not using cooldowns is actually low enough DPS to never pull aggro so the tank gets a lead before you catch up with cooldowns (while the other way around wouldn't work because he can't "catch up" on threat once you're dead).

All in all pretty obvious but just wanted to point out the common misconception people have caliming crit reduces their DPS due to threat.
#3749SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 Docjowles
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
All in all pretty obvious but just wanted to point out the common misconception people have caliming crit reduces their DPS due to threat.
It seems to me if you get to the point where you are threat capped such that you have to stop casting for fear of critting, then crit actually is hurting you. You could have selected a different piece of gear that had more damage or haste instead of wasting item budget on a stat that is actively stopping you from chain-casting. I'm sure you could do up a couple graphs to prove it, but there is no way the DPS loss of one less crit during an encounter is greater than the loss from having to stop casting for 10 seconds due to threat.

This is all pretty unlikely in a raid situation, though. If your tank is awake at the keyboard, there is almost never a time you are threat capped between Salvation and Invisibility.
#3750SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Tyfon
Does [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] proc off of the flamestrike dot? I feel silly but I guess I've never noticed if flamestrike applies a debuff or if it's like consecrate, and mobs can move out of it. If its on the ground, does that mean mobs could have multiple flamestrikes ticking on them?

I know its a moot point from a DPS perspective, especially with 2.4 arcane explosion, but it certainly would be mana efficient...
#3751SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 hypetech
Originally Posted by Tyfon View Post
Does [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] proc off of the flamestrike dot? I feel silly but I guess I've never noticed if flamestrike applies a debuff or if it's like consecrate, and mobs can move out of it. If its on the ground, does that mean mobs could have multiple flamestrikes ticking on them?

I know its a moot point from a DPS perspective, especially with 2.4 arcane explosion, but it certainly would be mana efficient...
With the trinket's internal cooldown, you'd be better off just using a +dmg trinket to get more overall damage out of your flamestrike.
#3752SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Tyfon
Originally Posted by hypetech View Post
With the trinket's internal cooldown, you'd be better off just using a +dmg trinket to get more overall damage out of your flamestrike.
Damn, I'd forgotten about the internal cooldown. I was having visions of MH trash proccing shadowbolt-volleys.
#3753SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 manly
Am I off or scorchio 2.4 is back to not working at all since yesterday's patch?
#3754SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 hypetech
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Am I off or scorchio 2.4 is back to not working at all since yesterday's patch?
I've noticed this too, whatever changed yesterday seems to have pretty much bricked it again.
#3755SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1aznxk3vi17
Did you update via Wowace updater? I can't convince the mages in my guild to install Scorchio + the fix, but does Wowace do any kind of checksum comparison? By using the modified core.lua, does that prompt Wowace to see the mod as "outdated," thus re-downloading the borked version? If this is true, then that's probably what happened.

If not though, I really can't say much. Nowadays I just use NECB and assume none of the mages are scorching, keeping my own rotation as if I'm the only mage (sadly, I'm mostly right - scorch always falls off when my NECB timer ends ).
#3756SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1galzohar
I agree that when you're threat capped crit becomes less powerful in comparison to other stats, but the actual effect in a reasonable-length fight is quite tiny, and also crit will never actuall lower your DPS. As in no matter how threat-capped you are, having 1% more crit will never be less DPS than having 1% less crit, and the reduction to crit value when being threat capped should be extremely small when you're casting a lot more than just a few spells.

In other words your average DPS lost due to the chance to get all your crits early and no crits later on, hardly increases by increasing the crit chance, and therefore stat equivalence points while taking this chance into account should be so close to the stat equivalence points you would currently get while ignoring threat that it'll be pointless to take it into account.
On trash this neglicible chance goes a bit higher, but since nobody really cares about a small difference to trash DPS on a small % of the trash mobs that threat-cap you...

Since you can never cast a spell if it critting would get you killed, regardless of your crit chance, having more crit will not get you killed more often.
#3757SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 manly
Originally Posted by aznxk3vi17 View Post
Did you update via Wowace updater? I can't convince the mages in my guild to install Scorchio + the fix, but does Wowace do any kind of checksum comparison? By using the modified core.lua, does that prompt Wowace to see the mod as "outdated," thus re-downloading the borked version? If this is true, then that's probably what happened.

If not though, I really can't say much. Nowadays I just use NECB and assume none of the mages are scorching, keeping my own rotation as if I'm the only mage (sadly, I'm mostly right - scorch always falls off when my NECB timer ends ).
I know what you mean, but no, WAU will not overwrite your modified file unless a new version from your last download is up. I tested it many times over.

This is really a major frustration.
#3758SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 manly
Err, I think I found out why. Since Omen kept breaking yesterday, I did a 're-install all addons' in WAU, since it fixes most mod issues. Needless to say I am pretty sure that reinstalled that lua file. Probably a false alert.
#3759SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Vulkaire
You can set WAU to ignore Scorchio. I believe that you just right click it on the add-on list and you will get the option to do so. I am at work so I can't check for sure.
#3760SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Rustyshrapnel
Yep, confirmed...just right click on the "scorchio" in your WAU and select "ignore." Ran "update all" again and it skipped over Scorchio. Right as rain!
#3761SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1coldfusion
Spell Haste?

I have been trying to find on here some information about spell haste and mages.

My assumption is that Spell Hit > Spell Haste > Spell Damage > Spell Crit for mages.

Is this true? I know I read that somewhere in Elitist Jerks, but I cannot find the post.

Thanks for your help.
#3762SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 Nurru
A reminder people: The TC thread is supposed to be about new/interesting Mage mechanics, post all your cluebie handout questions to the "Help Me Please" thread.
#3763SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1jula
[quote=taciturn;695697]
1. 0:00- Flame cap/Destro pot/IV/Combustion/Skull
a. 0:20- Icon/head
2. 2:00- Mana Pot/Skull
3. 2:20- Icon
4. 3:00- Gem
5. 4:00- Nothing! i'm retarded put a number here
6. 5:00- Flame Cap
7. 5:20- Icon(Not skull yet)
8. 5:40- Skull, Destro/IV/Combustion
I am now using this:
0:00 - pull
0:40 - cap + combustion + hex
1:00 - IV + skull + destruction pot
2:40 - hex
3:00 - skull + destruction pot
4:55 - cap
5:15 (or 19%) - combustion + hex
5:35 - IV + skull + destruction pot

basically:
A. delay the first cd activations a bit to let tanks build more aggo. as long as you pop your first trinket before 1:15 it does not matter. You can even wait for a ring proc if you want.
B. Should always prefer to hex and not skull with combustion.
C. Flame cap lasts 1min so use it with your first trinket activation regardless of what you prefer to activate first.
D. While hex's activation is stronger than skull's activation, it does not help promote the synergy with destruction potion. So i prefer to use skull during IV.

The most simple way to do it is make two macros
one for cap + combustion + hex, lets call it macro 1,
and the second macro for everything , lets call it macro2.
Then it looks like this:
0:00 - pull
0:40 - macro1
1:00 - macro2
2:40 - macro1
3:00 - macro2
4:55 - cap
5:15 (or 19%) - macro1
5:35 - macro2
#3764SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Hate Monkey
Been watching you guys talk about this trinket shit for a while now for Brutallus, and I keep noticing that everyone is using, in my opinion, a horrible Flame Cap + trinket timing.

0:00 min - pull
0:10 sec - Flame Cap
0:30 sec - Skull+IV+Combustion+Destro Pot, rolling Ignites possible. (Berserking if able)
0:50 - Icon/Hex
2:30 - Skull+Destro Pot
2:50 - Icon/Hex
3:10 - Mana Gem
3:30 - IV, Berserking CD up, SAVE THEM
4:30 - Skull, Destro pot CD up, SAVE THEM
4:50 - Icon/Hex up
5:00 or @ 20% - Flame Cap+Blood Lust+Skull+Destro Pot+IV, Berserking too
20s later Icon/Hex

The difference between rotation and the one in the post above this, is this rotation allows for max consumable usage (mana gem), and more able to get lucky with rolling ignites.

Using Skull+Combustion will prove more easier luck to obtain a rolling ignite, which will provide higher dps overall than using Icon/Hex with Combustion.

And if you're in the boat I'm in with Hyjal ring and still using it, do not wait for procs, and it is actually a dps downgrade to other rings available.
#3765SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Wueste
What do you mean with rolling ignite. As far as I know, there is no extra damage from rolling ignites. Missing ticks are simply added to following ingites.

5.000 crit
Tick für 1.000
next crit for 5.000
Ignite: 1000 + 500
next crit for 5.000
Ignite: 1000 + 750
Ignite: 1000 + 750

I can't see any advantages from using Combustion with haste, instead of +damage trinkets. The only reason could be, that you want to see higher numbers with your ignote dots.

Or did I misunderstand this?
#3766SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Pintofbrew
There's a whole thread dedicated to rolling ignites. They were possible in 2.3 and there's no evidence to prove they're not in 2.4. In order to manage this you need a lot of haste as the specific timing of when the spell lands with respect to the previous Ignite DoT is critical. Read up on it.

As for using Comb with haste, it's (1) to force rolling ignite (2) to combine with Desto Pot.
#3767SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Prom
I would go for Flame cap + hex at around 10-15s into the fight.
Enough time for your tank to build up threat and then pop IV+combustion+destro+bersecker as soon as you can.
Then basically use hex whenever its up, Skull + destro whenever its up and mana gem when available. At 20% pop everything and profit
#3768SourcePosted on <=2.0.0ainav
With all my respect, but I don't see how you are going to pop your cooldowns at 20(drums + flame cap + hex) and then at 40(comb+IV-Skull-destro pot) without making overaggro.

I seriously want to see Manly cooldown menagment for Brutallus, as from what I see in the WWS he is making way more dps with way less buffs than the other fire mages I have seen in WWS.
Only possible explanation for me is that he is hiding some imba-secret from us.

Last night I made 2k DPS on brutallus beeing full frost.
No elem. shaman 3drums 1 destro pot 1 heroism! Nothing special I just needed to say it!
#3769SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Seferis
Originally Posted by galzohar View Post
I agree that when you're threat capped crit becomes less powerful in comparison to other stats, but the actual effect in a reasonable-length fight is quite tiny, and also crit will never actuall lower your DPS. As in no matter how threat-capped you are, having 1% more crit will never be less DPS than having 1% less crit, and the reduction to crit value when being threat capped should be extremely small when you're casting a lot more than just a few spells.

In other words your average DPS lost due to the chance to get all your crits early and no crits later on, hardly increases by increasing the crit chance, and therefore stat equivalence points while taking this chance into account should be so close to the stat equivalence points you would currently get while ignoring threat that it'll be pointless to take it into account.
On trash this neglicible chance goes a bit higher, but since nobody really cares about a small difference to trash DPS on a small % of the trash mobs that threat-cap you...

Since you can never cast a spell if it critting would get you killed, regardless of your crit chance, having more crit will not get you killed more often.
Actually the the relation of Crit and being threat capped is very simple. What will get you killed is a large variation in outgoing damage or to rephrase it "damage spikes". For this purpose it does not matter if the large variance is due to high spell damage in combination with a single (albeit unlikely crit) or several smaller crits.

However, you want to tackle it from this point of view, having around 50% Crit is the worst case, since it has the most unpredictable behavior. Going towards 100% Crit or 0% Crit has the same effect of "smoothing" out your damage output.
#3770SourcePosted on <=2.0.0galzohar
Nothing in threat capping will get you killed. That's what omen is for - if you die to threat it's not your gear's fault and it's not the dice's fault - it's your fault for not watching omen.

What you do lose when having higher damage variance is DPS due to the very small chance to roll all your crits early and then no crits later on, resulting in threat capping early and then being far from threat cap towards the end, while if you had no DPS variance you could've been riding the threat line for the whole fight doing more damage. The actual difference between different (realistic) crit chances that this is causing is extremely small due to what actually needs to happen in order for you to lose DPS becuase of your DPS variance and how small the effect changing your crit chance has on it.

While crit rating would get slight devaluation from this in reality it should be neglicible enough to completely ignore.

If you're watching omen your average DPS on a given fight will never go down as crit increases, either.
#3771SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
Personally, I am somewhat amased to see that many people don't agree on cooldowns. I started the whole 'fire spec is all about cooldown timing' meme on the wowboards because I was pissed at how grossly ineducated the people were there.

To me, theres an unspoken principle that I have always used for cooldown stacking. I never thought it was worth mentioning, since it felt rather obvious to me. Every cooldown, ignoring synergies for a second, have a relative worth. Not all of the cooldowns are made equal. Some are better, some are worse. A fire mage has a total of 9 possible cooldowns, namely, in order from best to worst, ignoring duration of cooldown, and ignoring cooldown stacking (ie: no cooldowns are stacked):

1. bloodlust (+30% haste =~ +23.08% dps)
2. molten fury (+20% dmg = +20% dps) --> (yes, this is a cooldown, for all intent and purposes)
3. icy veins (+20% haste =~ +16.67% dps)
4. drums of battle (+5.1% haste =~ +4.85% dps (or less depending on base haste rating))
5. skull of gul'dan (+11.15% haste =~ +10.03% dps (or less depending on base haste rating))
6. hex shrunken head (+211 dmg =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
7. destruction potion (+120 dmg/+2% crit =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
8. flame cap (+80 dmg =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
9. combustion (this spell sucks - At 40% crit rate, it gives you 10%, 20%, 30%, 32%, 22%, 9%, 1.4%, 0.1% crit (on average) for casts 1 to 8. [Mage] Help me please? )

<keep in mind, theses values ignore cooldown stacking. some of theses cooldowns will multiply far better than others when coupled together, such as bloodlust/molten fury/icy veins. If you have the 3 previous cooldowns stacked together, then the relative worth of skull increases dramatically. As such, the list above should be doubled and have another list that shows the values of all cooldowns when stacked.>

Imagine for a second that there were no synergies issues and that combustion didn't suck. And that drums didn't eat a GCD when you activate them. Your goal is quite simply to stack whichever cooldown has the most dps increase together, or if you prefer, to stack from 1 to 9 in that order (assuming we all agree with the order I gave above). That means quite simply that your priority is always to stack cooldowns from top to bottom; or to give a more thorough example, to stack cooldowns on bloodlust and not on molten fury if you had to chose.

All of this implies the following. Again, assuming there is a concensus on the 'priority list' above, it means the optimum way to stack cooldowns is to pop all cooldowns with skull of gul'dan, minus combustion. Needless to say, pop drums of battle first, because the eaten GCD really sucks. Then once those are done, you are left with hex/combustion.
#3772SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Thesappster
Arcane/Frost vs Deep fire

Hello all,

Been looking through the mage posts trying to find some info and have been unsuccessful so far: so here is my question.


With the new spririt buff in 2.4 and assuming at least 2T5, is Arcane/Frost a good dps spec now? I have heard rumors that 40/0/21 can be one of the top dps specs.

Thanks for any/all input/help!
#3773SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Muphrid
Originally Posted by manly View Post
1. bloodlust (+30% haste =~ +23.08% dps)
...
3. icy veins (+20% haste =~ +16.67% dps)
I'm curious; why do you list the % DPS increases as less than the haste values?
#3774SourcePosted on <=2.0.0chase
Originally Posted by Muphrid View Post
I'm curious; why do you list the % DPS increases as less than the haste values?
I assume it is because 30% haste is not 30% increase in cast speed.

1-1/(1+haste)
#3775SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Roywyn
Originally Posted by manly View Post
Personally, I am somewhat amased to see that many people don't agree on cooldowns. I started the whole 'fire spec is all about cooldown timing' meme on the wowboards because I was pissed at how grossly ineducated the people were there.

To me, theres an unspoken principle that I have always used for cooldown stacking. I never thought it was worth mentioning, since it felt rather obvious to me. Every cooldown, ignoring synergies for a second, have a relative worth. Not all of the cooldowns are made equal. Some are better, some are worse. A fire mage has a total of 9 possible cooldowns, namely, in order from best to worst, ignoring duration of cooldown, and ignoring cooldown stacking (ie: no cooldowns are stacked):

1. bloodlust (+30% haste =~ +23.08% dps)
2. molten fury (+20% dmg = +20% dps) --> (yes, this is a cooldown, for all intent and purposes)
3. icy veins (+20% haste =~ +20% dps)
4. drums of battle (+5.1% haste =~ +4.85% dps (or less depending on base haste rating))
5. skull of gul'dan (+11.15% haste =~ +10.03% dps (or less depending on base haste rating))
6. hex shrunken head (+211 dmg =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
7. destruction potion (+120 dmg/+2% crit =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
8. flame cap (+80 dmg =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
9. combustion (this spell sucks - At 40% crit rate, it gives you 10%, 20%, 30%, 32%, 22%, 9%, 1.4%, 0.1% crit (on average) for casts 1 to 8. [Mage] Help me please? )

<keep in mind, theses values ignore cooldown stacking. some of theses cooldowns will multiply far better than others when coupled together, such as bloodlust/molten fury/icy veins. If you have the 3 previous cooldowns stacked together, then the relative worth of skull increases dramatically. As such, the list above should be doubled and have another list that shows the values of all cooldowns when stacked.>

Imagine for a second that there were no synergies issues and that combustion didn't suck. And that drums didn't eat a GCD when you activate them. Your goal is quite simply to stack whichever cooldown has the most dps increase together, or if you prefer, to stack from 1 to 9 in that order (assuming we all agree with the order I gave above). That means quite simply that your priority is always to stack cooldowns from top to bottom; or to give a more thorough example, to stack cooldowns on bloodlust and not on molten fury if you had to chose.

All of this implies the following. Again, assuming there is a concensus on the 'priority list' above, it means the optimum way to stack cooldowns is to pop all cooldowns with skull of gul'dan, minus combustion. Needless to say, pop drums of battle first, because the eaten GCD really sucks. Then once those are done, you are left with hex/combustion.
Minor nitpicks - Icy Veins is +20% DPS (-16.67% cast time), Bloodlust is +30% DPS (-23.08% cast time), both regardless of current haste.

For the other cooldowns:

Using my character, I'm have 1541 fire damage raid buffed (shaman group).
Fireball base damage is 735, 1 DoT tick is 21. Since it can't crit and Fireball crit rate is 40%+, we assume a 14 damage tick. (735+14)/115% = 651. So we can pretend that fireball has 0 base damage and we have 651 more +fire damage on our gear.

That means our spell damage with 0 base damage of Fireball would be 651 + 1641 = 2292.


That means Hex is 211/2292 = 9.2%, Icon is 155/2292 = 6.8%, Desto Pot is 120/2292+((2%*1.163)/(1+40%*1.163)) = 5.2%+1.6% = 6.8%, Flame Cap is 80/2292 = 3.5%.

Combustion isn't actually that bad. For the first 6 casts (fits into a 18sec window, 15s with IV up or SP gear haste), you get 0%+20%+30%+32%+22%+9%.
(The only way not to lose the bonus of the first cast is using drums or invisi or something else with a GCD between your last spell and the Combustion afterwards. That's why 0% on the first cast.)
So, thats 113% crit over 6 spells. Or 18.9% crit over 18 seconds, which is a (18.9%*1.163)/(1+40%*1.163) = 15% increase over 18s. You have to keep the actual mechanics in though, that it lasts for 3 crits.

That means it doesn't benefit from haste modifiers at all, only from damage modifiers. Which is why it kind of sucks for stacking cooldowns.


TLDR
Hex = 9.2%, Icon = 6.8%, DP = 6.8%, FC = 3.5%.
Comb = 15% for 18secs, not scaling with haste, only with damage.



How to stack the cooldowns at 20% then?

Flame Caps and Bloodlust will be up. You pop IV, Destro Pot. Choose a trinket. And use Combustion now or wait and use it with the other trinket.

A)
MF+BL+FC+IV+DP(15sec)+Skull for 20s
MF+BL+FC+Hex+Comb for 20s

B)
MF+BL+FC+IV+DP(15sec)+Hex+Comb for 20s
MF+BL+FC+Skull for 20s

Are our two options. A) has Destro+Skull and IV+Skull synergy, B) has Destro+Comb and IV+Hex synergy.
Comb will remain a bit better than Skull (for DP synergy), and Skull will remain better than Hex for IV synergy - even at high-end SP haste gear, assuming you pick up some of the damage upgrades as well.


Both options are close enough that I couldn't tell which one is better.
Would have to make a sheet for it, because Combustion is so annoying to model. And DP reduces the value of Combustion too due to the 2% crit. Too much headache for me right now.
#3776SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Kavan
With all the talk about cooldown stacking TC lately I feel I should explain more in detail how Rawr.Mage works as one of its main purposes is to answer this very question. Many of you will remember the [Math] The Two-Cycle Theorem of Spell Selection posted some time ago which showed that assuming we have only mana constraint then it is never optimal to use more than 2 cycles. What Rawr.Mage uses is a generalization of that framework extended to apply to a more general problem.

At the core is the problem formulation. In a given fight at any point in time we can choose to follow any number of algorithms for spell selection. A cycle is one such fully specified algorith. For example a cycle can be casting Fireball until Scorch debuff is almost out and then Scorch. Another cycle can be AB-AM-AB-AM-AB-AM-FrB with AM following AM if AM procs clearcast and as many Frostbolts as needed to not drop AB debuff. Or it can just be Frostbolt spam. One important thing is that they have to be fully specified, meaning at any point in time while executing the cycle it should tell what to cast next. Given such specification it is then possible to compute long-term average dps and mps of the cycle (and possibly other relevant values such as tps).

We also have a number of cooldowns. The way I'm treating them is in the same way that Manly specified. It is an ability that changes the dps/mps values of cycles and is controlled in a sense that we can either choose when to use it or we know when/how it is used. At any point in time now we have to decide which cooldowns should be active (or we know are active) and which cycle to use. While we can use any cycle at any point in time, this is not true for cooldowns. There are constraints imposed on them. This is the key change compared to the 2-cycle theorem that can cause more than 2 cycles to be optimal.

We can now formally specify our problem. Lets enumerate all combinations of cooldown combinations and cycles and let $N$ be the number of all cooldowns+cycle combinations. For example number 143 could corresponds to Combustion+Flame Cap+Destruction Potion+Molten Fury+Heroism+FireballScorch. Each combination of cooldowns and cycle is assigned its own number. Let now $x_i$ be ammount of time spent casting cycle associated with number i while cooldowns associated with i are active. We also have special variables reserved to represent the use of mana potions, mana gems and evocation. While they have a special meaning they can be treated the same way as other cycles in terms of the problem formulation.

What we want to optimize then is total damage done:

$$\sum_{i=0}^N x_i \mathrm{Dps}_i$$

This is subject to a number of constraints. I'll show here some examples so that you get a general idea. First we have duration constraint:

$$\sum_{i=0}^N x_i \leq \text{Fight duration}$$

Then we have mana constraint:

$$\sum_{i=0}^N x_i \mathrm{Mps}_i \leq \text{Starting mana}$$

Then we have a constraint for potions (for the purposes of formulation we assume mana potions take a certain small ammount of time to use):

$$\frac{x_\text{Mana Potion}}{\text{Mana Potion duration}} + \sum_{i \text{ where Dustruction Potion is active}} \frac{x_i}{15} \leq \text{Maximum number of potions}$$

A trinket constraint might be:

$$\sum_{i \text{ where Trinket is active}} x_i \leq \text{Maximum trinket activation time}$$

where maximum activation is computed as $(1 + \lfloor \frac{\text{Fight duration} - \text{Trinket activation duration}}{\text{Trinket cooldown}}\rfloor) \cdot \text{Trinket activation duration}$.

Similarly we have constraints that tell maximum time spent evocating, time spent in heroism, time spent in molten fury. In addition we need constraints on cooldown stacking. For example even if we can use trinket twice we can not use it both times during molten fury. In the current implementation there are 39 constraints and more might be added to fine tune some edge cooldown stacking requirements.

The important thing is that this gives a theoretical framework under which we can search for optimum solution. What Rawr.Mage does is it looks at all possible combinations of cooldowns and cycles and solves this problem and returns the solution that optimizes total damage done given the constraints. There is one restriction, which is that constraints have to be linear. Some cooldown stacking constraints are harder to express in linear terms so in some cases some decisions have to be made. Currently the constraints are only added if there is no case where the constraint could be violated. This means that in some cases the solutions can be slightly overestimated. An alternative would be to add overrestricting constraints that would guarantee that all stacking solutions are possible, but might also removes some, this giving us a lower bound. That would give us an error margin to the calculation so that you know in which range the true optimum solution is.

The conclusion should be that solving cooldown stacking is a hard problem to do ad hoc. You can give some heuristics as to what cooldowns are better to stack and which give more value. But in the end if you want to take into account all interconnections you have to specify the problem in general terms as was shown here. Then it will automatically take into consideration all cooldown interactions. It will know how much Destruction Potion hurts Combustion, how much clipping of AB under Heroism+IV costs. It is working with values of average dps and mps of all cooldown and cycle combinations and balancing them against all constraints. When you get a solution you know that it is optimal under those constraints. If it is using AB with Heroism+IV and it is going below 1 second it is doing that because in the big bicture that gives more total damage than stacking cooldowns some other way.

So enter your gear and let Rawr.Mage do the theorycrafting for you.
#3777SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1galzohar
What non-linear things did you run into?

Also are there any plans to add unpredictable fight duration? A 4m fight and a 3.5~4.5 minute fight could have different results especially when mana is taken into consideration. Maybe it would just be better to maximize your DPS for the "worst-case-scenario" fight duration at least on fights that are not on farm, since if it ended early you still win, but then there are lots fights where it's very hard to put your finger on their exact duration.
#3778SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1 manly
Well, debatably that could be dumbed down to 'use a playstyle that errs towards DPM for the first 80% * of the fight, then use a different playstyle for the latter part to adapt to a varying fight duration'.

* 80% would vary depending on the fight duration elasticity.
#3779SourcePosted on Patch 2.4.1Kavan
The constraints that are hard to express have to do with packing and scheduling. For example if you have typical trinket with 20 sec activation and 2 min cooldown then on a 5 min fight you can use it at most 3 times or total of 60 seconds. A max 20 sec can be used during heroism, max 40 sec can be used during IV, max 30 sec during AP.

Now imagine the following solution:

Heroism+IV+AP+Trinket: 15 sec
Heroism+Trinket: 5 sec
IV+AP+Trinket: 15 sec
IV+Trinket: 10 sec
Trinket: 15 sec

It meets all those constraints but it is clear you cannot split them into 3 activations of 20 sec. You could probably come up with some constraint that would prevent this from happening but it feels like there would have to be a lot of them, discarding these kind of scenarios almost on a case by case basis. If anyone comes up with a general solution I'd be very interested to hear it. It just feels that to account for all cases you'd have to treat the problem as a general scheduling optimization which is computationally more prohibitive.

Regarding variable fight duration I don't have any plans to add it at the moment. As Manly suggested you can just examine the cooldown placement and spell selection for a range of fight durations. In most situations the transitions are gradual and the only change that happens is percentage of time spent in different cycles.
#3780SourcePosted on <=2.0.0djm_mage
TC with the new Alchemist Stone

My apologies if this was covered already and I failed to find it, but has there been any considerable theorizing on how the new Sorcerers Alchemist Stone can affect the Mage's overall damage in longer fights? With the addition of many more pieces of desirable high haste gear, might the stone become one of the more sought after trinkets to prevent any kind of downtime in damage per second due to having to evocate or otherwise regain mana in some way, especially when choosing Molten Armor over Mage Armor?
#3781SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Actovision
A while back someone, Manly I believe, posted that he often considered stopping dps near a bosses death to let his ignites tick off. This is ostensibly to remove the possibility of resetting the ignite timer with another crit (especially since the ignite could be a rolling one whose damage is greater than that of a crit fireball). I've been thinking that a better alternative would be a frostbolt -> ice lance/frostbolt or an arcane blast (-> arcane blast). I suggest this especially considering that with haste, most likely passive at the point of boss death, multiple casts would be possible in this window. The difficulty of course being able to feel whether or not the boss will die before ignite ticks off (where another fireball would have been more prudent). And of course this hinges on the ignite dot being added to the mob, or refreshed, at a very precise time

For example:

Boss dies at 4:00 so at 3:55 the last fireball is cast.
Immediately the player begins casting a Frostbolt or Arcane Blast
Depending on haste, another cast between 3:57 and 3:58
-or-
An instant such as fireblast or ice lance is cast

This being my first post here, I'd like to get some thoughts on what people think of this, such as:

Is this viable to try, or a waste of effort to secure a small or possibly non-existent damage increase?
A lack of haste (or the presence of it, for that matter) would shift the scales more towards a double arcane blast. Do buffs such as Imp CoE and Winter's Chill shift the balance decidedly towards frostbolt?
Does frostbolt's travel time automatically void the argument in favor of Arcane Blast?
What kind of damage increase -- and how relevant to actually killing a boss -- would this be?

Thanks in advance for any comments.
#3782SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
Yes, as you pointed out, frostbolt is immediately out because of travel time. The problem is that there isn't a lot of alternatives. The contenders are:

-Arcane blast (with the major issue that the first cast is far too long for what we're looking for)
-scorch
-fireblast
-dragon's breath
-blastwave

I realise that if dragon's breath/blastwave is in that list then it implies melee range, in which case frostbolt would be equally a contender. But to be honest I don't think any of them is realistic. This pretty much only leaves us with scorch and fireblast. They both have the annoying 'feature' of possibly delaying further the ignite tick, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid. I will point out a technique I use on trash, but that I have never gotten around to do on bosses. As everyone knows, you can get more than 3 crits with combustion, possibly even a near infinite amount of them. I have always been against doing fireball/fireblast for the 3rd/4th combustion crit, since I know it causes ignites to be overriden. However, this only applies for as long as you plan your ignites to tick. Also, this 'rule' only applies when doing single targets. There is nothing wrong with using your 4th combustion crit on a secondary target, since there is no loss involved. It also means that you might as well go for that 4th combustion crit if you know your target will die before the 2 ignites ticks get to tick. Although, and this is the tricky part, in practice I would have a hard time conceiving a case where I would pop combustion that late, precisely when I have a huge amassed ignite, to be in that kind of boss hp%. It would be the kind of case I would want to avoid getting in in the first place. But, the same principle applies here, to a level, even if combustion is not up. What if were better off finishing a boss with scorch/fireblasts ? I already to that on every trash mob, a boss should be the same. I think in the ends it becomes a judgement call, whether or not you have a huge rolling ignite that you don't want to risk letting fall off. This is really calling a long shot.

Personally most of the time I finish with fireblast/scorch spam for the last 5 seconds or so. I fully realise that this is working against the whole 'dont let ignite fall off' debate, but I am not sure there is any clean solution to that problem. I think arcane blast is not suited - at all - for the task. The major issue is that it has piss-poor DPS on the first 2 casts, and our goal is solely to provide dps for 4 seconds of time. Sure, its our best non-ignite-proccing alternative, but I would doubt its dps is anywhere near anything acceptable.
#3783SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Etherealz
If you've been pushing the ignites back couldn't you, at say the 6 second mark (till boss death) simply wait an extra 300 ms or so to cast your fireball putting it over 2s by a decent margin?
#3784SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Actovision
Assuming that you have a respectable amount of passive haste you'd have to wait longer than .3 seconds in order to assure yourself that a crit fireball won't be resetting ignite.

And to Manly, the random nature of the crit just before a boss death makes it unavoidable. I'm attempting to gauge whether an 8k crit fireball and a fireblast would be more damage than, say, 2 1.6k ignite ticks, 2 ABs and a Fireblast, or 2-3 scorches and a fireblast.

I disagree with ruling out AB due to the painful initial cast time. Again considering this is a person judging when a boss is going to drop from 1% to 0% (or watching actual numbers drop using a mobhealth addon) they are open to misjudging how much time is left in the encounter as well as the dps other members of the raid are putting out in this area. The pros of AB are the ability to do something other than stand still without risking wasted ignite damage with another fire crit. When the possibility of poor "time to die" judgment is factored in AB is more forgiving due to faster subsequent casts (which rewards spamming in the event that the boss takes longer to die than estimated). As you say the risks involved in scorch -> fireblast are what we're trying to avoid.

What the question boils down to is "What is the best use of 5 seconds of dps time, assuming you go in with a full ignite dot ?" Note that we have to assume that this isn't a snapshot of a fight, but the end of one, and that the time isn't limited to 5 seconds, but can go over or end abruptly.

Edited for clarification.

Last edited by Actovision : Yesterday at 11:46 AM.
#3785SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Vulcana
Originally Posted by taciturn View Post
1. 0:00- Flame cap/Destro pot/IV/Combustion/Skull
2. 0:20- Icon/head
3. 2:00- Mana Pot/Skull
4. 2:20- Icon
5. 3:00- Gem
6. 4:00- Nothing! i'm retarded put a number here
7. 5:00- Flame Cap
8. 5:20- Icon(Not skull yet)
9. 5:40- Skull, Destro/IV/Combustion

Hero Should be at 5:15ish.
Kind of backtracking this thread by 2 or 3 pages, but say I don't have a Skull (which I don't, HSH and Icon are my 2), and assuming you would not want to pop everything at 0:00 for the sake of scorches (Unless you can sucker another mage into doing 5 x scorch and then keep it up) I'm going to say it should look more like this (also assumes at least 1 other Fire mage):

1. 0:00 Apply Scorches
2. 0:03 Flame Cap/Destro Pot/IV/Combustion/Head
3. 0:23 Icon
4. 2:03 Mana/Destro Pot, Head
5. 2:23 Icon
6. 3:03 Gem
7. 5:03 Flame Cap
8. * (Molten Fury range) Icon
9. + (Molten Fury range) Head/Destro/IV/Combustion



* Popped as soon as MF range/Heroism is up
+ 20 seconds after Icon is popped, to allow for HSH

Last edited by Vulcana : Yesterday at 7:53 PM.
#3786SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Etherealz
Originally Posted by Vulcana View Post
Kind of backtracking this thread by 2 or 3 pages, but say I don't have a Skull (which I don't, HSH and Icon are my 2), and assuming you would not want to pop everything at 0:00 for the sake of scorches (Unless you can sucker another mage into doing 5 x scorch and then keep it up) I'm going to say it should look more like this (also assumes at least 1 other Fire mage):

1. 0:00 Apply Scorches
2. 0:03 Flame Cap/Destro Pot/IV/Combustion/Head
3. 0:23 Icon
4. 2:03 Mana/Destro Pot, Head
5. 2:23 Icon
6. 3:03 Gem
7. 5:03 Flame Cap
8. * (Molten Fury range) Icon
9. + (Molten Fury range) Head/Destro/IV/Combustion



* Popped as soon as MF range/Heroism is up
+ 20 seconds after Icon is popped, to allow for HSH
0:03 Seems a tad aggressive to pop everything.
You're only getting 3 trinkets regardless and two icey veins so you have some room to pop them strategicly.

Pop the cap on pull, but save the destro/iv/comb/head for 0:30 or so right after you refresh scorch.
#3787SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Vulcana
That's true. In doing the above time table, I'd snag a couple 6k+ crits from the get go and subsequently never live down ripping threat within the first 10 seconds of the fight. Given the time frame, I can be a little more flexible with my cooldown popping.
Thanks.
#3788SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Setia
What I've usually done is pop cooldowns on the first tank switch, about 30 seconds in. It gives a good reference frame to coordinate with other group members (for the first drums if you have only one or two LW in group, for example).
#3789SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
Originally Posted by Etherealz View Post
If you've been pushing the ignites back couldn't you, at say the 6 second mark (till boss death) simply wait an extra 300 ms or so to cast your fireball putting it over 2s by a decent margin?

Originally Posted by Actovision View Post
Assuming that you have a respectable amount of passive haste you'd have to wait longer than .3 seconds in order to assure yourself that a crit fireball won't be resetting ignite.

And to Manly, the random nature of the crit just before a boss death makes it unavoidable. I'm attempting to gauge whether an 8k crit fireball and a fireblast would be more damage than, say, 2 1.6k ignite ticks, 2 ABs and a Fireblast, or 2-3 scorches and a fireblast.

I disagree with ruling out AB due to the painful initial cast time. Again considering this is a person judging when a boss is going to drop from 1% to 0% (or watching actual numbers drop using a mobhealth addon) they are open to misjudging how much time is left in the encounter as well as the dps other members of the raid are putting out in this area. The pros of AB are the ability to do something other than stand still without risking wasted ignite damage with another fire crit. When the possibility of poor "time to die" judgment is factored in AB is more forgiving due to faster subsequent casts (which rewards spamming in the event that the boss takes longer to die than estimated). As you say the risks involved in scorch -> fireblast are what we're trying to avoid.

What the question boils down to is "What is the best use of 5 seconds of dps time, assuming you go in with a full ignite dot ?" Note that we have to assume that this isn't a snapshot of a fight, but the end of one, and that the time isn't limited to 5 seconds, but can go over or end abruptly.

Edited for clarification.
I agree with the ideology of considering 300ms of no dps time in order to avoid having your ignites fall off, however, I feel compelled to point out the nature of the problem. You do not know when the boss is going to die. It could be < 300ms. You can get a mini-guesstimate, but its very hard to do becuase you can't realistically tell the difference between T-minus-5 and T-minus-3, which is where the entire problem resides. This is also why I ruled out AB. I think any decent raider knows when the boss is between T-minus-10 and T-minus-5, but once you get below that point its very hard to guesstimate. To be more to the point; I believe that only 1.5s or less casts are to be considered for cases where 5 or 3 seconds left on a boss. You would not want to cast a 2.5s frostbolt, since your odds of having that 2nd frostbolt not land are too high, and you additionally have the odds of your travel time to screw you on the first frostbolt. And since my example case *specifically* tries to deal with T-5 or less cases, I don't think AB is a good contender. The ramp-up time, in addition to having AB do 2.5, 2.5, 2.2, etc. is really going to kill it. The only alternative, if you want to consider AB, is to consider, literally, AB spamming since the *start* of 1%, and not really gun for the very very end of the boss HP. This in itself would require math to consider. I doubt the results will be favorable in any case.

And I must regretfully point out that time-to-die is woefully inadequate for handling specifically that case. The way the mod works is to record the times where the boss HP, in %, changed. Since it is the only information available. The mod then 'graphs'/extrapolates an estimate of how fast the boss will die, but all of this assumes a constant DPS. It totally fails a taking into account simple things like bloodlust, or execute range. The mod is somewhat accurate for 100-20% boss HP, but past that point its not much reliable. And even so, you can't either rely on the timings from the start of time to die (ie: 50% boss hp+) since those data points also ignore the same things (bloodlust/execute range). This means at 50% it might tell you that you have 3:30 left, but in practice you have 2:58 left. Too bad you used icy veins so soon.
#3790SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Pintofbrew
All this would be so much easier if we got a Conflagrate-like skill that blows any amount of ignite left and adds a tad on top... Are you listening, Blizzard? ARE YOU?
#3791SourcePosted on <=2.0.0Hate Monkey
Originally Posted by manly View Post
And I must regretfully point out that time-to-die is woefully inadequate for handling specifically that case. The way the mod works is to record the times where the boss HP, in %, changed. Since it is the only information available. The mod then 'graphs'/extrapolates an estimate of how fast the boss will die, but all of this assumes a constant DPS. It totally fails a taking into account simple things like bloodlust, or execute range. The mod is somewhat accurate for 100-20% boss HP, but past that point its not much reliable. And even so, you can't either rely on the timings from the start of time to die (ie: 50% boss hp+) since those data points also ignore the same things (bloodlust/execute range). This means at 50% it might tell you that you have 3:30 left, but in practice you have 2:58 left. Too bad you used icy veins so soon.
I don't know how many mages use that mod, but for the reasons it fails, the mod MobHealth succeeds. MobHealth will show a rough estimate, usually within about .25% of the actual health of a boss left, numerically and not percentage. When you pair the numbers from MobHealth, and the time left to Berserk on a boss mod, you get a good idea on how long you got left.
#3792SourcePosted on <=2.0.0 manly
But the way mobhealth works is roughly the same ! Here is how mobhealth works.

The only data you know about any given mob, as given per wow itself, is the boss hp%. Mobhealth remembers how much damage is dealt to one mob to go from a percentage to another (ie: how much damage was dealt for the mob to go from 100% to 80%) then it extrapolates the total HP. If the boss heals, the numbers will get messed up. Also, the mod stores a database of previously calculated total_hp, so the numbers are more accurate. So now here is my point.

The mod in its current format is not able to display any mob health % smaller than flat percentages. ie: you will not see 1.3%. The only thing you will see is either 4% or 3%, because thats the only value available from the client. If the mod supported to dynamically display mob health% taking into account currently dealt damage from combatlogs, then yes, that would indeed work and be surprizingly accurate, but the fact remains that in its current state, it does not.